Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2026: The Galaxy S26 Is Almost Here!

AI is about making your life more seamless. And like TM said, it's being integrated into our daily lives. Designed to work for everyone, everywhere. This is why Samsung introduced Galaxy AI two years ago, to bring you practical help every day when you need it most, through the one device that never leaves your side. How many of you have missed important notifications because they got lost in a flood of alerts? Wouldn't it be nice if you could cut through that clutter and filter out the important things? Galaxy AI can now understand notifications on your screen to help with just that. Let me show you. I start each morning by checking Now Brief. It gives me a personalized overview of my day. Here's a look at my brief. It includes the weather, my schedule, and even my energy level. And you'll notice it pulled this reservation here. Now, here's the amazing part. I completely forgot to put this in my calendar, but Galaxy AI remembered the confirmation in my notifications and automatically reminded me. When things get overwhelming, a gentle reminder like this allows me to just get on with my day. But Galaxy AI does more than organize your life. It can also do things on your behalf, like taking calls. Let's be honest, we don't answer every call. For those calls you can't get to or the ones you don't want to get to, Galaxy AI can give you a clear, simple summary of who called and what they wanted. This way, you can decide what needs your immediate attention and what can wait. And the best part, it all feels effortless, like you've got a personal assistant. We also wanted to make using your Galaxy device as easy as possible. The all-new Bixby is smarter and understands you better, so navigating your device is as simple as having a chat. If you need to change a setting or find a feature, all you have to do is ask, like, 'How do I charge another device with mine?' But we didn't just make Bixby smarter inside your phone. We added a brand new capability that goes beyond device control. Now, Bixby can bring you up-to-date information directly in the conversation, keeping you in your flow without having to open another app. But sometimes you need to go deeper. We've all been down that research rabbit hole. What started off as a quick search turns into multiple open tabs, comparing different sites, reading reviews, and jumping back and forth. Galaxy AI already helps you summarize, translate, and read highlights aloud. But now, starting with the Galaxy S26 series, the all-new Samsung browser is partnering with Perplexity. So you'll be able to research faster with Ask AI, a powerful AI tool to help you do more while browsing. Ask AI will take all the research across all your tabs, even your recent history, and combine it with the intelligence of conversational AI to help you answer all of your questions. But not every question requires a deep dive. Sometimes you just want to know what you're looking at. Circle to Search with Google has made searching more seamless for hundreds of millions of Galaxy users worldwide since we introduced it with Google at Unpacked two years ago. You can circle to look up items directly, translate text, and even identify a song playing in the background or on screen. It makes searching more contextual and immediate. And with the Galaxy S26 series, we're taking this a step further because we know it's not just the one item that catches your eye. It's the whole thing. So, starting today, you'll be able to Circle to Search multiple objects at once. So you can easily find the look. Just use Circle to Search to instantly find every piece from tops to footwear and everything in between all in one search. No need for all the back and forth. But of course, a lot of back and forth can also happen in chat rooms. And when this happens, we can easily get distracted. So we want to keep you in your flow. Now, Galaxy AI can assist you right inside the chat with gentle nudges, reducing steps. If you're texting with a friend and they ask for photos from last weekend, usually you have to dig through your album, scroll through hundreds of photos, find them, and then share. But now, Galaxy AI understands the context and does the work for you. Or if they ask if I'm free to catch up over some Korean barbecue next weekend. Again, normally I'd leave the chat, open my calendar, scroll to the date, and then come back to reply. But now, Nudge brings my calendar to me, understanding the context so I can check and respond in seconds. Galaxy AI helps you stay in your flow. And this is what we mean by AI is infrastructure. It moves the technology out of your way so you can move through your day. But to build experiences that feel this natural, you need a foundation that is secure by design. To explain how we bring this to life, please welcome our COO, Wonjun Choi.

Thank you. Innovation has always been at the core of Galaxy. Think back to the early days of smartphones. The hardware was a breakthrough in itself and it laid the foundation for a new era. Then the transformation accelerated when apps unlocked meaningful experiences. Today we are at the same inflection point with AI. AI today lives in moments inside apps, features, and workflows. But that's not enough. Mass adoption will happen when AI turns the things you already do every day into something you can do better, faster, and with less friction. So how do we achieve that? We believe it requires platform-level innovation that is personal, adaptive, and agentic. The first two pillars, personal and adaptive, are about understanding context. Your phone is your most personal device, and it has the potential to help you in ways no other device can. An AI phone needs to offer suggestions that feel truly personal and relevant, like how Now Brief recalls information or Now Nudge provides suggestions at the right moment. At the foundation of this is the Personal Data Engine, or the PDE. The PDE turns the scattered data on your device into meaningful data that AI can actually use. But we also know with this level of access, trust is everything. Galaxy AI is built with protection at its core. To deliver personalized experiences, Galaxy AI needs information. But we must ensure that only the right services get that access. That's why we built Knox Vault. It maintains a digital wall between your apps, ensuring your data is isolated, verified, and protected. But real security goes deeper than software. Samsung Knox Vault is physically built into the phone and isolated from the rest of the system. It protects your most sensitive information, such as your passwords, your security keys, and your biometrics. So even if the main software is attacked, the vault remains locked. For Galaxy AI features that use the cloud, the rule is simple: your data is processed to deliver an answer and then deleted. And because protection is most effective when you are in control, we put transparency and choice in your hands. This brings us to the third pillar, agentic. Turning understanding into action. Think about how we interact with our devices today. We have incredible apps for everything we do. But getting things done often requires a lot of manual steps. Our vision is to simplify the flow and to remove the barriers between intent and action. So you can simply say what you want and AI will understand your intent and help you get things done. To do this, we need to offer the most powerful agents available. We believe in working with the best agents available, building them onto our secure foundation so you can choose the AI that best fits your life. We work closely with Google to make Gemini the core of this agentic experience, providing seamless actions across apps. And we are also working together to expand these actions to more services and partners. But to make this happen, we must evolve from a traditional operating system to an intelligent operating system, where AI is integrated into every layer. And we are working closely with Android to make this a reality. To tell you more about how we are building this AI OS together, please welcome Samir, president of the Android ecosystem.

