Name: Samsung S26 Ultra Hands on - What's ACTUALLY New?
Uploaded: 2026-03-02T21:39:08.000Z
Duration: 14 min 17 s
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I've just spent a day with Samsung's next gen Galaxy S26 Ultra, their flagship phone for this year, and

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honestly, it feels like a very mixed bag.

There's a few things that I was really excited for that are actually quite underwhelming in person, but

then also some things that I did not see coming that have ended up as the real highlights.

Like one thing that I could not wait to get my Mitts on is this new privacy display that stops people snooping on you.

But actually using it, I've got concerns.

So there are two types of pixels on this S26 Ultra's display.

This is why you can still read the screen from from almost any angle.

But then mixed into that are new narrow pixels which basically focus their light directly outwards in a straight line instead of shining in a wide cone.

Which means if we pull down quick settings and tap Privacy Display, this lets us turn off our normal wide firing pixels, leaving only the narrow ones on, turning this into a display that's only readable when you're looking at it head on.

And what makes this different from just sticking on one of those privacy Glass screen protectors is you can then select exactly what this privacy effect is applied to.

You could decide, for example, that you only want to turn it on when you enter your messaging apps like WhatsApp.

You can make it activate just when you're entering passwords or pins.

And because it's being controlled on an individual pixel level, you can even have this privacy only apply to sections of the screen.

Like if you just wanted to hide the notifications that pop up when people message you.

This almost feels a little bit like magic when you're seeing it for the first time.

And really, it's one of the first truly innovative phone features that I've seen in a long time.

But you might be wondering, because this is what I was wondering when it was being first explained to me, why bother then just blacking out that little notification pop up?

In fact, why not just keep Privacy mode on as your new default and then just turn it off on the odd occasion that you want to show someone something?

Well, the issue is because this works by effectively turning off half the pixels in your phone the moment you activate Privacy Display, you can see your screen's resolution taking a nosedive.

While your screen does pretty effectively look almost unreadable to others, it also loses some readability and brightness because there's fewer pixels shining for you too, but

if that was where it ended, I'd still say ok.

It's a little situational, but what an awesome feature that I will almost definitely use sometimes.

There's an extra wrinkle that I noticed though, and

I'd be curious if other reviewers notice the same thing.

It's that even with the privacy mode turned off, the S26 Ultra's viewing angles look quite a bit worse than the S25 Ultra's.

Can you see how as we rotate these phones around, you get this pretty nasty blue tint on the new device and the brightness falls off a lot faster?

it makes sense that the phone would be like this because if half the pixels are now designed mostly just to fire light directly forward, then you're not really seeing those pixels anymore.

As you start to rotate the phone, you're only seeing the remaining wide pixels.

So I need more time to test this before concluding, but

I'm just not convinced that Privacy Display is a net positive for everyone in its current state.

Thankfully, when you are looking straight on, the viewing experience is a step up.

This is the first time on a Samsung phone that we're getting a proper 10 bit panel, which means the S26 Ultra can display a wider range of color.

And you can also surprisingly, notice the work that Samsung's put into their Pro Scaler, which is the image enhancement software that they have running in the background to smartly sharpen everything up.

Like if we look at the same video playing on both the S26 Ultra vs S25 Ultra, the difference isn't even that subtle.

You can see especially in the waves here, the clever sharpening really brings out the detail.

So while Privacy Display kind of looked like it was going to steal the show, but

hasn't, the design feels like a whole load of nothing.

That together has actually amounted to a large improvement to the way the phone feels.

If you look at the corners, they're softer, more rounded.

When you're holding the phone, you notice the sides curve a little more gently into the screen.

The new phone's a touch lighter and thickness wise we've gone from 8.2mm to 7.9, making this S26 Samsung's thinnest Ultra ever.

They've even shaved down the S pen to accommodate.

a handful of refinements that all feel like they're heading in the right direction.

I also quite like how now finally, the design of the Ultra matches the design of the S26 and S26 Plus.

For the first time since the Ultra started, each phone in Samsung's lineup now has the same curvature, the same style of camera design, and

Although it needs to be said, the reason that the new phone is lighter than the old one is because Samsung has just done exactly what the last iPhone did.

They've ditched titanium and gone right back to the aluminium that their phones were always made of.

Which is a little awkward considering how hard they sold us on titanium, as if the material was God's gift to humanity.

But ultimately having used titanium phones, I don't actually care about the outcome.

If anything, aluminium is more heat conductive so will probably help the thermal performance.

My only actual design could complaint is these colors.

Samsung, you have such a history of iconic vibrant color options in the past.

The aluminium you're now using is extremely easy to anodize and apply color to.

I don't understand why now you can't just have one interesting color that doesn't make me look like I'm living inside of a grayscale movie.

Overall though, the design is a quiet little too quiet, but appreciated improvement.

And cameras are the same story on first glance.

They're the same picture, the resolutions are all the same, the sensors are seemingly identical to the last phone.

But then you look closer and there's actually three important somewhat hidden improvements.

One is shooting at night because while the sensors are the same, Samsung's widened the aperture of both the 200 megapixel main camera and the telephoto camera to let more light into those sensors.

Plus the software now can apparently anticipate the types of noise patterns that usually occur in low light and preemptively eliminate them, which I was not expecting to amount to much.

But if you keep an eye on my face during this video, you can absolutely tell the difference.

The new phone shoots brighter and with less noise.

Second thing is a new addition to super steady mode called horizontal lock, which constantly calculates in real time how you're rotating your phone so that it can eliminate all that rotation from the actual video.

Combine that with the very high levels of stabilization that you already get in this mode.

That is pretty phenomenal, seeing how much this fixes your footage.

And finally, the S26 cameras double down on what Samsung was already pretty good at, making you look pretty compared to the S25 Ultra.

It makes you brighter, your face pops more, your eyes even have a little glint to them and you're quite noticeably more detailed too, without actually needing to shoot in a higher resolution.

It's better at controlling the really bright spots like my forehead here.

And it's so good to see that this improved processing is also active on the selfie camera too.

And while it's at it, it improves the texture of your skin, but

in a really clever, subtle way that doesn't look like one of those obtuse makeup filters.

There are a few other minor camera changes, like how the auto framing mode now captures in 4K instead of 1080p, how they've swapped the lenses to reduce lens flares from bright sources, and

how this is the first Samsung phone to support apv, which is a new type of very high quality video format whose unique perk is that it can edited many times with minimal loss in quality.

But then again, if you're pro enough to actually need to use that, then are you not also pro enough to not keep trying to re edit your exported file?

You just go back to your original project to make changes and then keep 100% of the quality anyway.

Are these a respectable set of camera improvements?

Do I think they're enough to suddenly catapult Samsung to the top of the smartphone camera ladder?

They're not exactly going to rock your world either.

All Galaxy S26 Ultras will have 12 to 16 gigs of RAM and the latest Snapdragon 8 elite gen 5 for Galaxy chip.

Great chip, about 20% more powerful than last year.

Terrible name like 8 elite gen 5 was 9 elite taken the battery though I thought this year for sure we had to get a bigger one.

The S26 Ultra has a 5000 milliamp hour battery just like the S25 Ultra and just like the 5 other Ultras before it.

It's like a family heirloom at this point.