Samsung debuts Galaxy S26, S26+ and S26 Ultra with proactive AI and next-gen performance

Standing in the crowd at the Galaxy Unpacked on Wednesday in Lagos, it became clear that the conversation around smartphones has shifted. For years, the industry has been obsessed with what a phone can do if you ask it. With the debut of the Galaxy S26 series, Samsung is trying to change the question to what a phone can do before you even realise you need it.

The new lineup, consisting of the S26, the S26+, and the powerhouse S26 Ultra, marks a definitive move toward what the company calls “Proactive AI.” It is a subtle but massive change in philosophy: moving the technology into the background so the user can actually focus on the task at hand.

The hardware itself feels like a refined evolution of the Galaxy DNA, but the internal upgrades are where the real story lives. Samsung has packed these devices with its most advanced capabilities to date, focusing on a trinity of performance, an intuitive camera system, and a deeply integrated AI foundation.

Leading the charge is the Galaxy S26 Ultra, which serves as the canvas for Samsung’s most ambitious engineering yet. It is the slimmest Ultra model to date, yet it feels denser with technology. Much of that power comes from the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 Mobile Platform for Galaxy. 

This isn’t just a standard off-the-shelf chip; it is a customised processor tuned specifically for this hardware. During the presentation, the numbers were hard to ignore. We are looking at a 19 per cent jump in CPU performance and a 24 per cent boost in GPU power. For the average user, that means smoother gaming and faster app switching, but the real star is the NPU. With a 39 per cent improvement in neural processing, the phone can run complex AI features locally and constantly without the stuttering or heat issues that often plague high-end devices.

To keep all this horsepower running, Samsung introduced Super-Fast Charging 3.0. In a world where we are increasingly tethered to our devices, the ability to hit a 75 per cent charge in just 30 minutes is a practical necessity rather than a luxury. This is supported by an upgraded thermal management system that ensures the phone doesn’t throttle its own power when you’re pushing the processor during a long video edit or an intense gaming session.

The Samsung Galaxy S26 Series goes big on privacy

One of the most surprising reveals of the night was the introduction of the industry’s first built-in Privacy Display on the S26 Ultra. 

We’ve all seen those third-party plastic screen protectors that people stick on their phones to keep neighbours from peeking at their texts on a public bus. Samsung has essentially built that technology directly into the pixels of the screen. It is a breakthrough that allows the display to control how light is dispersed. When you’re looking at it head-on, the colours are vivid and the brightness is peak Samsung quality. But for anyone looking from an angle, the screen appears obscured.

The beauty of this system is its intelligence. It isn’t just an on or off switch. You can set the Privacy Display to kick in only when you’re doing something sensitive, like typing in a password or opening a banking app. There is even a Partial Screen Privacy mode that hides notification pop-ups while leaving the rest of the screen visible. It’s a hardware-level commitment to privacy that feels particularly relevant in an age where our phones hold every detail of our lives.

The camera system continues to be the Ultra’s calling card, but the focus this year is less on more megapixels and more on smarter pixels. 

The wider apertures across the lens array mean the sensors are physically catching more light. This pays off immediately in the Nightography Video mode, producing impressively clean footage in dim settings. 

For those who use their phones for more than just social media clips, the S26 Ultra is the first Galaxy to support APV. This professional-grade video codec is a big deal for creators; it allows for efficient compression without losing the visual data needed for high-end editing. When you combine that with the new Super Steady horizontal lock, which keeps the horizon level even if you’re jogging or on a bumpy trail, the phone starts to feel less like a mobile device and more like a dedicated cinema tool.

On the software side, the Photo Assist suite has been overhauled to feel more like a conversation. Instead of hunting through menus to fix a photo, you can simply tell the AI what you want. If you want to change a daytime photo to look like it was taken at dusk, you ask. If you have a spill on your shirt in a great portrait, the AI can actually change your outfit to fix the detail. 

It feels less like clinical editing and more like a creative collaboration. This extends to the new Creative Studio, a dedicated space where you can take a rough sketch or a text prompt and turn it into a finished piece of art, a sticker, or a wallpaper without jumping between different apps.

Efficiency also shows up in the more mundane tasks. The new Document Scanner is a godsend for anyone who still deals with paper. It uses AI to automatically remove distractions like fingers or creases and can even straighten out the distortion that happens when you take a photo of a page at an angle. It then organises these into a single PDF, making the process of digitising receipts or notes almost instantaneous.

Underpinning all of this is a sophisticated approach to security. Beyond the physical Privacy Display, Samsung is leaning into post-quantum cryptography to protect the phone’s firmware and system processes. They’ve also introduced Privacy Alerts that act as a watchdog, notifying you in real time if an app is trying to overreach its permissions and access your location or contacts.

The experience is rounded out by the new Galaxy Buds4 series, which act as an extension of the phone’s AI. With simple head gestures, you can manage calls or trigger AI agents like Bixby, Gemini, or Perplexity without ever touching the device. It creates a hands-free flow that makes the technology feel more like an environment than a tool.

Galaxy S26 Ultra, S26+ and S26 will be available for pre-order starting from February 25. The Galaxy S26 series features a unified design language across all models, with shared colour options including Cobalt Violet, White, Black and Sky Blue alongside the Samsung.com-exclusive Pink Gold and Silver Shadow.

For added peace of mind, Samsung Care+ offers comprehensive coverage optimised to users’ device needs, including fast repairs for accidental damage, extended warranty, and certified expert support available both at home and abroad. 

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