Hello. Thank you for coming in. Thanks, Wonjun. Hi, everyone. Samsung and Google have been partners for over a decade, always pushing the boundaries of what's possible with technology. Today, as Wonjun mentioned, we're looking towards the next chapter of Android and fundamentally evolving the platform. This means moving from an operating system to an intelligent system, a platform that truly understands and works for you. We've got some amazing things in the next release of Android, and I'm excited to share more about that in the coming months. But we didn't want to make you wait for everything. On the Galaxy S26 series, we're excited to share an early preview of Gemini's next evolution that lets you get more done across your phone. Inspired by the breakthroughs we've seen with Circle to Search. As Rachel mentioned, Circle to Search has completely changed how people interact with nearly 600 million Android devices. And now it brings the new ability to search multiple objects at once. Whether you're inspired by a celebrity's outfit or creator style in your feed, it's so easy to find a similar look yourself. With a simple gesture, you can break down the whole look. And with a few taps, you can try something on and check out. So, we got to thinking, how can we use these kinds of AI capabilities to help you accomplish even more on your phone? The industry calls it agentic AI. I just call it getting stuff done. Let me share an example. I'm finally leaving the office, keys in hand, when the family group chat starts exploding. It's pizza night. Suddenly, I'm being flooded with different texts: pepperoni here, no onions there. Somebody wants a specific drink. And now my son apparently needs garlic knots. Usually that's my cue to sit in the parking lot for 10 minutes toggling between different apps manually to build this complex order. But now I can simply ask Gemini to handle it. I asked Gemini to look in the chat thread, figure out what to order, and make it happen on one of my favorite delivery apps. And while I'm headed to the car for my commute, Gemini is hard at work. Because it's happening in the background, my phone is still mine to use. I can take a call or catch up on a podcast while Gemini navigates the app for me. It's built with user transparency and control. So, if I want to stay in the loop, I can watch Gemini work in real time, following along with every step it takes. And once my card is ready, I'll get an alert from Gemini to take another look. And if I'm happy with the order, press submit, and it's done. So, how does this work? Android is able to launch the app you need in a virtual window. And then Gemini uses its reasoning and multimodal capabilities to make a plan and navigate the app to get the task done just like you would. Turning your intention into action. Now, getting this right is pretty important. So, we're excited to make this early preview available on the S26 to get feedback from all of you and our developer community. This capability will initially be available on a limited set of apps with more to come. You can get your groceries, book a ride, or order a meal on apps like DoorDash and GrubHub. Give it a try and tell us what you think. In partnership with Samsung, we're defining a new era of mobile intelligence and Android is always where you see the future first. Thank you for having me here today. Back to you, Wonjun.

Thank you, Samir. Good job. We are incredibly excited about the future of mobile AI and how the ecosystem of devices that knows you best will transform into the companion that helps you most. To tell you about the engine that will drive this, please welcome back Rachel.

