Summary of Samsung S26 leaks: Is the first "king of phones" in the new year's biggest upgrade actually "anti-peeping"?

The just - passed 2025 was probably a tough year for Samsung.

Not only did the debut of the triple - fold phone receive a cold response, but the company was also deeply mired in the quagmire of rising memory prices throughout the third and fourth quarters.

The DS department, which produces memory chips, cutting off the supply to the MX department, which manufactures mobile phones, can be regarded as a classic plot in Korean dramas that is worth pondering.

Interestingly, just when Samsung's mobile phones were going through their toughest times, the stock price of the Samsung Group continued to improve during the 2025 - 2026 fiscal year:

Therefore, it's fair to say that Samsung had an easy win in 2026, but it had nothing to do with mobile phones and was entirely driven by flash memory.

The postponement of the release of the S26 series is the most obvious example. The Samsung S - series press conference, which used to be held in early February, has shown no signs so far.

Fortunately, there is still some news.

According to a tip received by foreign media GSMArena, the press conference for the new Samsung Galaxy S26 series will be held on February 25th, and the Chinese mainland press conference may be held in early March:

Image | GSMArena

Based on existing tips and industry trends, the main upgrade points of the S26 series are still the software - oriented Galaxy AI and more intelligent "software - hardware integration" improvements.

However, different from the S25 series, which only talked about AI, Samsung has really come up with several long - awaited major hardware updates this year.

Black technology: Active anti - peeping screen

If you've been following the information about the S26 series, you must have seen these two pictures:

Image | Weibo @iIceUniverse

This function demonstration picture, which has been "exported and then re - imported" repeatedly, comes from the well - known domestic Samsung tipster "iIceUniverse".

According to the introduction, this year's S26 Ultra is expected to be equipped with a function called Privacy Display.

When displaying sensitive information, the phone can add an effect similar to an anti - peeping film to the local display area, and no content will be displayed when viewed from a large angle.

A Samsung press release issued later that day confirmed the existence of this function.

Not only notifications, but also sensitive interfaces such as screen unlocking and password keyboards can activate this function, and it can be "applied only to part of the screen area":

Image | Samsung Newsroom

Judging from the existing tips and official demonstrations, the privacy screen on the S26 Ultra may be regarded as Samsung's biggest advancement in the field of screen technology in recent years.

In principle, Samsung demonstrated a technology called Flex Magic Pixel at MWC in 2024, which also has a large - angle anti - peeping function.

The example demonstrated at that time was its use in in - car infotainment systems. When viewed from the driver's seat, the screen turns black, which can prevent the driver from being distracted while driving:

Image | Samsung Display

What is used on the S26 Ultra is most likely an upgraded version of FMP.

By improving the accuracy of wide - angle and bundled light emission of sub - pixels, it has been upgraded from full - screen blackening to local blackening without affecting the original display quality of the phone screen.

Moreover, the new privacy screen will probably be supported by AI. The S26 Ultra will use the microphone, front - facing camera, etc. to detect the user's environment and intelligently determine whether to activate the mask.

This new function is fundamentally different from Huawei's "anti - peeping protection" function.

Compared with Huawei's pure software recognition + notification suspension, Samsung's solution requires the cooperation of screen hardware, and the advantage is that it has a wider range of applicable scenarios.

Image | Huawei

Unfortunately, according to the existing information, it seems that only the S26 Ultra is equipped with a screen that supports FMP and exclusively has the privacy screen function.

The S26+ and S26 may miss out on the new function, while the Z Fold8 in the second half of the year may be the second to adopt it.

Moreover, due to the need for special hardware, the S25 Ultra and earlier models will probably never have this function.

In any case, once this new "local screen hiding" function is developed, it can almost completely replace the anti - peeping film, which has a great impact on the viewing experience. We can't wait to see domestic manufacturers follow up.

Spec sheet: Surprises with 2nm

Although the anti - peeping screen may not be standard across the S26 series, we can still guess most of the other spec sheets.

According to information from the Geekbench database, the S26 series will, without accident, be equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor this year, most likely a special - tuned version for Galaxy in cooperation with Qualcomm, with a slightly higher base frequency.

The special thing is that Samsung plans to officially restart the dual - line strategy of Qualcomm + Exynos, and the Exynos will return to the S series:

Image | Samsung Semiconductor

Perhaps because the feedback on using the Exynos 2500 in the Z Flip7 last year was quite good, Samsung is expected to equip the Korean version of the S26 (SM - S942N) with the latest Exynos 2600 processor. It has not been determined for the S26+ and S26 Ultra.

As the first product under Samsung Semiconductor's 2nm GAA process, the performance of the Exynos 2600 is quite worth looking forward to.

Samsung officially said that "the Exynos 2600 is 39% faster than the 2500", and the leaked GB6 scores have even exceeded those of the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy used in last year's S25:

Image | GSMArena

After many years, the Exynos has finally reached a level where it can compete head - on with Qualcomm.

We hope that the Xclipse 960 GPU, which is rumored to be based on the AMD RDNA4 architecture, won't disappoint us.

Except for this, the peripheral configurations of the S26 series are not much different from those of the S25 series.

The entire series still starts with 12GB of memory, with a maximum of only 16GB, and there are still three options for the hard drive: 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB.

Image | Android Headlines

Currently, it is generally predicted that the S26 series will have a price increase of 500 - 700 yuan due to the rising memory prices. It seems that the DS and MX departments still can't work together.

In terms of energy, Samsung has also brought something new this time.

On the S26 Ultra, Samsung is expected to upgrade the long - unchanged 45W wired charging and support up to 60W of ultra - fast charging for the first time.

According to Samsung's naming convention, it should be called "Ultimate Ultra - Fast Charging 3.0", and the battery capacity remains at 5000 mAh.

Image | Android Authority

The bad news is that the news that Samsung would follow up on magnetic charging now seems to be mostly hopeless.

The reason is probably that it will conflict with the S - Pen sensor on the Ultra.

Although the S26 series supports up to 25W of Qi2 standard, it won't have built - in magnetism. The recently exposed official magnetic case is the evidence:

Image | Android Authority

It is generally said that Samsung originally planned to add magnetic function to the S26, but the actual test did not achieve the ideal effect and still interfered with the S - Pen, so it was finally cancelled, leaving only a bunch of official magnetic accessories:

Image | Sammobile

New appearance: Ultra becomes rounder again

The appearance of the S26 series this year is the least suspenseful because some promotional pictures and factory pictures were leaked online as early as last August and September.

Generally speaking, the design language of the S26 series can be summarized in one sentence: Fully learn from the Z Fold7.

No kidding, this was confirmed in the recently leaked official Samsung renderings. The independent lens design of the S25 series has been cancelled, and it has returned to the style with an island:

Image | 9to5Google

The good news is that Samsung still refuses to use the large - round - cake module. It is one of the few flagship phones on the market where your index finger won't touch the lens.

The bad news is that this means there are no obvious changes in the hard parameters of the cameras in the S26 series.

The S26 Ultra will most likely maintain a main camera of 1