Everything announced at Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event, including S26 smartphones, Privacy Screen and more

Source: TechCrunch

Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event in San Francisco on Wednesday saw the Korean tech giant unveil its new S26 series of Galaxy smartphones, a pair of new earbuds, and talk a lot about AI assistants and agents.

Here’s a quick recap of everything announced at the event.

Galaxy S26 smartphones

The South Korean tech giant has lined up three new smartphones for the year: Galaxy S26 Ultra, Galaxy S26 Plus, and Galaxy S26, all of which feature iterative updates compared to their predecessors.

• S26 Ultra – flagship with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor, 6.9‑inch QHD+ display, 5,000 mAh battery, 60 W fast charging (0 % → 75 % in 30 min), and S‑Pen support.

  • Camera: 200 MP wide lens (f/1.4) and 50 MP telephoto lens (f/2.9).

  

• S26 Plus – same processor, wireless charging at 20 W, slightly larger battery than the previous model.

• S26 – same processor, battery bump over last year’s phone.

Pricing:

• Galaxy S26 – $899 (‑$100 vs. last year)
• Galaxy S26 Plus – $1,099 (‑$100 vs. last year)
• Galaxy S26 Ultra – $1,200

In some regions the S26 and S26 Plus use Samsung’s Exynos 2600 processor instead of Snapdragon.

Privacy display is the marquee feature for Ultra

Samsung added a privacy‑screen layer to the S26 Ultra’s display that can hide parts of the screen—such as the notification area, password fields, or the entire screen—from onlookers. The privacy setting can be configured per app.

The “maximum privacy protection” mode further tones down bright areas and lifts dark parts of the screen.

Gemini’s agentic makeover and new “Circle to Search”

Google announced two features during the event:

• An agentic version of Gemini that can perform tasks on your behalf, such as hailing an Uber or placing a meal order on Grubhub after analyzing a group chat.
• An updated “Circle to Search” that uses multi‑object recognition to search for anything you highlight on the phone’s display.

AI features

Samsung partnered with Perplexity to pre‑load the AI company’s app on its smartphones and use its APIs for tasks like setting alarms, taking notes, and powering browser search. Samsung’s devices now ship with three AI assistants:

• Bixby
• Google Gemini
• Perplexity

Galaxy AI also screens calls and provides a summary of what the caller said.

Samsung Galaxy Buds4

Two new earphones were introduced:

• Galaxy Buds4 – flatter stem design, IP54 rating (dust and water resistance).
• Galaxy Buds4 Pro – IP57 rating, new 11 mm woofer that widens the speaker area by 20 %, and slightly longer battery life without the case.

Pricing:

• Buds4 – $179
• Buds4 Pro – $250