Every current Samsung Galaxy phone ships with a slide-out shortcut menu called the Edge Panel, sitting along one side of the screen and switched on out of the box.
The Samsung Edge Panel is a thin tab that pokes out from the edge of the display. Pull it inward and it opens a strip of shortcuts: frequently used apps, favourite contacts and a handful of built-in tools, all without leaving whatever screen is already open. It works the same way whether the phone is unlocked, on the lock screen, or running another app in the foreground, which is the point. It is meant to save the two or three taps it would otherwise take to back out to the home screen, open an app drawer, and find the same shortcut a different way.
What the Samsung Edge Panel actually does
The panel itself is not fixed. In Settings, under Display and then Edge panels, owners can choose which shortcuts appear, reorder them, resize the pull tab, move it to the opposite side of the screen, or switch the whole feature off if they never use it. That matters because the Edge Panel has shipped as a default-on feature for long enough, across enough generations of Galaxy hardware, that plenty of owners have never opened that settings menu to find out it is there, let alone customised it to their own apps and contacts.
The panel traces back to the curved-edge displays Samsung used on its early Note and S-series Edge models, where the sliver of screen wrapping around the side of the glass was otherwise wasted space. Samsung kept the software after it moved to flat displays, because the shortcut menu never actually needed the curve to work.
Every current Galaxy phone, deal included
The panel is not reserved for the flagship line, either. It ships on the same One UI base across the Galaxy A-series, the S-series and the foldables, which means it is also sitting on the Galaxy S26 Ultra that Amazon has discounted to $953, a price AndroidAuthority reported was due to expire the same night. Whether a buyer picks up the entry-level A-series or the Ultra, the Edge Panel arrives preinstalled and behaves the same way, because it lives in software, not in whatever silicon happens to be inside.
That last point is worth spelling out, because it is also what separates this feature from the rest of the current Galaxy lineup. teqpost reported on 1 September 2026 that Galaxy Z Fold 8 demand was outpacing Samsung’s own chip supply, meaning some buyers were waiting longer for units to reach shelves. None of that shortage touches the Edge Panel: whatever Fold 8 units do ship carry the identical shortcut menu as the cheapest A-series phone sitting next to it in a display case, because there is no chip to run short of.
Anyone weighing the discounted S26 Ultra on the strength of a software feature should still treat the two halves of this story differently. The Edge Panel will be sitting on whichever Galaxy phone someone buys next month or next year; the $953 price on Amazon was not guaranteed to last past the night AndroidAuthority flagged it.
