The Latest on Samsung

Samsung's new Galaxy Z8 lineup set a preorder record in South Korea, and the standard Fold8, not the pricier Ultra, carried most of it. That's the story behind the Samsung Galaxy Z8 preorder record set this week: Samsung said the lineup drew more than 1.44 million preorders in South Korea during the seven-day window that ended Monday, Aug. 3, the highest preorder total for any Galaxy phone the company has ever released, foldable or not, according to The Korea Times.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 bend test that JerryRigEverything ran this week threw the toughest thing a durability channel can throw at a foldable: reverse-direction flex, the failure mode that has cracked hinges and popped screens loose on lesser phones. The Fold 8 didn't crack, and nothing popped loose (JerryRigEverything, this week).

Samsung set August 7, 2026, as the general availability date for the Galaxy Z Fold8 and Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, but some customers have seen estimated arrival dates extend well beyond launch day.

Samsung Galaxy S26 FE leaked images posted this week give the public a new unofficial look at the company's next Fan Edition phone. A Telegram account called "The Cipher Project" shared three photos showing the device in black, light green, and dark purple, according to 9to5Google.

Samsung Electronics' phone business lost money in the same quarter its chip division posted the most profitable quarter in company history. The MX and Networks unit, which sells Galaxy phones, tablets, wearables and networking gear, reported an operating loss of KRW 0.7 trillion for the second quarter of 2026, even as the company's chip division posted KRW 89.2 trillion in operating profit and companywide operating profit hit an all-time high of KRW 89.5 trillion, according to Samsung's...

New European pricing figures suggest the S26 FE could cost meaningfully more than its predecessor, while confirmed upgrades still fall short of justifying the gap

Samsung's own documentation confirms that specific Galaxy S24 Ultra zoom shots and Motion Photo frame extractions can save as 12MP files, not the 50MP or 200MP number printed on the spec sheet. What the company's public materials don't confirm is what happens to an ordinary photo shot at 1x, when Samsung's "24MP fusion" processing is doing its work in the background. Those are two different claims, and mixing them up is where the confusion starts.

A Samsung device with model number SM-X848U appeared in the FCC database today, with Notebookcheck reporting that the identifier reportedly corresponds to the US 5G variant of the Galaxy Tab S12+, citing 91mobiles. That mapping comes from third-party leak reporting, not from the FCC filing itself. The listing arrived eighteen days after two related variants cleared Safety Korea certification, and together the three filings across two regulatory bodies point toward a fall 2026 release that...

Galaxy devices running One UI 9 will wipe themselves after 13 failed lock screen attempts, a hard limit confirmed by a Samsung support document and reported by Android Authority today. Not a temporary lockout. Every photo, app, and setting on the device gets erased, accounts are signed out, and the phone returns to factory condition.

As of this week, a Samsung Messages alternative app called Messages by OzarksMade is undergoing closed testing through Google Play, with a public launch set for 14 days after its testing Google Group hits 12 members and a post-launch price of $0.99. Treat that as a snapshot, not a finished product. Betas shift, thresholds get hit or missed, and pricing plans change before launch.

A developer known as busung has released an open-source tool called the Root My Galaxy app, which claims to grant temporary root access to select Snapdragon-powered Galaxy flagships without unlocking the bootloader or tripping Samsung's Knox e-fuse, according to an Android Authority report published today. The developer describes the process as one-click and says it leaves user data untouched, per the same report. The conventional route to persistent Samsung root involves bootloader changes,...

Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is now on sale across 106 markets at $2,099.99. Within Samsung's lineup, the Ultra name is supposed to mean the company's highest performance tier, and Samsung frames this phone as bringing that standard to foldables for the first time. In its review, PCMag called it Samsung's most capable foldable yet, citing faster performance, a longer-lasting battery and sharper cameras than any other Z Fold.

A claim about a Samsung One UI 9.5 connectivity hub built with Google appears to stem from something narrower: a settings screen that lists which installed apps work with a satellite connection. Android Authority reported on the menu five months ago, describing a compatibility list rather than a confirmed platform feature tied to a specific software version or built by Google.

Samsung's latest 200MP image sensor offers an early look at where its smartphone camera technology is headed, but it is not yet the Galaxy S27 Ultra's confirmed camera sensor.

A sprawling Samsung Galaxy S26 FE leak, made up of renders, spec sheets and apparent hands-on video, has surfaced weeks before Samsung's expected announcement of the phone. The picture emerging is less "all-new phone" and more "known formula, new processor, possibly higher price," according to Android Authority, which published its account of the leak today.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 9 rumors just picked up a new wrinkle: a report this week claims Samsung's 2027 foldable lineup could grow to five models, including a second wide-format device sitting alongside the expected Fold 9, according to Digital Trends.

Code strings buried inside Samsung's Galaxy Wearable app reference a device called the Galaxy H1, pointing to Samsung's first over-ear headphones in more than a decade (The Verge, this week).

Samsung's latest foldable lineup has broken a Galaxy preorder record in South Korea that had stood since 2019. The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, Galaxy Z Fold8, and Galaxy Z Flip8 drew more than 1.44 million preorders during a seven-day reservation period, surpassing the roughly 1.38 million recorded by the Galaxy Note10 series seven years earlier.

