It’s the second month of the year, and while we’ve seen a good assortment of TVs and robotic vacuums and other gear at CES, there’s been a category largely missing in action thus far: phones.
That’s not because AI has seen the price of parts rise (though that will definitely play a role). No, it’s because new phones typically arrive towards the end of February and into March, usually around the time when Mobile World Congress kicks off.
And as it has happened previously, so it happens again, with new phones on the cards for the end of the month.
We suspect Google will be the first, what with its mid-range Pixel 10a escaping the cover of darkness with a store preview earlier, but Samsung could have the first flagship for the year in the S26 range, now slated for a February 26 unveiling.
That appears to be the date for the first Galaxy Unpacked of 2026, and one that offers little in the way of hints from its teaser image, though there is a clear focus on AI.
While that will probably come as no surprise whatsoever, the image exploding out of the box in Samsung’s Unpacked teaser likely suggests AI improvements on the way for the next Galaxy range, with Samsung noting that it will the technology will be integrated from the moment you use it.
As to what that means, our hope is that it’s more than simply cutting friends out of images and making AI edit your copy, which is largely all AI features have been in phones to date. February 26 isn’t far away, however, so we won’t have long to find out.