Thank you. The seamless intelligence that Wonjun and Samir just described demands a powerful foundation. So, we worked closely with industry-leading partners to customize APs for the Galaxy S26 series. On the Galaxy S26 Ultra, a 39% more powerful NPU enables faster on-device AI, from generative features to real-time context understanding. You'll see results quicker right when you need them. This level of responsiveness holds even when you're multitasking. A 19% faster CPU keeps on-device AI feeling instant while your apps launch quickly. So even when you move between multiple apps or browser tabs, you can pick up where you left off seamlessly. And for the gamers, the Galaxy S26 Ultra provides our most powerful gaming experience yet with Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy. The 24% improved GPU handles heavy visuals effortlessly, and through Vulkan optimization, everything you see stays fluid and sharp. We're continuing to expand the list of Vulkan-optimized titles to keep bringing this level of performance to even more games. With the 17% boost in ray tracing performance, you'll notice a significant difference in visually demanding moments like when the light hits the water and how the shadows move with you. This is console-level performance in your pocket. The Galaxy S26 Ultra also holds up during heavy spec games thanks to advanced thermal management. Introducing our largest vapor chamber ever. We're now on our sixth iteration, which provides improved performance with a redesigned internal structure. Combined with the newly added side, the device manages heat more efficiently. And that efficiency extends to the battery. We've optimized power consumption to give you all-day battery life with up to 31 hours of video playback. Then when you do need a quick boost to keep it going, Galaxy S26 Ultra delivers the fastest charging speeds we've ever offered, reaching up to 75% in as little as 30 minutes. So you can power up quicker and stay unplugged for longer. And when you're doing more for longer, whether it's gaming, streaming, or scrolling, the performance should pay off where you experience it the most: the display. Innovation has always been central to the Galaxy experience. On the Galaxy S26 series, our processor advances fundamentals beyond brightness and smoothness for a higher fidelity image. Our NPU powers enhanced image processing, so colors appear more subtle and natural with smoother gradients. The skies are more vibrant and the shadows are more deep. Combined with the AI-enhanced ProScaler, you get improved image scaling, so photos and videos appear richer and clearer at a glance. But a great display has to go beyond clarity. We wanted to add a whole new capability, one that redefines what display innovation can look like. Let's take a look. Brighter, more interactive, wider, flexible, and smoother screens. For years, we've pushed display innovation forward. But in our pursuit to provide the best viewing experience, we inevitably made it clearly visible to everyone. Privacy films can be a temporary solution, but there are trade-offs: dimmer screens, inconveniences when sharing. Wouldn't it be great if you could control your display based on when you want to share versus what you want to keep private? Introducing the world's first privacy display on mobile. Traditionally, displays are designed to be viewed from the widest angles possible. So, standard pixels spread light widely to meet your eyes from every angle. But a privacy display requires narrowing the light to only reach you. So, we engineered the black matrix. The black matrix narrows the path of the light emitted from each pixel, precisely controlling the light visible to you. This new architecture makes up the narrow pixel, which works alongside a newly widened standard pixel engineered to deliver sufficient light in every direction. When privacy display is on, narrow pixels work as the primary light source, so your screen is visible for your eyes only. When privacy mode is off, all the pixels work in tandem, so the screen is visible from every angle. The best part: the privacy display is customizable. Set it to activate for specific apps or for notifications that may pop up when you least expect them. Galaxy S26 Ultra keeps unexpected notifications automatically hidden for those moments. The power to control what you share with shoulder surfers is in your hands. The privacy display sets a new standard in display innovation. That's next-level display innovation. Privacy built into the display that gives you the choice to shape your mobile experience. And no solution should be one-size-fits-all. For your most sensitive moments, you can toggle on maximum privacy protection. The maximum privacy protection intensifies the privacy effect by adjusting the pixel contrast, bringing down the bright areas and lifting the darker ones so your screen looks far less readable from the side. But don't just take our word for it. For a very first hands-on, please welcome tech creator Miles Above Tech.

Thanks, Rachel. Hey everyone, I'm Miles and I run Miles Above Tech. I review all types of tech online and today I'm super excited to talk about the privacy display on the Galaxy S26 Ultra. It's seriously one of the coolest features I've seen on a phone in years. And here's Riley to help me show you how it works. Right now, I have the privacy display on. You can see my screen clearly, but you can't see it from the sides. See? But if I want, I could just go ahead and turn it off like this. Thank you, Riley. This way, I can keep whatever's on my screen private, but also share my screen with my friends. It's like a privacy film I can turn off and on whenever I want. It's a real game-changer. And because it's built into the display, it can even work for smaller elements on the screen, like having it turn on for specific notifications or areas of the screen. And then add the new chipset. It really just makes me super excited to review the camera on the Galaxy S26 Ultra as well. I've been reviewing Galaxy cameras for years over the course of their flagship updates. So, if you've seen my TikTok or YouTube, you know how impressive they are, especially with the insane zooms and night photography. And I'm so stoked for the next one that the cameras are getting now even better and smarter with AI. But for more on this, here's Mason.

Thank you, Miles. Galaxy cameras are built around the philosophy that photos and video should help you connect more naturally with the emotions of your moments. We believe that everything you capture becomes life's language. That's why Galaxy cameras are built to capture effortlessly, edit intelligently, and share seamlessly, end to end. Every shot on the Galaxy S26 series is social media ready thanks to our advanced ProVisual Engine and Galaxy AI. The front camera, now powered by an AI image signal processor, brings out more of the finer details, helping you capture the soft strands of hair and natural skin tones, so your selfies look true to life. And the wider aperture in the rear camera channels significantly more light to the sensor. You'll see sharper detail and clearer, more vibrant images. Whether you're shooting something far away or up close, sometimes when capturing beautiful moments, the sunlight overpowers the shot. When this happens, the Galaxy S26 series instantly balances it out for you, softening those shadows and adding subtle virtual light, like having a reflector right there with you. Now, where the Galaxy S26 series shines is when the sun goes down. We introduce Nightography video so you can hold onto that atmosphere even in low light. The advanced AP understands the unique characteristics of each camera sensor so grain is reduced even more effectively. Faces and details stay sharp while the background looks cleaner and more defined. Now, let's take a look at how the Galaxy S26 series brings those unforgettable nights to life.

Hi, my name is Mon'nique Ivonne. I'm a film director and I primarily showcase my work through social media. I usually film with a cinema camera, so this is my first time creating a project using a phone. And so at night is the perfect symbol of that vibrant feeling I was looking for. So that led me to putting the Nightography video to the test. Night scenes normally require a ton of lighting. But I was super impressed by the Galaxy S26 Ultra picking up clean and beautiful shots in extremely dark environments without any grain. This concept required a ton of facial expressions and emotions, and the camera picked it up even in the darkest light. This is the first time I've ever shot a short film on a phone, and it did not feel like a setback at all to me. This phone genuinely feels like having a cinema camera in your hand. I'm so excited to show a sneak peek of my film, and I hope you all enjoy. I love the shots. I think they're going to look so good.

