- The Samsung Galaxy S26 series may be announced in late January and ship in mid-February
- We also hear that only the Galaxy S26 Ultra may have a Snapdragon chipset
- In addition, there may be minor upgrades to cameras and batteries in some models
The rumored Samsung Galaxy S26 series launch date seems to be moving ever closer, as we first heard that these phones might not land until March, then a February 25th date was floated, and now it looks like they could be revealed as soon as late January.
This is according to a report in Chosun (via Android Police ), which claims to have learned from a Samsung insider that these phones will ship in mid-February, making a late-January announcement possible.
For reference, the Samsung Galaxy S25 series shipped about two weeks after it was announced, so assuming a similar gap here, a late January or very early February announcement would really make sense for a mid-February launch.
That said, while previous leaks suggested that we might not see these phones until late February or even March, we’d still take this with a grain of salt.
However, this is not the only information in Chosun’s report, as the publication also claims that only the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra will have a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, with the base model and Galaxy S26 Plus using Samsung’s in-house Exynos 2600 chipset instead.
This isn’t too surprising news, as Samsung often uses a mix of Exynos and Snapdragon chipsets, but it’s worth noting that this is a South Korean site, so it’s unclear if the same breakdown would apply everywhere. We’d speculate, for example, that the US will likely still get a Snapdragon chipset in all models, as is usually the case with Samsung flagship launches.
In any case, the Exynos versions of Samsung’s phones are typically a little less powerful, but that may not be the case this year, with reports suggesting that the Exynos 2600 could rival or even beat the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5’s performance, so if you live somewhere that gets Exynos chipsets in some of these phones, it might not be so bad.
New cameras and a bigger battery
In today’s latest Samsung Galaxy S26 series news, we’ve also heard details about the possible camera and battery specs for the base and Plus models.
This comes from SmartPrix, which claims to have obtained the information through “detailed software analysis”.
According to the site, the Samsung Galaxy S26 and Galaxy S26 Plus will both have new 50MP main sensors: that’s the same number of megapixels as their predecessors, so we’d be looking for a bigger sensor for any major photo improvements.
They are also said to have new 12MP telephoto cameras, up from their 10MP predecessors, but sticking with the same 12MP ultra-wide cameras as the Samsung Galaxy S25 and Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus.
For battery, we can see a 4,300 mAh in the Samsung Galaxy S26 and a 4,900 mAh in the Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus. The latter would have the same capacity as the current model, but it would be a slight boost for the former, up from the 4,000 mAh offered in the Galaxy S25.
As always, we’d take all of this with a grain of salt, but this isn’t the first time we’ve heard that these phones could be equipped with 12MP telephoto cameras.
We should find out all the confirmed specifications in early 2026, and if this new rumor about the release date is right, we will have all the official information even sooner than we expected.
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