• The Galaxy S26 series could be announced in February
• We might then be able to buy the handsets in March
• There have been repeated rumors of a delayed launch

There’s another twist in the long-running saga of ‘when will Samsung actually launch the Galaxy S26 series?’ – and it now appears that the phones won’t be available to buy for some time after their grand unveiling.

According to veteran tipster @UniverseIce, the Galaxy S26 phones are set to be unveiled at a Galaxy Unpacked event in February, before going on sale in March. There are no more specifics given, so the gap between launch announcement and on-sale date could be as small as a day – or as big as 28 days.

That’s later in the year than the Galaxy S25 range, which debuted in January 2025, but we had been expecting a delay with the 2026 phones. It’s thought that part of the reason for the wait is that Samsung canceled the Galaxy S26 Edge model and decided to reinstate the Galaxy S26+ model.

There’s also been talk of some internal debate inside Samsung about what naming scheme to go with for these phones, with occasional mentions of a Pro model. Right now though, it looks as though the names will be just the same as this year.

Coming soon-ish

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about the Galaxy S26 launch date and availability date not being synced up – but the previous rumor suggested a January announcement before shipping in February, so it seems Samsung’s schedule has slipped since then.

Samsung is usually very good at making its phones available as soon as they’re announced, or shortly afterwards. For example, with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, there were a couple of weeks between the foldable phone being announced and it becoming available to buy (with preorders open in between).

The indications are that this is going to be a longer wait, perhaps reflecting the rather chaotic year that Samsung seems to have had when it comes to getting its products lined up – and deciding whether or not to release a successor to the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, which (like the iPhone Air) doesn’t seem to have been very popular.

As usual, it would seem that most of the major upgrades are going to be exclusive to the Ultra model when it comes to the Galaxy S26 series: we might be seeing a battery boost and a camera bump, plus the standard year-on-year performance increase.

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