Thank you, Mon'nique. I can't wait to see the final film. But lighting is only half the challenge. The other is motion. Life doesn't stand still. You want a camera that can capture the action without the shake. On the Galaxy S26 series, Super Steady with Horizontal Lock helps you capture what would otherwise fly by in steady footage, automatically maintaining a level horizon, so you don't have to constantly watch the frame. That's what makes Galaxy S26 series great for everyone. And for those creators who want a more professional workflow, Galaxy S26 Ultra unlocks advanced video recording with the APV codec. Now available for the first time ever. APV codec supports high bit rates and near-lossless quality. So you can record everything in up to 8K while retaining more detail through rounds of editing. You can also capture directly to external storage as you film. Shooting with Galaxy is like carrying a pocket-sized pro-grade camera. In fact, we're filming and live streaming this entire show using the Galaxy S26 Ultra. With log video capture, it's just the beginning. Built-in LUT presets let you apply a cinematic grade from your device so you can create your style right away. Then if you want deeper control, you can bring that footage into editing tools like DaVinci Resolve or LumaFusion. We believe the intelligence inside the camera should make every part of your day easier. That means an end-to-end experience from snapping to editing and sharing. Even when you're capturing information, Galaxy AI understands when you're trying to scan and helps you create a clean copy. It automatically smooths wrinkles and folded corners and even removes your finger. You can even easily combine the scans into one PDF. You just point, capture, and go. Galaxy AI takes care of the rest without having to download any separate apps. Galaxy AI can also help unlock your creative potential. We know you love using AI Eraser to remove distractions and tidy up your shots, but Photo Assist takes that capability a step further. It doesn't just let you remove what was there. It helps you add what should have been there. Like when you've captured an almost perfect photo just missing that one thing that would tie everything together, like your pet. You can simply merge them from another shot. Just describe how you want to combine the photos and watch Galaxy AI complete the moment. It's easy, intuitive, and all done on your Galaxy S26 series. Galaxy AI also makes prompt-based editing practical for everyday needs. Maybe you have a photo with a great smile and you want an outfit that fits the mood better. You can tell Galaxy AI what you want to adjust. And just like that, you can generate a whole new wardrobe. Or say your friend took a bite before you got a shot of the dessert. Galaxy AI can restore the missing piece so you can have your cake and eat it, too. But this isn't just about quick fixes. It's also about having fun. Galaxy AI lets you lean into your creative side by adding a completely unexpected twist. Because all this is part of the Galaxy AI experience, you can edit straight from your phone without downloading an app. And for transparency, we're tagging all AI-generated content so you always know what's been enhanced. The same goes for when you want to completely transform an image. I'm sure you've seen those animation photos generated by AI. Now you can produce that kind of work easily with Galaxy AI. Pick an option that speaks to you: watercolor painting, a retro anime, or even a 3D tune, and your photo transforms on the spot. Doesn't that look gallery-worthy? And when inspiration strikes, you can open Creative Studio and explore new ways to work with your photos, like generating stickers, one or a whole collection to drop into your socials or blog post. And it can even generate one-of-a-kind wallpapers, so every unlock feels personal. With the Galaxy S26 series, AI turns editing into something effortless, fun, and instantly share-worthy. The Galaxy S26 Ultra is powered by our custom AP, delivering robust performance, industry-leading pro-grade camera with the world's first privacy display on a mobile device. And across the Galaxy S26 series, Galaxy AI shows up in the moments that matter, bringing powerful photo editing tools and meaningful everyday help into the flow of your life. The Galaxy S26 Ultra comes in four colors starting at $1,299. And the S26 and S26 Plus will be available starting at $899 and $999 respectively. They will all be available starting March 11th with pre-orders beginning today. And you'll be able to choose all three models in two additional colors only available on samsung.com. Galaxy AI ensures your ecosystem works together effortlessly. But true intelligence shouldn't just make your life easier. It should make it feel more alive. It should flow seamlessly from the screen to the world around you. And nothing transforms a moment like immersive full-spectrum sound. Introducing the Galaxy Buds 4 series.

