Even though this year's Samsung 'Galaxy Unpacked' event has been utterly tarnished by a spate of high-profile leaks - which saw an unreleased Galaxy S26 Ultra fall into the hands of a tech YouTuber as reports emerge of a plethora of those unreleased units making their way to shady online stores - the show must go on.
As such, Samsung has just officially unveiled the base Galaxy S26, nearly copying the form factor of the base Galaxy S25, save for a slightly larger and brighter screen, a dedicated camera island, and a larger battery, all for $899.
Behold The Base Galaxy S26
Physical Features
Samsung's base Galaxy S26 sports a 6.3-inch (6.27" to be more specific) Dynamic AMOLED 2X screen, with a resolution of 1,080 x 2,340, a variable refresh rate of up to 120Hz, and peak brightness of 2,600 nits.
The display is protected by the Corning Gorilla Armor 2 glass, and is encapsulated within an overall frame that measures 149.6mm x 71.7mm x 7.2mm, which is around 3mm taller and 1mm wider than the base Galaxy S25.
Of course, the most visible design change for the base Galaxy S26 relates to its rear triple-camera setup, which is now housed within a dedicated camera island, dubbed the ambient island. Also, the base Galaxy S26 will not get the much-anticipated Privacy Display, which features Samsung's Flex Magic Pixel OLED technology and remains exclusive to the Ultra variant.
The device is now available in Cobalt Violet, White, Black, and Sky Blue options, as well as Samsung.com-exclusive Pink Gold and Silver Shadow options.
Internals
The base Galaxy S26 features either the Samsung Exynos 2600 or Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 as the SoC, depending on the region.
As a recap, the Exynos 2600 is Samsung's first SoC that leverages its 2nm GAA process, and sports a 10-core architecture:
- 1x C1-Ultra core running at 3.80GHz
- 3x C1-Pro cores running at 3.25GHz
- 6x C1-Pro cores running at 2.75GHz
- Samsung Xclipse 960 GPU (based on AMD’s RDNA 4 architecture) with ray-tracing support
- AI Engine with 32K Mac Neural Processing Unit (NPU) and a 113 percent performance boost
- LPDDR5X RAM support
The base Galaxy S26 sports a 12GB LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB of base storage. It also features Wi-Fi 7 (be), Bluetooth 5.4, UWB, a 5G modem, and support for satellite-based connectivity.
Do note that the base Galaxy S26 sports a 4,300mAh lithium-ion battery, with support for wireless charging at 25W, and wired charging at 45W.
The selfie camera sports a 12MP wide-angle sensor, replete with HDR support and capable of recording 4K videos at both 30 and 60fps. The rear triple-camera setup features:
- A 50MP main sensor
- A 10MP telephoto sensor
- A 12MP ultra-wide sensor
Software Features
The base Galaxy S26 sports the all-new OneUI 8.5, which is based on Android 16 and features a revamped Bixby, vibrant icons, and a 3D depth effect created through shadows and gradients.
Expert RAW app
- The app uses computational photography to create multi-frame RAW files, resulting in a higher dynamic range and more detailed images.
- You can adjust ISO, shutter speed, exposure, focus (with focus peaking), and white balance across all camera lenses, including the telephoto and the ultra-wide.
- It saves uncompressed image data in 16-bit linear DNG files that preserve a massive amount of detail.
Samsung is turning Galaxy AI into an orchestration layer of sorts within a multi-agent AI ecosystem:
- A revamped Bixby that understands natural language for complex device controls and supports real-time web search within its own interface.
- Google's Gemini with support for Gemini Live, Circle to Search, and Nano Banana image generation tool.
- Perplexity AI as the third agent of choice. To activate Perplexity on your Galaxy S26, simply say, "Hey Plex."
Here are all of the other AI features coming to the base Galaxy S26:
- AI-Powered Screenshot Analyzer.
- Automatic Call Screener - Galaxy AI identifies unknown numbers and suspected spam calls and answers them for you, while giving you live summaries of what they said on your screen.
- Privacy Alerts - The feature notifies users in real time when apps with administrative privileges try to cross boundaries.
- Now Nudge - Cross-app suggestions are now active. For instance, if a friend wants to see photos of your overseas trip, Galaxy AI automatically suggests photos from your gallery.
- Now Brief - This feature suggests timely reminders for various events, including reservations, travel changes, and more.
- Legacy features such as Private Album, Seamless actions across apps, ProScaler imaging, Audio Eraser, and Audio Trim are still supported.
Pricing & Availability
You can get the base Galaxy S26 (256GB) for $999. The price for the 512GB variant, however, is yet to be decided. Pre-orders are live now, with store-based deliveries available from March 11.
About the author: Writing is my one incontrovertible passion. Over the past six years, he has authored over 2,200 distinct articles on financial and tech-related topics, spanning nearly 1 million words. And he has been a member of Wcctech mobile team since 2025. As an alumnus of the University of Toronto, Rotman Commerce Program, I bring nuance, in-depth knowledge, and a unique perspective to every topic that I cover. When I'm not writing, I'm traveling the world, exploring hidden confectionaries and restaurants as an aspiring food connoisseur.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
