Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra Review: The Privacy Screen

Even better, because it’s integrated, you can customize when the privacy display is on through the software. Mine activates automatically for select messaging apps, banking apps, and notifications, and looking directly at the phone provides no visual indication whether the privacy display is enabled or not (unless you tilt the screen slightly).

you can still Look With Privacy Display enabled the screen became very blurred at the edges and the content became difficult to discern. For maximum effect, you can turn on Maximum Privacy Protection via the quick settings menu, making the screen almost impossible to read from the edges. You may not want to use that mode all the time because the screen looks washed out, but it’s nice for when you want to be extra private. Strangely, Samsung doesn’t let you configure this extra layer to automatically turn on with specific apps – it’s a manual toggle every time.

I’ve seen some complaints online about the privacy display affecting screen quality, but I disagree. Then, the first thing I did when setting up the phone was to max out the screen resolution to Quad HD+ and set the colors to Vivid. I haven’t seen any blurry text, and brightness hasn’t been an issue for me either.

Yes, you can buy a cheap privacy screen protector and add it to any phone, but sometimes you to do You want the person next to you—whether it’s a friend or family member—to be able to read the screen with you. Or maybe the phone is on a table, and you want to lazily scroll through TikTok while trying to keep track of work. This is where a standard privacy screen protector won’t help, as it blocks you from seeing your screen, but Samsung’s solution gets around that. Now, I wish every smartphone had a privacy screen.

You don’t need to do anything illegal or highly sensitive to justify this feature. You may want your conversations with a loved one to remain private. Maybe you’re authenticating a login and don’t want anyone else to see the code. Or you’re opening your banking app, and don’t want someone spying on your checking account. Keeping privacy is a good thing.

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Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

Samsung has designed its Ultra smartphones like the standard Galaxy S26 and S26+, with rounded corners instead of the boxy look of its predecessors. (It’s still the only one of the lot with an integrated S Pen stylus.) The overall design language is still pretty dull, and the phone’s muted colors aren’t exciting (you can buy the iPhone 17 Pro in orange for crying out loud!).