I love the new look. The Galaxy Buds 4 series features an iconic metal premium blade design. And this is more than a design refresh. This is an audio experience that delivers a full-range sound. The bass feels controlled. Every instrument stays clear and distinct. The rhythm locks in with tonal balance. This is how sound truly comes to life. And this is the kind of experience we're bringing to the Galaxy Buds 4 series. High-fidelity, full-range tuning that's accurate to the original recording. You get high-resolution playback where detail, texture, and dynamics come through exactly as intended. To deliver that level of fidelity on Galaxy Buds 4 Pro, we've upgraded the two-way speaker system to a new wider woofer. Now, bigger woofer usually means better sound, but space in an earbud is limited. So, we reworked the design to create more room where it matters. We've expanded the vibration area by almost 20%. The result is deeper, richer low frequencies from the woofer paired with refined, detailed highs from the tweeter. This is further enabled by a dual amplifier architecture. Each amplifier independently powers the wider woofer and the tweeter tuned for precise performance across their respective ranges. And when you pair that with ultra-high-quality audio, the sound comes to life even more. The Samsung Seamless Codec optimizes data transmission so your music stays clear and smooth, free from glitches or dropouts. But great audio isn't just what you hear. It's also how you sound. We've all had to take calls in noisy places like a busy street. With an advanced deep neural network that learns noise patterns, the Galaxy Buds 4 series can reduce a wide range of background noise more consistently. And with Super Wideband, it expands voice bandwidth so your voice comes through clearer and more naturally. Let's put this to the test. First, listen to a baseline call, then Super Clear Call. Hello, can you hear me? Sorry, I'm passing by a construction site right now. Hello, can you hear me? Sorry, I'm passing by a construction site right now. You hear the difference, right? You heard it. The city noise drops away and your voice stays clear. But great sound is also how it's tailored to you. With a customizable equalizer, you have the freedom to shape your sound, adjusting bass, treble, and tone to match the moment. The Galaxy Buds 4 series also adapts to you, so sound stays consistent and refined even as you move. When there's outside noise, the Galaxy Buds 4 series generates opposing sound waves to cancel out what you don't want to hear, creating a more immersive listening experience. And even when the fit changes, advanced algorithms monitor sound leakage in real time and automatically adjust noise reduction for the best isolation. We built Galaxy Buds 4 series to honor the recording, to deliver sound that's pure and precise and adapts perfectly to your ears. But to really understand this fidelity, let's hear from someone who spends more time in the studio than me.

Thanks, Suga. Now, a good sound experience only lasts if the wearer stays comfortable. We ran extensive wear simulations using hundreds of millions of ear data points from people around the world. The result

Thank you. At Samsung, we believe that pushing the boundaries of technology shouldn't mean compromising our planet. Meaningful innovation also has to be sustainable, and it's a commitment that we take seriously.

Over the years, our journey started with innovating recycled materials into our products and rethinking our packaging design. That effort has expanded to reducing standby energy from power adapters as well as achieving zero waste to landfill in our global facilities. And we achieved all our goals for 2025.

But we're not done. Looking ahead to 2030, we're pushing ourselves further, expanding our focus beyond our own operations to the environment and the communities around us.

First, let's start with materials. With the latest Galaxy S26 series, we've expanded our use of recycled materials, including recycled plastics, glass, cobalt, alongside the newly added tantalum. We're also incorporating recycled materials into every Galaxy product from mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and watches as well as every module of every device from the display and the camera to the battery.

But our responsibilities don't end with materials. They extend to how we use and return one of the planet's most vital resources, water. We're working to return more water to the environment than we consume while meeting the highest standards for responsible water management. In many places where we operate, the importance of water is deeply felt, reminding us that our responsibilities go beyond using it efficiently. So through local partnerships, we're now working to restore reservoirs in India and improve safe water access in Brazil by building wells across local communities.

And lastly, there's biodiversity. We understand that our operations impact the planet's ecosystem. We take that responsibility seriously. That's why we've set a clear goal to conserve ecosystems equal in size to our global operational footprint. By supporting restoration projects and partnering with local communities, we're turning our commitment into measurable action.

One clear example is our work to restore coral reefs. Since 2024, we've partnered with Sea Tree and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego to equip researchers and local partners with the Galaxy camera, supporting coral reef restoration. That includes ocean mode, a feature designed to capture true underwater color for high-quality images that researchers need to monitor and analyze reef health. But now we're bringing ocean mode to you through Expert RAW on the Galaxy S26 series, giving everyday users the tools to see and help protect these endangered ecosystems for generations to come. Because when you truly see the planet, you care about it and you want to protect it.

As we continue to advance this work, we remain focused on consistent progress. We want technology to make conservation more accessible, scalable, and inclusive, guided by our belief that innovation can help conserve the planet and inspire action. Now, we invite you to hear from our employees across the globe who are bringing our sustainability efforts to life. Their dedication reflects the steady progress we've made and the future we're working toward together. Thank you.

Our sustainability journey is built on the everyday efforts of people across the globe. Today, we want to share how we are turning those efforts into meaningful progress.

Step by step, we've expanded the use of recycled materials across our products, transforming ocean-bound plastics into key components while also developing technologies that enhance circularity and give new life to waste materials. We are always looking for ways to make our packaging with mindful design. This includes removing single-use plastics and simplifying the over-package structure. By looking closely at our everyday habits, we found new ways to cut standby energy in power adapters. And across our facilities worldwide, our teams came together to reach zero waste to landfill.

But progress isn't the end. There's always another step forward. The future asks for more. So to go further, we're sharing our 2030 goals. More than a promise, we're deepening our commitment to the environment surrounding us.

Water remains a precious and limited resource. And we believe our responsibility goes beyond efficiency. We aim to give back more water than we consume by working with local communities to restore reservoirs and improve agricultural water use. And we'll conserve ecosystems equal in size to the footprint of our global operations, safeguarding biodiversity that grows alongside our work.

We are also advancing circular design by incorporating recycled materials into new Galaxy smartphones, tablets, laptops, and watches. This approach guides how we develop our technology to create a new mobile experience. This is our pledge to make purposeful progress for people and for the planet.