Samsung's One UI 9 gives Motion Photos a new place to shine, letting supported Galaxy devices turn them into animated wallpapers for the home screen, lock screen, or both. Android Authority, citing SamMobile, reports that the feature is available on Samsung's latest foldables but has not yet appeared in the One UI 9 beta on the Galaxy S26 series.

Galaxy S26 owners testing One UI 9 finally have a new build to install after nearly a month without a major beta release. Reports of One UI 9 Beta 5 began appearing on August 12, with the update reaching Galaxy S26-series testers in India.

Samsung has reportedly started development on two wide-format foldables targeting the Galaxy Z9 generation, reportedly planned for 2027, a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 successor story that's already getting oversimplified in the retelling. The claim traces to South Korean outlet ETNews, relayed by Android Central and Android Authority. "Fold8" is Samsung's own shorthand for the phone most reviewers call the Galaxy Z Fold 8. Of the two devices described, only one carries a specific defining trait: an...

One UI 9.5 leaks have been surfacing this month in the form of screenshots, internal builds, and test-server activity, even as Samsung is still mid-rollout on One UI 9.

Six months into the Galaxy S26's life, price has done something spec sheets never could: it has flipped the whole comparison on its head. SlashGear checked retail listings today and found the Galaxy S26 selling for $774.99 at Amazon and Best Buy, and for just $712.50 at Walmart, undercutting the $799 the Galaxy S25 charged at its own launch (SlashGear). Retail pricing shifts by the week, so treat those numbers as a snapshot rather than a promise, and check current listings before you buy. But...

Oppo is reportedly testing two 200MP rear cameras for the Find X10 Pro, including a 200MP main camera and a 200MP telephoto. A June 2026 leak attributed to Chinese tipster Digital Chat Station identifies the main camera as an unannounced Samsung ISOCELL HPC with a 1/1.3-inch optical format, alongside a 3MP multispectral sensor.

Samsung's next Ultra phone could tackle one of the most annoying parts of going without a screen protector: the tiny scratches that build up through everyday use. A new rumor claims Samsung and Corning are developing a self-healing surface coating that may appear on the Galaxy S27 Ultra.

A Seoul Economic Daily reported on Aug. 23 that Samsung's unreleased Exynos 2700 outperformed Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 in internal tests covering CPU, GPU, AI performance, and power efficiency. The results reportedly came from Samsung's own Mobile eXperience division, making them an early indicator rather than independent proof that Exynos has overtaken Snapdragon.

Samsung has officially unveiled the Galaxy S26 FE, turning an August 27 launch rumor into a confirmed product with a release date, price, and final specifications.

Samsung has started rolling out the Galaxy S26 One UI 9 Beta 6 update, and it's a maintenance release through and through. The changelog reported so far is almost entirely bug fixes, with no headline features attached to this build.

Samsung's One UI 9 Beta 6 update adds a toggle that lets Galaxy S26 owners disable AI Select's long-press trigger on the Edge Panel handle, according to Android Authority. Here's how to disable AI Select in One UI 9 Beta 6 without switching off Edge Panels altogether. It's a fix for a recurring annoyance reported by users: lingering slightly too long while swiping out an Edge Panel would freeze the screen and launch the AI Select overlay, whether they meant to trigger it or not.

Galaxy owners across Reddit and Samsung's Community forums are hitting the same wall when they try to sign in: "Can't sign in. Account deactivated for security reasons." That message is behind a fresh wave of Samsung account randomly deactivated complaints, and neither the users posting about it nor Samsung itself has explained why it's happening.

Samsung has stopped delivering Google Play System updates to devices running beta versions of One UI, including the Galaxy S26's One UI 9.0 (Android 17) beta. The company says the move happened "in coordination with Google."

Ask ten people how the iPhone Ultra vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 matchup plays out this fall, and most will predict a rout: Apple's foldable debut does to this category what the original iPhone did to BlackBerry. That prediction needs a clearer definition of "win" before it holds up. Total foldable-market share is a different question than launch-week hype, and once you separate the two, the case for an Apple rout looks a lot thinner.

Not every Galaxy Watch 9 health feature behaves the same way out of the box, which is exactly why deciding which Galaxy Watch 9 settings to enable on day one matters. Hard fall detection is a genuine toggle, and it ships off by default, doing nothing until someone switches it on (Samsung Support). Vitals and Sleep Coach aren't toggles in that sense. Vitals needs seven nights of overnight wear to build a baseline before it can flag anything unusual, and Sleep Coach needs at least seven days of...

A guide posted on XDA Forums last year describes a way to run Samsung DeX on a Galaxy Z Fold's internal screen, with no monitor, dock, or book cover attached.

Galaxy phones running One UI 9.0 can now fully uninstall Microsoft SwiftKey rather than just disabling it, according to SamMobile's hands-on test on a Galaxy S26 Ultra running Beta 5. Anyone who has wanted to uninstall Microsoft SwiftKey on a Samsung Galaxy One UI 9 phone now has a straightforward path, at least on the device SamMobile checked directly.

Google's August 2026 System Release Notes list updates for Play services, the Play Store, and several Android components, covering categories the company labels Phone, Tablet, Wear, Auto, and PC, according to 9to5Google, which published the changelog on August 10. They do not identify a Samsung Galaxy model, a One UI build, or a Samsung rollout date.