Despite weeks of early leaks and rumors of the new Samsung Galaxy S26 phones, this week's Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event still had plenty of interesting announcements and reveals. Here are 11 of the biggest items that caught our attention.
Galaxy S26 Ultra
One expected announcement was the reveal of the flagship Galaxy phone, the S26 Ultra. In fact, Samsung barely mentioned the other two phones that were also announced: the Galaxy S26 and Galaxy S26 Plus.
The Galaxy S26 Ultra is slightly lighter and thinner than the S25 Ultra, features the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor for Galaxy, has an aluminum frame instead of titanium, and incorporates new display technology, including Privacy Display. It also stays at the same $1,300 price tag as the S25, which was a genuine surprise. Preorders are open now, and the first shipments begin to arrive March 11.
The S26 Ultra became the hook on which almost everything else announced at the event hung, from AI features to camera technology.
CNET's Abrar Al-Heeti wrote about her first hands-on experience with the Galaxy S26 Ultra, and we'll follow up with full reviews of it and the other S26 phones as we have more time to test them out.
S26 Ultra Privacy Display
Phone display news typically centers on brightness and resolution, but Samsung Unpacked revealed a new technology that looks genuinely useful in everyday situations.
Snoopy coworkers? Privacy Display can thwart their nosy efforts.
"Look" is probably the wrong word, though, because the Privacy Display feature lets you hide sensitive information on your screen. It's like a sheet of privacy film that can be turned on or off and applied to specific apps and content.
When you turn on Privacy Display, people sneaking peeks at your phone from the sides will see just a darkened screen. Or you can choose to enable it when, for example, you're using your banking app or sending text messages. The technology isn't just a full-screen, all-on/all-off implementation: You can configure it so that only incoming notifications get the privacy treatment.
Narrow pixels focus light output to reduce the field of view.
This is all accomplished using a clever technology Samsung calls Black Matrix. Normally, display pixels are designed to cast light in the widest possible angle for better visibility. With the Black Matrix, some display pixels include physical rings that can narrow their light output and disrupt visibility from the sides.
CNET's Katie Collins thinks Privacy Display is the one feature that sets the S26 Ultra apart from every other phone right now, and Macy Meyer is looking forward to scrolling in peace away from "shoulder surfers."
Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus
The S26 phones most people will buy got only a few mentions, but a few things about them stand out, as CNET's Patrick Holland explains in his first-hand look.
Samsung Galaxy S26 and Galaxy S26 Plus
The Galaxy S26 has a larger screen than the S25 it replaces, which means it's also slightly taller and wider. However, it keeps the same 7.8mm thickness, which Holland says makes it feel slimmer overall. That design also includes a larger, 4,300-mAh battery, which is welcome news; the S26 Plus includes the same 4,900-mAh battery as its predecessor.
Not as welcome? Both phones are now $100 more expensive than the ones they replace, at $900 and $1,100 for the 256GB models. (The Galaxy S26 Ultra, however, keeps its $1,300 price tag.)
All New Samsung Browser, Including Perplexity
I know this comes as a shock, but AI featured heavily in Samsung's presentation. And while a lot of the language is still couched in the future-tense "you will be able to," Samsung did show off some practical applications of AI.
It introduced a new Samsung Browser that, at heart, is tied to AI vendor Perplexity. Using an Ask AI tool, the browser can research queries across all the browser tabs, and even your search history, to bring up the answers you're looking for.
Patrick Holland got more details about Samsung's and Perplexity's relationship.
Now Nudge
Another AI tool announced at the event is Now Nudge, a feature intended to feel like a low-key personal assistant but not one that tries to micromanage your life.
Now Nudge is envisioned as a less-intrusive personal assistant.
In the example Samsung gave, when a friend mentions photos you and they shared in a chat, Now Nudge could surface those photos so you have them ready to share, instead of digging through your photo library to find them.
Or, it can bring up calendar events related to a conversation: When a friend asks if you're free on a specific date to go out for dinner, Now Nudge can pop that day up without you leaving the chat app. According to Samsung, "it helps you stay in your flow."
It's certainly interesting to see at least a partial acknowledgment that not everyone wants AI to handle every task.