Every day, people carry their Galaxy. They rely on it. They trust it. And now they're asking, 'What does this device say about me?' The answer is in the path we take. Designed for people with care for the world we all share. And no matter how small, every step makes a difference. This is our journey. Galaxy for the planet. The human side of tech built with purpose.

Welcome back to All Things Mobile and our coverage of the Samsung Unpacked event which just wrapped up a couple seconds ago. I'm Zac Doffman of PCMag.

And I'm Bridget Carey with CNET.

Later on, we'll be joined by Michelle Ehrheart of Lifehacker and Timothy Beckworth. Let's just break down what we saw. There was a ton of different things and I'm just going to go in the order Samsung did. Galaxy S26 Ultra was the biggest thing that they talked about. They did it up front because if you tuned out, didn't matter. Bridget, you saw the privacy display in action. It was real.

Yes, that was cool.

That technology allows you to essentially have a privacy filter on your device all the time because of the screen's technology. You can also censor parts of the screen. So, it's not all of the screen.

It was going pixel by pixel.

Yes.

You know, like it was able to be specific to like not just an app or a moment or when you toggle it, but like to the notification popup if that was whatever it was on the screen that you wanted to block.

Michelle, what did you think about the privacy display or the focus of the Galaxy S26 Ultra at the top?

You know, I think the privacy display was actually probably the most interesting thing that they showed. It was like the most concrete thing. It was a hardware feature that was exclusive to the phone. They actually did a really good job showing a use case for it where like you're in the elevator next to a co-worker. Maybe you're planning a birthday party or something and you don't want them to see the text or whatever. It was interesting to see it applied to a notification automatically. I didn't expect that. Obviously, that's kind of a specific scenario, but it's still helpful to like, you know, stop people from seeing your passwords or your lock screen things. I actually really like the privacy display. It was probably the highlight of the show for me.

I neglected to mention that Andrew Gebhart is here as well. I'm sorry, Andrew. He's a Chicago from PCMag. Hey, Andrew. What did you think? And again, I'm very sorry for not including you.

You included me now. And that just warms my heart. So thank you for doing that. I liked the privacy display. I think, like Michelle said, I think it was my favorite feature and it addressed one of the concerns that I had that I was talking about in the pre-show where like I like sharing the image of my phone and showing it to people and playing a video. And it makes it super easy to just toggle it on and off for when you do or don't want to share something. And then those app-by-app settings is a really neat idea to be like, okay, yeah, my bank app. I don't think there's any situation where I want somebody else to see that, so let's just put that on the privacy thing all the time, including their super private private mode, which I thought was also cool. So, it's a neat feature that it feels like is going to be well implemented from the get-go. My only disappointment is that it's only on the Ultra right now, so hopefully that proliferates a little bit over time.

Tim, what did you think of the Galaxy S26 Ultra in general or the privacy display or both?

Yeah, I'm excited for this one. I'm counting down the days till it arrives and I can start testing it out. I think the upgraded cameras look pretty impressive. Excited to try those out. I agree with Michelle and Andrew. I mean, privacy display is awesome. It's really cool to see like a genuinely new feature that's worth talking about, that's worth getting excited about. We don't always see that in these phone releases anymore. So, very excited about that. Yeah, I thought there was some pretty cool stuff on display, some less exciting things, but privacy display is definitely the headline.

You know, I think what's so interesting is we can all think about reasons why we want privacy display in everything. I mean, I'm thinking about how recently I was on a flight and I wanted to watch South Park, but I was like, 'Oh, is there any kids near me? I don't want anyone to see this.' So, there's so many times when you're commuting or something, not just banking or, you know, Samsung's kind of cheesy little like, 'Oh, no, don't tell someone about the birthday surprise,' but like there's legit times you just don't want anyone to look at your phone. And I can appreciate that.

You're going to say, 'What was said in between?' I mean, listen, what is this going to encourage potentially? I know you're all thinking it out there. Yes, we can see X-rated things, but I'm not doing that. But yes, if you're going to do that on the bus or the plane, I guess the privacy display is excellent for you. You can watch Game of Thrones. Let's just go with that because that's got a lot of violence.

HBO stuff.

There you go. It's got a lot of stuff that you don't necessarily want. I watched Smile 2 on the plane back from CES and that was a big mistake. I like horror movies. Not the best thing to watch, you know, surrounded by what could be children. Anything that could help with that, I'm all for.

Yeah, that is a real problem solver with this privacy display. This should be all on every screen in an airplane now that I think about it. But Samsung even broke down how that works. Like you said, Bridget, pixel by pixel, how this is just essentially they narrowed the pixel so you see what's going on and people next to you don't. They actually spent a lot of time on the tech.

And they did a live stage demo, which I'm always like, yes, give it to me live, I want a demo. So I appreciate that. You didn't really see a lot of times people had the phone in their hand on the stage but that was one moment where you got to see it. And Samsung seemed to be really going after the iPhone Max with its cinema quality label for the S26 Ultra. They were talking up a lot how great this camera is. The Galaxy S series has been stagnant on their cameras for a while. The S26 Ultra has new camera hardware for the first time in years. It's got a larger aperture, supposed to have better image stabilization that's almost gimbal-like. What do you think about this? Does it seem like people will be Apple people will look at a Samsung phone and go, 'Wait a minute, I can create with this device,' or they go, 'Ah, it's not orange'?

