- The Samsung Galaxy S26 series could be announced at the end of January and ship in mid-February.
- We also heard that only the Galaxy S26 Ultra could have a Snapdragon chipset
- Additionally, there could be slight improvements to the cameras and batteries on some models.
The rumored Samsung Galaxy S26 series release date seems to be getting closer and closer, as we first heard that these phones might not arrive until March, then a February 25 date was proposed, and now it looks like they could be unveiled in late January.
This is according to a report in Chosun (via Android Police), which claims to have learned from a Samsung insider that these phones will ship in mid-February, making an announcement in late January possible.
For reference, the Samsung Galaxy S25 series shipped about two weeks after it was announced, so assuming a similar gap here, a late January or very early February announcement would make sense for a mid-February launch.
That said, given that previous leaks suggested we might not see these phones until late February or even March, we’d still take it with a pinch of salt.
However, this is not the only information in Chosun’s report, as the publication also claims that only the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra will have a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, while the base model and Galaxy S26 Plus will use Samsung’s in-house Exynos 2600 chipset.
This isn’t too surprising news as Samsung often uses a combination of Exynos and Snapdragon chipsets, but it’s worth noting that this is a South Korean site, so it’s unclear if the same split would apply everywhere. We would speculate, for example, that the United States will probably continue to receive a Snapdragon chipset in all models, as is often the case with Samsung’s flagship releases.
In any case, normally the Exynos versions of Samsung phones are slightly less powerful, but that might not be the case this year, with reports suggesting that the Exynos 2600 could rival or even surpass the performance of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, so if you live somewhere that has Exynos chipsets in some of these phones, it may not be so bad.
New cameras and a larger battery
In today’s latest Samsung Galaxy S26 series news, we also hear details of the possible camera and battery specifications for the base and Plus models.
This comes from SmartPrix, which claims to have obtained the information through “detailed software analysis.”
According to the site, the Samsung Galaxy S26 and Galaxy S26 Plus will have new 50MP main sensors – that’s the same number of megapixels as their predecessors, so we’d look at a larger sensor for any major improvements in photography.
They are also said to have new 12MP telephoto cameras, compared to their 10MP predecessors, but will still have the same 12MP ultra-wide cameras as the Samsung Galaxy S25 and Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus.
For the battery, we may see a 4,300 mAh one in the Samsung Galaxy S26 and a 4,900 mAh one in the Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus. The latter would have the same capacity as the current model, but it would be a slight increase for the former, compared to the 4,000 mAh offered in the Galaxy S25.
As always, we’d take all of this with a pinch of salt, but this isn’t the first time we’ve heard that these phones could be equipped with 12MP telephoto cameras.
We should know all the confirmed specifications in early 2026, and if this new rumored release date is correct, then we will have all the official information even sooner than we expected.
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