First look: It's that time of year again when Samsung unveils its latest Galaxy series handsets. In a few hours, the next Unpacked event will unveil the Galaxy S26 family along with the Galaxy Buds 4, and you can watch the whole thing right here at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm GMT.
Samsung is expected to reveal at least three phones in San Francisco today: the Galaxy S26, Galaxy S26+, and Galaxy S26 Ultra. It seems that reports the company dropped plans for a Galaxy S26 Edge (and likely any future Edge models) following weak S25 Edge sales may have been accurate – we'll find out for certain during the event.
As is always the case these days, the latest handsets are expected to offer iterative upgrades compared to their predecessors.
The base S26 model is rumored to pack a 6.3-inch screen – a 0.1-inch increase over the S25. The ultrawide camera could receive an upgraded 50MP sensor, and some leaks say the brightness has increased from 2,600 nits to 3,000 nits. The battery is also likely to be bigger: 4,300 mAh vs. 4,000 mAh.
Some reports suggest Samsung may drop 128GB and make 256GB the new base storage for the S26, which could mean a higher starting price. As for the design, the most notable small revision is an updated camera housing/bump style, according to renders.
The S26 Plus, meanwhile, is expected to keep its 6.7-inch QHD+ 120Hz display, though it may be brighter than its predecessor. Reports point to a 50MP main/10MP telephoto /12MP ultrawide camera setup, 12GB of RAM, and a 4,900 mAh battery.
Finally, there's the S26 Ultra. Samsung's 6.9-inch flagship could see its frame revert from titanium to aluminum. There's a 200MP/50MP/50MP/10MP camera setup, 5,000 mAh battery, and 12/16GB of RAM.
The S26 Ultra could have slightly raised cameras compared to the S25 Ultra. Reports say that to support Qi2 without a case, Samsung will remove the S Pen digitizer layer in the phone and use a new method for the stylus input. But the biggest change over its predecessor could be the confirmed built-in privacy shutter.
All three phones are expected to come with Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, though some could use Samsung's Exynos 2600 in certain regions.
It's expected that Samsung will also reveal the Galaxy Buds 4 and Buds 4 Pro. They're believed to have smaller cases and less angular stems than the Buds 3, and come with support for head gestures to accept and decline calls.
Samsung's teaser for the event focuses on, you guessed it, AI. The company will doubtlessly go into detail about the updated, Perplexity-integrated Bixby assistant. Expect to hear plenty about Galaxy AI in general, too.