I have been seeing for the past couple of tech events even going back to Google's event there is a little bit of a focus on like, 'Hey, you can make a movie with this.' I think it was a little hammy when Google did it recently. But I looked at this event. I said, again, this is definitely them saying, 'Hey, it's not just Apple that can film live.' They kind of showed off like we're filming this event right now live. I appreciate that. That's another level up. So yeah, I think we're getting to the point where you can look at your phone as something that for professional filmmaking and you have to with these Ultra prices, you know, so they have to really justify why it's worth doing all this because otherwise, you know, they don't really talk about the S26 and S26 Plus at this event. It was all like, here's why you want the most expensive one, and we're going to really back that up.

Yeah, that's pretty much what we saw. There was basically a card about the S26 and S26 Plus. Timothy, what did you think about the decision from Samsung to not mention the other devices by the same amount? And what do you think about the price increases? Because the S26 is now starting at $899.99 and the S26 Plus is $1099.99. This is a $100 increase from the S25 series.

Yeah, I was surprised they didn't really warrant to mention at all. I definitely was taken back by that. The price increase is something we spotted right away. So, $100 increase on the S26 and S26 Plus, but really only the Plus as a true price increase. With the S26 base version, they've just eliminated the 128 GB low memory option, which we kind of recommend avoiding anyway. But with the S26 Plus, it is, you know, same specs, same storage, same everything, but $100 more expensive. So yeah, I mean, with all the pressure from tariffs, from the memory shortage, which is something we cover a lot at Mashable, it was inevitable. There was going to be something had to give, I'm sure, from Samsung's perspective. But at least the flagship isn't more expensive. That's something, right?

Yeah. I mean, it still starts, the Ultra still starts at $1299.99. There is a new variant of the Ultra that will have 16 gigabytes of RAM and up to a terabyte of space. Samsung has been stuck at 12 gigabytes for a while. Why does that matter? Because if you run a lot of apps on your device, you need the RAM for that. So the more RAM you have, the better. And also since Samsung backs their devices by seven years and they give you updates for seven years, nobody has ever said, 'I have too much RAM. I have too much storage.' So this is a step in the right direction, I think. But we also saw a tremendous amount of AI discussion. I believe at one point folks in the chat room had counted it was somewhere over 40 within like 15 minutes of the presentation. Andrew, it seems like Samsung wants to explain what AI is for everybody else because we've heard AI on everything. You can have it on a freaking mouse pad at this point making the term meaningless. What did you think of their presentation for the AI and explaining what it's supposed to be?

So AI was mentioned so often and I think it's just supposed to be everything. And the other issue is how many different AIs are in there. Whether it's the Galaxy AI, whether it's Perplexity, whether it's Gemini. And I think for the most part, the average user isn't going to care that much. Like they're not going to go in being like, 'Oh, thank goodness I have Perplexity to search the web today instead of Gemini.' Or, 'I really don't like that Perplexity. Let me switch back to Gemini.' Like they're not going to be that looking for optionality. So, I'm wondering who all of this is for. And some of those photo editing things, like manipulating your photos with AI to show something that wasn't really there is a neat trick that at least they're tagging it that it was made with AI, but it still gives me the old heebie-jeebies. So, the AI stuff I wasn't really that much of a fan of.

Andrew, I'm with you on that. It gave me the ick because it crossed a line. Like here I'm looking at this through the lens of an iPhone owner going, 'Okay great, what can I do with AI?' There's such a heavy defense of it to begin with, almost like when you look at an event like this and you see how Samsung decides to present this information by leading with this defense about, 'You can trust us, you can trust us and yes AI is going to be great,' it shows you people exactly like you said, they're not caring about this. They just want their phone to work. Okay. Thanks for spending all this time defending it. And then when we finally get to what AI can do on the photos, you saw on the screen just a moment ago an example of how, yeah, you can have image stabilization in a cool way. You know, thanks to smarts inside your phone. So, if you tilt your phone, it kind of keeps it straight. That's great. You can erase something. We've seen that before. Here's the whole tilting example again. But the fact that you could add in a photo what never was there, you start to walk that awful ick line of untrustworthiness. It's different than seeing some of the examples of cartoon giraffes in an airplane, which are things that you obviously know are not there. But when we change our outfits, when we add dogs that were never there and it's meant to try to look real, that's when we have these moments of society breakdown where we can't trust anything. I was telling you during the presentation like, okay they had to say that all those employees at the end of the environment segment were really employees because we don't trust anything and this is contributing to that. And that's my little rant here about like the weird part of convincing everyone you can trust AI and then showing you why you can't trust what you see with your own eyes.

Going to go around the whole... we're sure that we're not going to see giraffes flying next to planes. Sorry, I just wanted to make sure that giraffes flying next to plane. We're ruling that out. We do not know if giraffes will eventually be at plane height in the clouds. I just want to go quick around the world. If the AI presentation gave you the ick, Tim?

