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Commentary: Samsung needed to give us a reason to be excited about its latest flagship. It delivered.
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A hot phone can kill your battery quicker. Cooling it better will hopefully mean fewer abrupt shutdowns.
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Here's how the new Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra compares with its Apple rival, the iPhone 17 Pro Max.
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During its Unpacked event today, Samsung announced three new Galaxy S-series phones as well as the latest generation of its earbuds, the Galaxy Buds 4 and Galaxy Buds 4 Pro. Pre-orders are now open and the new devices are set to ship March 11. As expected, this year's models aren't drastically different from last year's, but all the phones are equipped to better handle the Galaxy AI experiences such as Now Nudge that offers suggestions based on your activities and a more conversational assitant in Bixby (or Gemini or Perplexity depending on your preferance).
Engadget's own Sam Rutherford is on-site in San Francisco for the new hardware launch and will have hands-on impressions. We'll follow that up with official reviews in the next week. But if you can't wait for our final verdict, here's how to pre-order Samsung's Galaxy S26 phones and the Galaxy Buds 4 today.
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 Samsung today announced its newest flagship smartphones, the Galaxy S26, S26 , and S26 Ultra. Samsung's latest devices are focused on AI, and Samsung says they have the most "intuitive, proactive, and adaptive Galaxy AI features" to date.
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 California-based accessory maker Sandmarc has launched a new Tetraprism 72mm Lens for iPhone that adds 3x optical magnification on top of the iPhone 17 Pro's built-in tetraprism telephoto camera.
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Commentary: This new Galaxy S26 feature gives me hope for this year's batch of AI integrations on smartphones.
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Samsung has officially unveiled the Galaxy S26, Galaxy S26 and Galaxy S26 Ultra, and the company is once again leaning heavily on AI, camera upgrades and refined hardware to move the lineup forward. While the overall design remains familiar, there are some meaningful differences between the three models, particularly when it comes to display tech, charging speeds and camera hardware.
Across the board, the S26 family is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy chip and runs Android 16 with One UI 8.5. Samsung is also doubling down on Galaxy AI features like Now Brief, Now Nudge and upgraded Circle to Search, positioning the new phones as more proactive assistants than before.
As usual, though, the Ultra model is where Samsung is pushing the envelope the furthest. It gains the most advanced camera system, faster wired and wireless charging and the company's new built-in Privac
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Starting with the Samsung Galaxy S26, Google's Gemini can automate tasks in popular mobile apps. We got a live demo of the new feature in action.
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 Tecno just unveiled a rather intriguing modular smartphone concept design at MWC 2026. The standout feature here is likely the size. Most modular smartphone concepts start bulky and only get bulkier once attaching accessories. Tecno's base smartphone is just 4.9mm thin, which is significantly thinner than a pencil and the iPhone Air.
Of course, the size increases with each attached module. However, snapping on the power bank module makes the thickness comparable to a standard modern smartphone. Another key feature here is how these various modular components stick together. Tecno has developed new interconnection technology that uses both magnets and pin connectors. This should make it easy to both attach and remove components.
The company says this phone has been designed to grow with the user through hardware expansion. To that end, Tecno has developed 10 modules. There are various camera lenses and something that looks like a dedicated gaming controller.
Tecno
While the magnets are for attaching, the pin connectors assist with power delivery. Data transmission between the phone and the modules is handled wirelessly, with the ability to switch between Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and mmWave depending on
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Samsung's high-end phone gets a subtle makeover, as well as some improvements to the camera, battery and display. Plus, lots of AI.
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I went hands-on with Samsung's newest base and plus model phones. The Galaxy S26 has a larger screen and a bigger battery, while the S26 Plus is a lot like the S25 Plus.
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 Mobile World Congress is right around the corner, but Samsung got out ahead of many rivals that will be showing off new handsets at that event by running the latest edition of Unpacked on Wednesday. The company took the opportunity to reveal the Galaxy S26 lineup, which includes the base S26, the S26 and the S26 Ultra. We've got some hands-on impressions of all three handsets as well.
In addition to those, Samsung announced the Galaxy Buds 4 along with (you guessed it) some AI updates. Here's a look at everything Samsung announced at the latest Unpacked:
Galaxy S26 and S26 Sam Rutherford for Engadget
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Whether you don't care about AI or just don't use the features, you can disable them completely on your Samsung phone.
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Apple's first touch-screen MacBook Pros will reportedly include the iPhone's Dynamic Island feature on their OLED screens.
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No surprise here. The Galaxy S26, S26 , and S26 Ultra really lean into AI features.
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Samsung's new phones all get AI enhancements, and the flagship Galaxy S26 Ultra has a Privacy Display that can block the screen from nosy neighbors.
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It happened during the grisly war story.
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 The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max will have a smaller Dynamic Island, according to Bloomberg. Over the past year, there have been mixed rumors about whether the ?iPhone 18? Pro models will continue to feature a ?Dynamic Island? or have a hole punch camera with under screen Face ID and no ?Dynamic Island?, but the latest information suggests we're not getting rid of the ?Dynamic Island? just yet.
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