Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra 5G: Everything Revealed at Galaxy Unpacked 2026

Samsung's biggest smartphone launch of the year is here. The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra 5G was officially unveiled today, Wednesday, February 25, 2026, at Galaxy Unpacked in San Francisco. Here is the complete breakdown of everything confirmed and expected about the new flagship.

Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2026 — Live From San Francisco

The Galaxy S26 series was unveiled on February 25, 2026, live from San Francisco at 1 PM ET / 10 AM PT. Samsung confirmed the date on February 10, 2026, after months of anticipation. The event is also being streamed on Samsung's YouTube channel, Samsung.com, and the Samsung Newsroom.

The Galaxy S26 Ultra takes the spotlight as the flagship model. Alongside it, Samsung is rolling out the Galaxy S26 Plus and the standard Galaxy S26. Galaxy Buds 4 and Buds 4 Pro are also expected to debut at the event.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra 5G Key Specs at a Glance

Display, Design, and the Privacy Display Feature

The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra features a 6.9-inch Dynamic AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, 2,600 nits peak brightness, and Corning Gorilla Glass Armor protection. The most talked-about new display feature is something Samsung has never offered before on any smartphone.

The Galaxy S26 Ultra introduces a brand-new Privacy Display feature, confirmed by Samsung itself in a teaser video showing how it works. Early test builds of One UI 8.5 include a toggle called Privacy Display, built on Flex Magic Pixel technology — making it easily the most marketable new feature of the S26 Ultra.

Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 Powers the Galaxy S26 Ultra 5G

At the heart of the Galaxy S26 Ultra lies the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor — Qualcomm's most advanced chipset to date. Unlike other models in the Galaxy S26 lineup, which may feature Exynos chips in select regions, the Ultra exclusively uses Snapdragon globally, ensuring consistent high-speed performance across all markets.

A key hardware upgrade is the use of new LPDDR5X RAM clocked at 10.7 Gbps — a substantial speed jump from the 8.5 Gbps RAM in the S25 Ultra. A larger vapor chamber cooling system helps maintain peak performance during gaming and heavy multitasking.

Galaxy S26 Ultra 5G Camera System

The camera system includes a 200MP wide primary sensor with an f/1.4 aperture, a 50MP ultrawide, a 10MP 3x telephoto, and a 50MP periscope lens with 5x optical zoom and enhanced light intake compared to its predecessor.

Samsung confirmed it will unveil a new Galaxy camera experience designed to unify photo and video capturing, editing, and sharing into one intuitive system — bringing disparate AI capabilities together inside the camera application for a more seamless end-to-end experience.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra Price and Release Date

The base Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra starts at $1,299 for the 256GB configuration — unchanged from the S25 Ultra's launch price. The 512GB model is expected at $1,419 and the 1TB version at $1,659.

Pre-orders open the day after Galaxy Unpacked — Thursday, February 26 — with retail availability expected from March 11, 2026. Trade-in values of up to $900 are available for S24 Ultra and S25 Ultra owners, potentially bringing the out-of-pocket cost to around $500.

Galaxy AI, One UI 8.5, and Seven Years of Updates

One UI 8.5 on Android 16 debuts Circle to Search 2.0, Live Translate Pro, and Sketch to Image. Ultra-exclusive AI Pro tools include video b-roll generation. Samsung also confirmed seven years of OS updates, extending software support all the way to Android 23.

Samsung is bringing contextual awareness to Bixby, alongside Google Gemini integration and new Perplexity AI support — including the ability to invoke the Perplexity agent using a "Hey Plex" keyword. Samsung confirmed it is bringing agentic AI to its devices, giving users a choice of multiple AI agents on the same device.