It did. I mean, yes and no. I'm trying to give AI a fair shot these days. I mean, it's really the kind of thing where it's like too big to fail at this point. Like so much has been invested that they have to just integrate into every aspect of the device. I thought some of the examples they gave of how it could be helpful were kind of weak. Like the garlic knots ordering example. Like, 'Oh man, I'm ordering garlic knots, but it's so difficult now AI can do it.' It's like, is that really something we need AI's help with? I've found it pretty easy to order pizza personally. So, I thought some of the...

My god, I was screaming during that event.

Let's put a pin in the pizza because I want to know what Michelle thinks.

I actually think the pizza's a good jumping off point because I was actually texting my own editor at that point and I'm just like, 'Oh boy, AI can save me like having to interact with my family and put together a fun little pizza order. Oh no, my son wants garlic knots. How horrible. I can just hand that to the AI.' Just like that could be a fun little family memory. Like a small one, but you know, things like that add up growing up. And the more tasks that you offload onto the AI, the less opportunities you get for that. I think a lot of the AI talk in this presentation kind of came across as somewhat defensive. Like they started off by saying, you know, AI isn't as exciting anymore because it's infrastructure. So they were like, you know, the reason you don't care about AI yet is because the AI is just that good. It struck me as a little bit odd. And then again, you know, I think it's right to say that AI has sort of become a little bit too big to fail from the production side but from the consumer side I still think it's a little difficult to come up with concrete use cases where people are like, 'Yes, I definitely want that new AI feature.' I still don't want to trust the AI to book a trip for me, you know, which is something they keep trying to pitch every couple of months, including in the new Gemini features in this presentation.

Yeah. So, on the pizza point, I just want to get this part clear because I have a family too and sometimes they will message me in different applications. So, I don't know which person said what and when. So, I have to figure out I got to go to WhatsApp, I got to go to Google Chat, I got to go to my text messages or whatever. So, if this can actually put it all together for me, that'd be wonderful.

If you... The example we saw was one Samsung messages, but I also want to talk about Google being on stage discussing operating systems. I know this is going to put people to sleep, but stay with me. I'm telling you this is cool. They were talking about how it's now going to be an intelligent system, not an operating system, but an AI-based system and we were talking about this during the presentation. The idea I'm thinking is the way we use phones was set for 20 years. We're using apps where...

Oh, they froze. Oh, good. Yeah, I was hoping that wasn't me. It just... I was watching your show. It was really great. Sorry we flaked out on you there somehow. I mean, internet's on the internet. So, you know, great talk. I was glued to the screen. But yeah, you're right. Like, basically have little computers in our pockets at this point. And what I was trying to say before was that the old operating systems that we had on mobile were basically taken from desktops. They got modified a lot. We had separate apps. We got used to this. We used multiple apps at one time. We had multitasking and now it becomes nobody uses their phone that way. And Samsung tried to show intent leading to action which I thought was kind of interesting. It's not about what you actually do. It's about what you want to happen. So many times I've been trying to take a reflection off of a picture of like let's say I take a picture of a phone and there's a terrible reflection on it. I can go into photo editing and write, 'Could you remove the reflection?' And it does. Now, it's possible that you could go through all the steps and remove that reflection with your own Photoshop knowledge, but it's what you want and what you get. So, if this stuff is built on the operating system level where it's allowed, this device can actually have the apps talk to each other because when Apple did their apps, they were really smart to sandbox everything. The idea was if you had an app, it couldn't affect the other one. You needed specific permissions theoretically making it if that app was really bad it wouldn't screw up anything else. But in the world now since we're using multiple apps to do any one thing potentially other than phone calls, it's almost like we have to rethink everything and the fact that Google and Samsung are ahead of this actually talking about it saying, 'Yeah, this is old, this is what's coming up new.' So even though all their AI talk, you guys saying it was defensive, I thought, hey, they're actually trying to explain what it's for. It's infrastructure. It's plumbing. You don't... Plumbing is not exciting until it breaks.

But there's one company doing the plumbing and here they're like, 'Ah, use Perplexity, Google, Bixby. It doesn't matter.' I guess it's a little bit of both. I mean, I don't know who to trust. And in the end, will this plumbing be slower than actually doing it the old way? Going back to the pizza. I ordered a pizza yesterday and I did the speaker phone thing and you could do speaker phone and call the place and read what people are saying in the chat. So yeah, I want to put it to the test. I want to see if some example like you had where you had a lot of apps and then if you just do it the old way what's really faster and then you'll get people really want...

Then we're going to need a privacy filter for, you know, I don't know, hearing people who are in the room with you yelling on their speaker phone about pizzas. Anyway, I think we have a lot more breakdowns on our sites. PCMag, CNET, Lifehacker, Mashable. We've gotten our hands on some of this stuff or some of our colleagues have and they've written up all kinds of impressions. You guys should check that out. I think we should wrap up around here. I want to thank everybody that's watched the show, everybody who's been on the show, including Aar and Patrick. Stephen has been running in the background. Timothy, Michelle, Bridget, Carly, everybody who's been putting this together. And again, you...

And Andrew.

And Andrew, I forget again. Oh gosh, I swear I'm not doing this on purpose. I consider him like a brother. So I don't know why I keep forgetting Andrew Gebhart.

He's just always there. Andrew Gebhart. Andrew Gebhart. I want to thank him a third time because I forgot. His stuff is also at pcmag.com. So thank you to everybody and we'll see you next time. This is the last...