Everything Samsung revealed at its Galaxy Unpacked event

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.

• Galaxy S26 Ultra – Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor, 6.9‑inch QHD+ display, 5,000 mAh battery, 0 % → 75 % charge in 30 minutes with a 60 W charger, supports the S‑Pen.
  
  Image credit: Samsung

  The Ultra retains the 200‑MP wide and 50‑MP telephoto lenses of its predecessor, but both now have larger apertures (f/1.4 for wide, f/2.9 for telephoto).

• Galaxy S26 Plus – Same Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor (or Exynos 2600 in some regions), wireless charging at 20 W.

• Galaxy S26 – Same processor, battery bump over last year’s model.

Pricing:

• Galaxy S26 – $899 ( $100 more than last year)
• Galaxy S26 Plus – $1,099 ( $100 more than last year)
• Galaxy S26 Ultra – $1,200

Privacy display is the marquee feature for Ultra

Besides the hardware upgrades, Samsung added a privacy‑screen feature to the S26 Ultra that can hide parts of the screen from onlookers. Users can choose to conceal the notification area, password fields, or the entire display, and the setting can be configured per app.

Image credit: Samsung

A “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 significant updates during the event:

1. Agentic Gemini – An AI version that can perform tasks on your behalf, such as hailing an Uber or placing a meal order on Grubhub after analyzing a group chat.
2. Circle to Search – A multi‑object recognition feature that lets you highlight anything on the screen to initiate a search.

AI features

Earlier this week Samsung announced a partnership with Perplexity, pre‑loading the AI company’s app on its smartphones and using its APIs for actions like setting alarms, taking notes, and powering browser search.

Samsung’s devices now ship with three AI assistants: Bixby, Google Gemini, and Perplexity. Galaxy AI also screens calls and provides summaries of what the caller said.

Samsung Galaxy Buds4

Samsung introduced two new earphones:

• Galaxy Buds4 – Flatter stem design, IP54 rating.
• Galaxy Buds4 Pro – Flatter stem, IP57 rating, new 11 mm woofer (20 % larger speaker area), slightly longer battery life without the case.

Pricing:

• Buds4 – $179
• Buds4 Pro – $250