Samsung Just Made It Official: Galaxy S26 Launch Date Confirmed

The waiting game is over. After weeks of leaks, rumors, and what can only be described as Samsung’s worst-kept secret, the company has finally confirmed when we’ll see the Galaxy S26 series in the flesh.

Galaxy Unpacked is set for Wednesday, February 25 in San Francisco. The event starts at 1pm Eastern, 10am Pacific, and yes, it will be streamed live for those of us not lucky enough to be in the room.

Here’s the thing about Samsung’s announcement: it’s heavy on buzzwords and light on specifics. The official line talks about “Samsung’s newest Galaxy innovations” and promises “a new phase in the era of AI as intelligence becomes truly personal and adaptive.”

Notice what’s missing? The Galaxy S26 name. Samsung is doing that careful dance where everyone knows what’s coming, but the company won’t quite say it out loud yet. It’s marketing theater at this point, not genuine mystery.

They’re already taking reservations, though they won’t explicitly tell you what you’re reserving. Play along with this charade and you’ll get a $30 credit toward other Samsung products. Not exactly a groundbreaking incentive, but it’s something.

Based on everything that’s leaked over the past few months, and there’s been a lot, expect three phones: the Galaxy S26, Galaxy S26 Plus, and Galaxy S26 Ultra. That’s the standard formula Samsung has been running with for years now.

Those wilder variants people have been speculating about? The Galaxy S26 Pro or Galaxy S26 Edge? Don’t hold your breath. Nothing concrete suggests they’re happening, and Samsung doesn’t typically throw curveballs at its main flagship launch.

The Galaxy S26 series will obviously dominate the show, but there’s room for supporting players. The Galaxy Buds 4 and Galaxy Buds 4 Pro have been rumored long enough that a February reveal makes sense. Samsung tends to bundle its ecosystem products together at these events, and new earbuds would fit that pattern.

What you probably won’t see: new Galaxy Watch models. The timing doesn’t line up with Samsung’s usual release cadence for wearables. They save those for later in the year.

Samsung is putting AI front and center in its teaser materials, which tracks with where the entire smartphone industry has been heading. One UI 8.5 should be going stable around this timeframe, and you can bet Samsung will spend considerable time on stage talking about how its AI features are more personal, more adaptive, more whatever-adjective-tests-well-in-focus-groups.

Whether any of this translates to genuinely useful improvements or just flashier demos remains to be seen. The AI arms race among phone makers has produced some legitimately helpful features and a whole lot of solutions searching for problems.

How to Watch

Samsung will stream the event on its own website and YouTube. It’s 2026, so of course you can watch from home. We’ll have stream links available closer to February 25 if you want to tune in live.

The real question isn’t whether Samsung will put on a polished show. They always do. It’s whether the Galaxy S26 series will justify the hype that’s been building since last year, or if we’re looking at another round of incremental updates dressed up as revolutionary advances.