8 Galaxy S26 rumors you need to know before Unpacked tomorrow

Tomorrow is one of the biggest days of the year for Samsung fans. On Wednesday, February 25, Samsung is holding its next big Galaxy Unpacked event, and it’s where we’ll see the Galaxy S26 series for the first time.

Thanks to no shortage of leaks and rumors, we’ve been talking about the Galaxy S26 series for months, and we know basically everything about the phones. But with so much information to keep track of, I don’t blame you for feeling lost.

Ahead of tomorrow’s big Unpacked event, here are the most important rumors, leaks, and other tidbits you need to know about the Galaxy S26 series.

Early on into Galaxy S26 rumors, it looked like Samsung was going to really shake up its Galaxy S family. The baseline Galaxy S26 was supposed to be replaced by a higher-end Galaxy S26 Pro, the awkward Galaxy S26 Plus would be retired in favor of the Galaxy S26 Edge, and the Galaxy S26 Ultra would remain as the highest-end version of the trio.

However, that’s no longer the case. Heading into Unpacked tomorrow, Samsung is all but guaranteed to announce a much more familiar-looking lineup of smartphones — consisting of the Galaxy S26, Galaxy S26 Plus, and Galaxy S26 Ultra.

It’ll be interesting to see if Samsung tries the Pro and Edge model strategy with next year’s Galaxy S27 series, but at least for this year, we aren’t expecting to see them tomorrow.

In addition to slightly tweaked designs (namely refreshed camera bumps), one of the most notable hardware changes for the Galaxy S26 series is a new color palette. That may seem like a small change, but after last year’s horribly drab color selection for the S25 family, the S26 appears to be taking a huge step in the right direction.

According to a reliable leak from earlier this month, the Galaxy S26 Ultra will be available in White, Sky Blue, Cobalt Violet, and Black. It’s not the most exciting color selection we’ve ever seen, but compared to the varying shades of gray we had for the Galaxy S25, it’s so much better.

If there’s one hallmark feature to get excited about with the Galaxy S26 lineup, it’s Samsung’s new Privacy Display. The feature has leaked repeatedly over the last few weeks, and Samsung has been teasing it as well.

Simply put, Privacy Display helps keep the content on your screen private from prying eyes. Once enabled, your display will look normal when viewed head-on, but if someone tries to view it from an angle, they’ll see a black screen instead. Samsung is achieving this through a new OLED panel and light-control technology, and it looks really impressive in action.

The biggest downside of Privacy Display is that it will be exclusive to the Galaxy S26 Ultra and won’t be available on the lower-end S26 or S26 Plus.

If there’s one change you can rely on each year with new Galaxy S phones, it’s that they’ll have new chipsets compared to their predecessors — and that’s no different for the Galaxy S26 series.

For folks who live in the United States, every Galaxy S26 model will likely be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset. However, in most other regions where the S26 series is sold, only the Galaxy S26 Ultra will feature that Snapdragon chip; the Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus will instead use the Exynos 2600.

We recently published a breakdown of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 vs. the Exynos 2600, and while there are big structural differences with the CPU and GPU designs, we may not see a substantial performance difference between the two chips. Samsung’s Exynos chips have a long history of trailing Qualcomm’s, but the Exynos 2600 looks really impressive (at least on paper).

We aren’t expecting new camera sensors for any of the three phones. Display resolution and refresh rates are likely unchanged; there won’t be any increase in RAM or charge speeds. We might see a slightly larger battery in the base Galaxy S26, though the S26 Plus and S26 Ultra will keep their batteries the same as last year’s models.

If you’re considering buying a Galaxy S26 and are currently using a much older model (such as a Galaxy S20 or S21), these minimal changes don’t really matter — you’ll still get a much better and vastly upgraded smartphone. But if you have a Galaxy S25 or S24 (or even the S23), don’t expect many drastic spec upgrades this year.

AI has been a big selling point for Samsung phones over the last couple of years, and that won’t change with the Galaxy S26 series. Samsung will talk a lot about AI at tomorrow’s Unpacked, and we already have an idea of what some of this year’s new AI features will be.

One AI feature Samsung has already begun teasing will let you turn your photos into digital stickers. For example, you could take a picture of your cat or dog and let Samsung’s AI generate an entire sticker pack from it. Samsung has also announced that Perplexity will be deeply integrated into the S26 series, including a new “Hey Plex” wake word and integration with Samsung apps like Samsung Notes and Samsung Calendar.

With every new smartphone launch, one of the biggest questions is “Will the new model be more expensive than last year?” For the Galaxy S26 series, the answer to that question might be “yes.”

We expect Samsung to ditch the 128GB configuration for the Galaxy S26 and instead make 256GB the new default storage amount. More base storage is obviously a good thing, but it also means the starting price will be higher — even compared to the 256GB Galaxy S25.

It’s worth noting a couple of things here. Price increases should always be taken with the biggest grain of salt compared to other leaks. Furthermore, a price hike in one country doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll see the same increase in another country. Still, there’s enough chatter about more expensive Galaxy S26 models that you should brace yourself for them — just in case.

The good news is that, like every year, you won’t have to pay full retail price for any Galaxy S26 model once pre-orders open following Unpacked. Samsung traditionally has very aggressive pre-order promotions for its new phones, and we’re expecting the same for the Galaxy S26 series.

Although specifics on all of the available offers won’t be announced until after Unpacked, we do know that Samsung will offer up to $900 in savings during pre-orders — likely via enhanced trade-in values. Samsung also has a precedent of offering free storage upgrades and gift cards/store credits in addition to trade-in discounts.

Plus, if you want to get a head start on the savings, you can reserve a $30 credit to use toward your Galaxy S26 purchase.