Zusammenfassung der Gerüchte über das Samsung S26: Der erste "Smartphone-König" im neuen Jahr, aber ist die größte Verbesserung tatsächlich die "Anti-Späher"-Funktion?
The past year 2025 was presumably a rather difficult time for Samsung.
The debut of the triple-foldable smartphone met with a cold reception, and the company found itself in the middle of a crisis of rising storage media prices in the last two quarters -
The fact that the DS department, which manufactures storage chips, and the MX department, which produces smartphones, are having supply issues is like a classic script from a Korean series.
Interestingly, the stock price of the Samsung Group continued to rise during the fiscal year 2025 - 2026, even though Samsung smartphones had just gone through their toughest time:
So, one can say that Samsung will make profits in 2026 without much effort - but not thanks to smartphones, but thanks to flash storage.
The postponement of the release of the S26 series is a direct example: The annual Samsung S series press conference, which usually takes place in early February, has given no news so far.
Fortunately, there are still some new developments.
According to a report obtained by the foreign media platform GSMArena, the Samsung Galaxy S26 series press conference will be held on February 25th, while the Chinese version may be released in early March:
Image | GSMArena
Judging from the previous reports and the industry development, the focus of the improvements in the S26 series still lies on the software side, especially Galaxy AI, as well as advanced "software - hardware integrations".
In contrast to the S25 series, which mainly talked about AI, Samsung has presented some long - unseen hardware upgrades this year.
High - Tech: Active Privacy Screen
If you have already dealt with information about the S26 series, you have surely seen these two pictures:
Image | Weibo @iIceUniverse
This function demonstration picture, which was "exported and then imported again" multiple times, comes from the well - known Chinese Samsung insider "iIceUniverse".
According to information, the S26 Ultra this year will receive a function called "Privacy Display" -
The smartphone can apply a similar effect to a privacy film on local display areas when displaying sensitive information, so that no content is visible from wide angles.
A Samsung press release published later on the same day confirmed the existence of this function.
Not only notifications, but also screen unlocking, password keyboard and other sensitive interfaces can activate this function, and it can "only be applied to specific screen areas":
Image | Samsung Newsroom
Judging from the previous reports and the official demonstration, the Privacy Display on the S26 Ultra could be Samsung's greatest progress in screen technology in recent years.
In principle, Samsung showed a technology called Flex Magic Pixel at MWC 2024, which also offers a wide - angle privacy function.
The example shown at that time was its use in a vehicle infotainment system, where the image turns black from the driver's perspective to protect the driver from distractions while driving:
Image | Samsung Display
It is very likely that the S26 Ultra uses an improved version of the FMP.
By improving the accuracy of wide - angle and bundled transmission of sub - pixels, a transition from full - screen blackening to local blackening is possible without affecting the original display quality of the smartphone screen.
In addition, the new Privacy Display will probably be AI - supported. The S26 Ultra will use the microphone, front - facing camera, etc. to detect the user's environment and intelligently decide whether to activate the cover.
This new function differs significantly from Huawei's "Privacy - Protection" function.
Compared with Huawei's pure software recognition + notification stop, Samsung's concept requires the cooperation of screen hardware, which has the advantage that it can be used in more application scenarios.
Image | Huawei
Unfortunately, according to the current information, only the S26 Ultra has an FMP - supported screen and exclusively uses the Privacy Display function.
The S26+ and the S26 may not have a chance to get the new function, but the Z Fold8 in the second half of the year could be the second model to receive this function.
And since special hardware is required, the S25 Ultra and earlier models probably have no chance anymore.
Anyway, if this new "local screen hiding" function is realized, the very visually disturbing privacy film could be almost completely displaced, and we can hardly wait for Chinese manufacturers to catch up with this function.
Technical Data: Surprises at 2nm
Although the Privacy Display may not be included as standard in the entire S26 series, we can roughly guess the remaining technical data.
According to information from the Geekbench database, the S26 series will, as expected, be equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor this year, probably a specially adapted version for Galaxy in cooperation with Qualcomm, with a slightly higher base frequency.
The special thing is that Samsung intends to officially resume the dual strategy of Qualcomm + Exynos, and Exynos will return to the S series -
Image | Samsung Semiconductor
Maybe the feedback on the use of the Exynos 2500 in the Z Flip7 last year was quite good. Samsung plans to install the latest Exynos 2600 processor in the Korean version of the S26 (SM - S942N). It is not yet determined for the S26+ and the S26 Ultra.
As the first product under Samsung Semiconductor's 2nm - GAA technology, the performance of the Exynos 2600 is highly anticipated.
According to Samsung's official statement, the "Exynos 2600 is 39% faster than the 2500", and the leaked GB6 benchmark results have even surpassed the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy used in the S25 last year:
Image | GSMArena
After many years, Exynos has finally reached the level to compete with Qualcomm on an equal footing.
We hope that the legendary Xclipse 960 GPU, based on the AMD RDNA4 architecture, will not disappoint us.
Otherwise, the peripheral components of the S26 series do not differ much from those of the S25 series -
The entire series still starts with 12 GB of RAM and goes up to a maximum of 16 GB, and there are still three options for internal storage: 256, 512 and 1 TB.
Image | Android Headlines
Currently, it is generally predicted that the S26 series will be 500 - 700 Yuan more expensive due to the rising storage media prices. Apparently, the DS and MX departments cannot cooperate.
Regarding energy, Samsung has also brought something new this time.
On the S26 Ultra, Samsung may improve the long - unchanged 45 - W cable charging and support a maximum fast charging of 60 W for the first time -
According to Samsung's nomenclature, it should be called "Ultimate Super Fast Charging 3.0", and the battery capacity remains unchanged at 5000 mAh.
Image | Android Authority
The bad news is that the earlier rumors that Samsung would introduce magnetic charging probably do not hold true.
The reason is presumably that it would collide with the sensors of the S - Pen on the Ultra.
Although the S26 series supports the Qi2 standard with a maximum power of 25 W, no integrated magnetic function is used, as the recently released official magnetic case proves:
Image | Android Authority
Generally speaking, Samsung originally planned to incorporate the magnetic function into the S26, but the practical tests did not yield the desired result and disturbed the S - Pen, so the function was finally cancelled, and only some official magnetic accessories remain:
