The hardware in the Galaxy S26 is impressive, as always, but the real sell of this generation's flagships is a tangle of AI helpers.
Samsung Unpacked took over our brains this week. You all dutifully waited for the podcast to be posted later than normal so that we could accommodate the news push at the same time as everyone else. Thank you for trusting our process!
What did we see this week? The Galaxy S26 family of smartphones. It includes the ultimate package, the Galaxy S26 Ultra, and the regular Galaxy S26/S26+ for everyone else. Unfortunately, only the Ultra comes with the Privacy Display that everyone's talking about. For all its simplicity, it is truly the most innovative part of the new Galaxy series, though we hear the display is coming to more Android smartphones down the line.
I have the Galaxy S26 Ultra for review for Android Faithful and a pair of the Galaxy Buds 4. I'll be following up with my experience in the coming weeks. We'll also show off the new phone on next week's show.
Samsung's "ocean mode" in action.
For now, I want to briefly touch on the other news we didn't go into as deeply at the event. Did you notice that Samsung is offering not one, not two, but three different AI experiences on its next batch of flagship phones? Galaxy AI, Gemini, and Anthropic's Perplexity are now all part of the Samsung user experience, with the latter having the most "hook" into Galaxy hardware of the three. Perplexity's Sonar API powers Bixby's web answers and works within native apps like Samsung's Notes, Calendar, Gallery, Clock, and Reminders.
Frankly, it sounds like there are too many cooks in the kitchen. When you're in the Samsung Keyboard app using Now Nudge, Galaxy AI is working in the background within that app container to deliver actionable predictions. When you're asking for help and calling for an Uber in the background, that's Google Gemini working its multi-modal capabilities within the Android operating system. And when you're trying to figure out how to turn on Privacy Display on the Galaxy S26 Ultra, it's Perplexity navigating you to the settings panel where it's toggled on.
Samsung wants to be the institution that offers everything in its Android package—every possible type of agentic, let-me-do-it-for-you AI—but it comes across as messy and unfocused. On the Mr. Brightside, it means things are moving along, and all that's left to do is see how it starts to manifest among the userbase. I'll be paying special attention to my three little chatbot friends as I start the Galaxy S26 Ultra review.
Jason and I took care of everything this week! We show off the new Galaxy S26 smartphones, then talk about all the other Android news, and share some of your feedback. Jason also brought us a Moto Watch review. It looks so good on his wrist, though he wasn't too thrilled with its performance.