Galaxy Buds 4 Series
It wasn't all phones at the Galaxy Unpacked Event. Samsung introduced the Galaxy Buds 4 earbuds, showcasing a fresh look and numerous internal changes. The woofer design is wider, with 20% more vibration area for deeper, richer sound.
The Galaxy Buds 4 Pro come in four color options, including a new pink gold color.
CNET's David Carnoy, in his review, says the $250 Galaxy Buds 4 Pro offer excellent sound with upgraded drivers, updated noise cancelling and top-tier voice calling and transparency mode.
They're available for preorder on Feb. 26 and begin shipping March 11.
Smarter Circle to Search
Samsung and Google really, really want you to shop for clothing using AI, it seems. The Circle to Search feature, which lets you identify an item in a photo and get more information about it, has been updated to let you select multiple items within the circle.
Use Circle to Search to view all items of a person's outfit.
In Samsung's example, you can draw a circle around someone's entire outfit and it will identify all the pieces… shirt, jacket, pants, shoes and the like. Are clothing stores seeing an uptick in sales from features like this, or does it just make for a good demo? We'll have to see for ourselves.
Galaxy AI Photo Editing
Cameras are always a big part of new phone announcements, and although the camera hardware in the Galaxy S26 phones remains largely unchanged (the S26 Ultra has wider apertures to let in more light on its main and ultrawide cameras), the AI features continue to press ahead.
Tell Galaxy AI how you'd like to edit a photo.
One thing that stood out is the ability to use AI to edit photos by making voice requests or text prompts. This is what the company mentioned before the event when it teased a new "Galaxy camera experience" was coming. In one example, the presenter showed how a cupcake with a bite taken out could be repaired (with a not-so-subtle upbraiding of the unnamed friend who dared to chomp before a photo was taken).
The upside is that people who don't know how to edit photos or are intimidated by the various controls can ask for a result and let the generative AI engine create it for them.
Google showed off similar features when it introduced the Pixel 10 Pro last year.
See Andrew Lanxon's look at what's changed in the S26 camera systems.
Super Steady with Horizontal Lock
We've all done it: record video of a pet or family member (but I repeat myself), and while you're focused on watching them, your hand holding the phone is bouncing all over the place. Yes, you caught the moment, but the footage later is vertigo-inducing. Image stabilization on phones has come a long way from where it once was, but some motion just can't be leveled out.
Even at drastic angles, the footage turns out level with Horizontal Lock enabled.
Or can it? Samsung showed off Super Steady with Horizontal Lock, a long feature name that solves this very real problem. When Horizontal Lock is turned on, the phone automatically maintains a level horizon. It doesn't show it while you're recording, but once you play it back, the image is mostly rock solid -- even if you give the phone a complete 360-degree turn.
Gemini 3 Preview and Agentic AI
Google's Samat Sameer took the stage and talked about agentic AI. That was a major theme of the event and the current goal post for tech companies: a way for AI to thread together all your important information and act on it in smart ways. In this case, it's "an early preview of Gemini's next generation," as Sameer said, so take it with all of the skeptical considerations that are pre-baked into talking about AI at a tech event, especially one that isn't actually shown in a demo.
Google's Sameer Samat talks about Gemini 3.
That said, one piece stood out. He described a situation where his family had flooded their chats with requests for pizza for dinner while he was on his way out the door from work. Instead of parsing all the ingredient requests (and, well, interacting with his family), he hands the task off to Gemini 3, which synthesizes everyone's wishes and builds a to-go order in a delivery app such as Grubhub for him to review and submit.
Here's the interesting part: that all happens in the background. "Android is able to launch the app you need in a virtual window," he said, "and then Gemini 3 uses its reasoning and multimodal capabilities to make a plan and navigate the app to get the task done, just like you would." It sounds as if the work may still be accomplished on-device, versus sending all that information to the cloud, and it happens without locking him out of other things he's doing.
We'll see what Google announces later this year, but this peek is still interesting, even if it's just a sliver of information.
Ocean Mode
The cameras in the S26 phones also feature Ocean Mode, a feature in the Expert Raw settings that was originally developed for underwater researchers monitoring coral reefs. Ocean Mode corrects the color of underwater photos so the next time you go diving, you come back with pictures of the vibrant colors you saw instead of the monochromatic, distorted footage the camera normally picks up underwater.
Ocean Mode corrects color and distortion when taking photos and videos underwater.