Galaxy Unpacked: New phones, smarter buds and a screen that keeps your secrets
Samsung’s latest Galaxy Unpacked event brought three new smartphones, a redesigned pair of earbuds and a privacy screen that stops strangers from reading over your shoulder
The Mobile World Congress, the world's largest show for the mobile connectivity ecosystem, is around the corner, but Samsung did not wait.
On Wednesday, the South Korean tech giant staged its latest Galaxy Unpacked event, unveiling three new smartphones, a refreshed pair of earbuds and a handful of AI-powered features.
Here is everything worth knowing.
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The Galaxy S26 Ultra is the star of the show
The S26 Ultra is Samsung's flagship for 2026. It arrives with a 6.9-inch AMOLED display at QHD+ resolution with a 120Hz refresh rate. Under the hood sits Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset. The phone ships with either 12GB or 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage.
The camera hardware keeps the same megapixel counts as last year, but both the 200-megapixel wide lens and 50-megapixel telephoto have wider apertures for better low-light performance.
The 5,000 mAh battery supports Super Fast Charging 3.0 and can reach 75% in 30 minutes with a 60W charger. S-Pen support remains, however, Samsung has still not added Qi2 magnetic charging, which feels like a notable omission in comparison with the competitors.
The S26 Ultra starts at $1,299, unchanged from last year. The phone arrives in purple, blue, black, white, silver and rose gold colour options.
A screen that hides what you are reading
Perhaps the most talked-about feature at Unpacked was the S26 Ultra's Privacy Display. Samsung says it is the first of its kind on a smartphone. The technology prevents people nearby from reading the screen at acute angles, like a built-in privacy filter integrated directly into the display.
Users can configure it to activate when entering a password, receiving a notification or opening specific apps. A maximum privacy protection mode tones down bright areas and lifts dark parts of the screen. A slight dip in brightness is the trade-off, but for anyone who checks a banking app on a crowded train, that seems like a fair exchange.
The Galaxy S26 and S26+ follow the formula
Sitting alongside the Ultra are the Galaxy S26 and S26+. Both share the same Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip in North America, China and Japan. In other markets, Samsung is using its own Exynos 2600 processor. The base S26 gets a slightly larger 6.3-inch display and a bigger 4,300 mAh battery. The S26+ retains its 6.7-inch screen but gains a higher resolution.
The camera hardware carries over from the S25 series, but Samsung is leaning on software upgrades. A ProScaler image upscaling engine, a new MDNIe chip for improved colour precision and an Object Aware Engine for better skin tones all feature this year.
The catch is the price. Both phones cost $100 more than their predecessors. The S26 starts at $899 and the S26+ at $1,099. However, the base storage has been upgraded from 128GB to 256GB. Samsung has pointed to the ongoing RAM shortage as a factor.
Galaxy Buds get a proper redesign
While the S26 phones represent iterative upgrades, the Galaxy Buds 4 and Buds 4 Pro have received a more substantial overhaul. Samsung has ditched the angular stems in favour of a flatter, more refined shape. The indicator lights are gone too.
Samsung claims the new earbuds have smaller heads for a more secure fit. The Buds 4 keep the open-fit format, while the Buds 4 Pro use a canal-fit design. Both carry dust and water resistance ratings of IP54 or IP57.
Audio quality sees meaningful improvements. The Buds 4 Pro sport a new 11mm woofer that increases the effective speaker area by nearly 20%. They support 24-bit/96kHz audio and come with adaptive noise cancellation and a siren detection feature that lets ambient sound through for alarms or emergency warnings.
Pair either model with a Galaxy device and you gain hands-free voice control through Bixby, Google Gemini or Perplexity. The Buds 4 cost $180 and the Buds 4 Pro $250. Both are available in black and white, with an online-exclusive pink option for the Pro.
AI is the thread that ties it all together
Samsung confirmed that Perplexity would serve as an AI agent option within Galaxy AI on S26 devices. Users can summon it with the wake phrase "Hey Plex." Bixby has also been updated to feel more conversational.
Google also made waves at the event. A new agentic version of Gemini, currently in beta, will let users hand off multi-step tasks like booking a ride. Circle to Search can now recognise multiple objects at once. Gemini-powered scam detection for phone calls will also roll out to S26 devices.
