At first glance, the entire new Samsung Galaxy S26 line is incredibly uniform, which may not seem like a big deal, but it’s a change for the Galaxy line, as the Ultra is usually distinctly different from its sister Galaxy phones.
This new unified design is, in my opinion, the first major update to the S26 and counts as the first big reveal of today’s Samsung Galaxy Unpacked February 2026 event in San Francisco, California.
New unified look
For the Ultra, that design change means more rounded corners and the end of titanium cases. In fact, all three phones now use aluminum, although Samsung tells us that the S26 Ultra’s Armor Aluminum is stiffer than the aluminum found in the S26 and S26 Plus. The S26 Ultra is also thinner and lighter than ever (but with a taller camera array).
Not all updates are included in the three new phones. The cameras on the S26 and S26 Plus are virtually unchanged from the previous S25 models. That is not the case with the S26 Ultra.
Brighter cameras
From one perspective, the Galaxy S26 Ultra update leaves its numerous cameras unchanged:
- The main one is still 200MP wide
- The ultrawide is still 50MP
- The 3x telephoto lens is 10MP
- The 5x telephoto lens is 50MP
But two of the lenses it uses most frequently are, according to Samsung, significantly brighter; The 200MP lens is 47% brighter and the 50MP 5x lens is 37% brighter. How did Samsung do this? It reduced the apertures of both lenses (200MP from f1.7 to f1.4 and 50MP from f3.4 to f2.9), making them wider and able to draw in more available light. This could pay off in low light and night shots.
You might get better selfies across the entire S26 line. The 12MP front cameras on the S26 Ultra, S26 Plus and S26 now feature an 85-degree field of view (FoV).
Torsion video
The S26 Ultra also gets most of the major video upgrades, including the exciting new Super Steady upgrade that places a virtual gimbal inside the phone, allowing you to rotate it 360 degrees while keeping the action straight and fluid. This is a feature we are eager to try out.
The S26 Ultra will also offer 8K 30fps video capture capabilities and even advanced professional codec support, a feature that may not mean much to most users but could excite video professionals.
AI everywhere and perplexity
The already rich array of AI tools from previous Galaxy phones only grows with the S26 line.
First of all, there is the original trio:
- Samsung Galaxy AI
- bixby
- Google Gemini
But there are improvements across the board and, yes, even the addition of one more AI model: Perplexity, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
Google Gemini enables the first contact of the Samsung Galaxy S26 line with agent capabilities. For now, it will only let you ask Gemini to get you an Uber, handling the multi-step process in the background but still allowing you to jump in at any time (there’s a small Gemini window where you can see what it’s doing) to grab the proverbial wheel.
Samsung is updating the Now Brief feature it introduced last year to let you read notifications and add your details to your Briefs.
There’s also a Google Magic Cue-like feature called Now Nudge, which aims to provide contextual suggestions in Messaging based on information you can pull from your calendar and Gallery photos. Imagine being in a text conversation with your aunt. Now Nudge could show photos from a recent family birthday party to share.
Bixby will also receive an update. Samsung says it will still be the best assistant to use when you need help with your phone (or change a setting), but in the Galaxy S26 line, Bixby will also use Perplexity to answer questions of more general interest that don’t necessarily relate to the phone you’re holding in your hand.
Also, look for a smarter Search Circle that can now identify multiple objects in a single search.
The most private mobile screen ever created?
One of the biggest and most talked about updates is the new Privacy Screen. It’s only available on the Galaxy S26 Ultra, but it could be an engineering marvel.
Simply put, Privacy Display prevents prying eyes from seeing what’s on your screen. This is a hardware feature that literally ensures that people who are off-angle (left, right, up, down) from your screen can’t see what is still perfectly clear to you.
What’s more, it doesn’t have to be the entire screen. Privacy display works at the pixel level and can dim only part of the screen, for example Notifications. It can be configured to act only on specific applications, such as Messages or banking.
It’s probably the feature that people will be talking about long after the big Unpacked event is over.
More power, faster access
All three Galaxy S26 phones use the second-generation Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. Samsung claims that the CPU is fast in CPU, NPU and GPU operations.
To prevent that extra performance from overcooking the phone, Samsung also updated the S26 Ultra’s vapor chamber.
Finally, while we don’t yet know if any of the batteries are longer lasting (the S26 Ultra has the same 5,000 mAh battery, the S26 Plus has a 4,900 mAh battery, and the S26 4,300 mAh), Samsung promises that all phones will charge faster over wired and wireless connections.
The S26 Ultra now supports a 60W wired charger, which could deliver a 75% charge in 30 minutes.
The S26 now supports a 25W charger and the S26 Plus can run on a 45W one.
Wireless charging speeds are increasing year on year: the S26 Ultra supports a new 25W wireless charger, the S26 Plus supports 20W, and the S26 supports 15W.
What does all this mean?
While these are its major updates, there are plenty of other small ones (even the colors are new) and we have no idea what impact these features will have until we get our hands on the new Samsung Galaxy S26 lineup. That process should begin today.
What do you think? Are these new looks, materials, cameras and AI capabilities, and that new privacy screen enough to make you want to upgrade or even switch from the iPhone? Tell us in the comments below.
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