The Galaxy S26 is a photography nightmare

The Vergecast

Vox Media Podcast Network

News, Tech News, Technology

4.3 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 27 February 2026

⏱️ 96 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Samsung just launched its newest phones, the Galaxy S26 lineup, and wow is it full of Vergecast stories. There’s the very cool new Privacy Display, which seems genuinely useful; there’s the AI-powered camera, which seems like a disaster waiting to happen; and there’s the new agentic AI in Android, which Google and Samsung might be positioned to actually pull off. After talking through all the new stuff, Nilay and David discuss the recent executive shakeup at Xbox, and try to figure out why Microsoft just can’t win in games. Finally, in the lightning round, it’s time for Brendan Carr is a dummy, some truly remarkable charts, and much more. Further reading: ⁠Samsung Unpacked 2026: live updates from the Galaxy S26 ⁠⁠announcement event ⁠ ⁠Samsung Galaxy S26 and Galaxy S26 Plus hands-on: More of the same ⁠ ⁠Samsung AI photos⁠ ⁠Google Gemini can book an Uber or order food for you with new agentic AI features ⁠⁠Google and Samsung just launched the AI features Apple couldn’t with Siri⁠ ⁠I’m super impressed with the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s new Privacy Display ⁠ ⁠Samsung announces Galaxy Buds 4 and Buds 4 Pro at Unpacked 2026⁠ ⁠Xbox shakeup: Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond are leaving Microsoft ⁠ ⁠Xbox chief Phil Spencer is leaving Microsoft ⁠ ⁠Read Xbox chief Phil Spencer’s memo about leaving Microsoft ⁠ ⁠Sarah Bond is leaving Xbox ⁠ ⁠Read Xbox president Sarah Bond’s memo about leaving Microsoft. ⁠ ⁠Inside Microsoft’s big Xbox leadership shake-up ⁠ ⁠Read Microsoft gaming CEO Asha Sharma’s first memo on the future of Xbox ⁠ ⁠New Microsoft gaming CEO Asha Sharma says “hear you” to complaints about a lack of Xbox exclusives.⁠ ⁠New Xbox CEO: ‘The plan’s the plan until it’s not the plan.’ ⁠ ⁠Microsoft says today’s Xbox shake-up doesn’t mean game studio layoffs ⁠ ⁠Billions of dollars later and still nobody knows what an Xbox is ⁠ ⁠Chairman Carr Announces Pledge America Campaign⁠ ⁠Does Anthropic think Claude is alive? Define ‘alive’⁠ ⁠Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas AI Scenarios chart⁠ ⁠Youtube Chair Drama⁠ ⁠OpenAI’s Stargate struggles. ⁠ ⁠OpenAI’s first ChatGPT gadget could be a smart speaker with a camera ⁠ ⁠Subscribe to The Verge⁠ for unlimited access to ⁠theverge.com⁠, subscriber-exclusive newsletters, and our ⁠ad-free podcast feed⁠.We love hearing from you! Email your questions and thoughts to ⁠vergecast@theverge.com⁠ or call us at 866-VERGE11. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for the show comes from L'Oreal Group, the global beauty leader, defining the future of beauty through science and technology.
0:08.7	L'Oreal Group, create the beauty that moves the world.
0:16.1	Welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast of adding the cupcake in post.
0:20.6	But they're different cupcakes, David.
0:23.3	We can't do this now, Eli.
0:25.6	We can't do this yet.
0:27.2	I'm your friend David Pierce.
0:28.2	Neil I've got to tell us here.
0:29.5	Hello, sir.
0:29.9	The disclaimer on Samsung's cupcake video for the Galaxy S-26 literally says not all the features of the AI phone are AI- based. And then right below it, it says AI stands for artificial intelligence.
0:42.3	AI is nothing and it's everything. And it is whatever you want it to be. It is one of the better disclaimers I've ever seen.
0:51.0	It's nuts. So a lot of news this week, we have been promising its gadget season again, and it is in fact gadget season again. We're recording this on Wednesday afternoon. The big Samsung unpacked event just happened. We have a lot of new phones to talk about. We have new headphones to talk about. We have just an unbelievable disaster of a what is a photo conversation to have. There's also the sort of Xbox news has been happening over the last several days. We've got a bunch of stuff there to catch up on. A lot of gaming things going on. We've got Brendan Carr is a dummy because he just continues to... Brandon would like to use the power of the state to make us begin the verge of hast by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
1:29.6	And I kind of want to take him up on.
1:33.2	Damn it. Anyway, lots of news to get to, but let's start with Samsung, because I think this is, in many ways, like, the first big phone of the year.
1:43.0	And kind of an interesting one in a bunch of cases.
1:47.3	So let me just quickly lay out the news and then we can get into all of the ways in which
1:51.3	this is a deeply bizarre thing. So there's three new phones, Samsung Galaxy S-26, 26 plus,
1:58.6	and 26 Ultra. There are new Galaxy Buds 4 and Buds 4 Pro. I would say most of the
2:06.1	hardware that is relevant to most people is sort of small iterative upgrades. Allison Johnson,
2:10.7	who was at the event, actually made us a video and sent it back. So let's watch that. She's got
2:14.3	the run now. I just got a look at the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, and it's looking a little bit more like the S26 and the S26 plus this year.
2:25.0	There are a couple of cool hardware things happening.
	...

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