The new Galaxy S26 Ultra has a new display trick up its sleeve
The dream is real.
Samsung's new Galaxy S26 lineup looks incredible, with a finally more streamlined design to unify the brand's image. These phones also come packed with new features, most interestingly, in the new display. These displays are as bright, vibrant and lifelike as ever, with still infinite black levels, incredible contrast and great color accuracy. However, the S26 Ultra goes a step further with two different display panels stacked for the brand new Privacy Display feature.
In addition to the normal display panel with wide pixels, the S26 Ultra also has another set of narrow pixels that selectively shine its image to only directly in front of the phone. This means that when this display panel is on, just the user can see the information on the screen, not onlookers. This, however, does come with some downsides, namely in viewing angles and brightness, but those issues are mostly negated once the normal viewing mode is turned on.
The most interesting part of this is the mixed use modes. One way this display can be used, in addition to the normal display and whole display narrow pixel modes is in a mode where the display selectively turns on the narrow pixel mode in sensitive areas, like when typing in a passcode or on even just notifications. This allows for sensitive information to be kept private, while still allowing for great viewing angles and brightness.
A privacy display is an idea that has gained traction in recent years with some screen protectors offering built in privacy protection. However, this comes with the downside of, obviously, decreased viewing angles and decreased brightness, but in this situation, you cannot remove or turn off the privacy feature as needed. This new Privacy Display from Samsung offers a great middle ground, but we will have to wait and see if the narrow pixels still limit it, even in normal mode.
Samsung's new Privacy Display is a great feature that adds new privacy protections for sensitive information. We will have to wait and see what Samsung does soon.
