Founded in 1938, Samsung is the largest chaebol in South Korea. The myriad of companies under its brand are some of the biggest in their respective industries, but Samsung Electronics is the most notable. It makes some of the most popular phones in use today, and its flagship portfolio includes the Galaxy S-series and foldable Z-series devices. It also makes televisions, tablets, computers, headphones, and many of the displays, chips, and batteries found in devices from Apple, Sony, and others.
The new Galaxy S26 series supports satellite-based messaging and data services — including emergency assistance — offered by Samsung’s telco partners in North America, parts of Europe, and Japan. “Select Galaxy smartphones” are also eligible for the wider coverage.
Like last year, the Galaxy S26 phones are “Qi2 Ready,” which means you’ll need a magnet case to use Qi2 accessories. Which is fine, I guess, since you were gonna get a case anyway. Fifty bucks seems a little steep, though.
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The Galaxy Unpacked keynote ended less than an hour ago, and with it the announcements of the Galaxy S26, S26 Plus, and S26 Ultra. We watched the whole thing, but you don’t have to. Got twelve minutes?
Why, it’s right here on The Verge dot com! Samsung’s event kicks off at 1PM ET / 10AM PT on February 25th. It’ll be streaming on YouTube, and we’ll have Allison Johnson, Sean Hollister, and Owen Grove live blogging from the event.
Specifically, head gestures like nodding or shaking to accept and decline calls, SammyGuru reports. The upcoming Galaxy Buds 4 and Buds 4 Pro will also reportedly let you operate your phone camera remotely by squeezing the earbud stems, and activate Find My Phone using the earbud charging case.
The “conversational” assistant was announced for phones last month, after a rollout on TVs, and is now available in the One UI 8.5 beta in the US and a few other countries. Expect to hear more about it, and its full release plans, at next week’s Unpacked.
[Samsung Newsroom]
Samsung is teasing “a new Galaxy camera experience” coming next week, saying that “the latest Galaxy AI experiences will bring advanced creative tools to one place.” A handful of teaser videos — along with those AI-generated ads — give me the impression that we’re going to see more AI tools crammed into the camera system. But maybe calling it “the brightest Galaxy camera system to date” confirms the rumors of brighter apertures, which could do a lot more for image quality than some AI editing tools.
You may not like it, but big phone and tiny keyboard is what peak performance looks like.
Android Headlines has shared renders of the Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 and Galaxy Buds 4 Pro expected to be announced at the next Samsung Unpacked event. The new design features metal strips on the stems to help distinguish them from Apple’s AirPods, and they both now lie horizontally in their charging cases which carry forward transparent lids.
Based on renders from Android Headlines, it doesn’t seem like Samsung will change things up too much with the Galaxy S26, S26 Plus, or S26 Ultra. Samsung is rumored to launch the phones at an Unpacked show on February 25th, though the company hasn’t actually announced an event yet.
It’s not officially official, but leaks from Evan Blass are pretty close.
That’s according to Seong Cho, head of marketing for mobile, during today’s quarterly earnings call. Discussing plans for 2026, he mentioned XR form factors including “next-generation AR glasses.” Samsung has been developing the glasses with Google as a follow-up to Galaxy XR, but this is the first we’ve heard of a release window.
The new “conversational” Bixby sounds similar to the one already rolled out on some Samsung TVs, bolstered by web search powered by Perplexity. It’s available in beta in One UI 8.5, which we’re expecting to launch alongside the Galaxy S26 series some time next month.
