Samsung has released three new teaser videos, called Closer, Groove and Glow, all of which appear to show off some of the upgrades coming to the Galaxy S26 series.
The first video, Closer, shows the camera zooming into a dog in a car from long range. This perhaps indicates that we’re going to see a much-improved hybrid and digital zoom on the next generation of Samsung phones. The key takeaway here for me isn’t the actual Zoom, impressive though that is, it’s actually the quality of the video at the end.
Usually, zooming in on cameras leads to a massive drop in quality the closer you get to a subject. However, the dog appears pristine (and stylish in its sunglasses). However, as noted by Android Authority, the fine print says that this video has an AI-generated background, so take the apparent quality with a grain of salt.
The next video, Groove, comes with the caption “Light up your night. The world is about to get more exciting with the all-new Galaxy.” The actual video shows a DJ doing a set, with the camera brightening up the entire scene,showing it in full color. Once again, this could be AI-assisted, but I also imagine that the Galaxy S26 series will feature an update to Samsung's "Nightography" feature, the combination of hardware and software that allows the phone to produce attractive photos in low light, which first appeared on the Galaxy S22.
The final video Samsung released, called Glow, comes with the caption “It looks dark. It films bright.” This appears to be another look at how the phone will handle low-light filming, although how it manages this isn’t mentioned. There are a couple of possibilities, including Samsungplans to introduce a new 24MP shooting mode to the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s 200MP main camera, which would offer much-improved low-light camera performance due to the size of the pixels on the screen
What does all this tell us about the Galaxy S26’s camera skills?
While these videos are certainly impressive, they don’t actually tell us all that much about the next generation of phones. If anything, they actually raise more questions. For one thing, how much will the cameras rely on Galaxy AI to achieve these results, and will they work across the series or be limited to the more powerful models?
With that said, the Galaxy S25 Ultra is currently one of the best camera phones that we’ve seen. So, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the next model build on that success. The focus on low-light performance isn’t all that surprising either, as Galaxy series phones tend to be a bit inconsistent when it comes to low-light camera work, at least compared to the iPhone and Google Pixel.
For the time being, we’ll have to wait until we have a chance to test the phones in person to see if they really perform as well as the videos make clear. On that note, most of the rumors at the moment indicate that the next Galaxy Unpacked event will take place on February 25, with the phones hitting shelves on March 11.
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