This article may contain personal views and opinion from the author.
Samsung Galaxy S26. | Image by PhoneArena
The Galaxy S27 series is still months away from its release window, but we have already started hearing rumors about its specifications and other changes from different reliable sources. A recent report suggests that the entire lineup is going to come with the star feature of the Galaxy S26 Ultra.
All Galaxy S27 family phones could feature the privacy display
If you watched this year's Galaxy Unpacked event, you must recall that the privacy display was one of the highlights of the entire show. It's basically designed to tackle shoulder surfers and ensure the content you are watching on your smartphone remains visible only to you, especially in crowded places. The only catch is that this feature is exclusively available on the Galaxy S26 Ultra.
Also, since it is a hardware-based capability, it's not possible to bring it to other Galaxy phones through a One UI update. But there's good news. All the phones of the upcoming Galaxy S27 lineup, which includes the Galaxy S27, S27 Pro, S27 Plus, and S27 Ultra, are reportedly going to have the privacy display technology.
The Galaxy S27 could be my next phone
Privacy display feature of S26 Ultra. | Image by PhoneArena
Honestly, I really liked the privacy display feature. It's really beneficial for someone like me who regularly travels via the metro, where it's very common for people sitting next to me to glance at my smartphone screen to check out what I am looking at. The best thing I like about it is the manual control it gives me on whether I want to hide the entire screen or a particular portion of it.
For instance, I can configure it to hide only the notification pop-up to ensure that nobody can peek and check out the OTP and other messages that I receive. Furthermore, I have the option to set it to function only on particular apps, like banking or social media apps. Also, there's a Maximum Privacy Protection toggle, which can be enabled to make it even harder for people around you to check out the content of the smartphone screen.
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I currently rely on a third-party privacy screen protector on my Galaxy S26; however, the downside of using it is that it can sometimes make the fingerprint scanner unresponsive. The Galaxy S26 Ultra was the device I was looking to buy this year but couldn't afford due to budget constraints. But if this capability lands on the vanilla Galaxy S27, then I am definitely buying it without any second thought.
What's the one upgrade you really want to see in the Galaxy S27?
Samsung should definitely address all the concerns
Hey Galaxy Fam
I noticed a huge difference between the Galaxy S26 Ultra and S25 Ultra displays. After using the S26 Ultra for a while, my eyes felt tired and slightly uncomfortable.
Note: Both phones were set to 2K resolution, and Privacy Mode was turned OFF on the S26… pic.twitter.com/XbN1DzqiyU
While the privacy display capability sounds really great on paper, many users have complained online that it reduces the overall brightness of the screen. One user posted two images comparing the display quality of the S23 Ultra and the S26 Ultra and mentioned that the content on the latest phone appears to be a bit fuzzy.
It's not that the company is not aware of all these complaints. In fact, it recently admitted that users may experience "some brightness variation" because of this feature. However, it was also explicitly mentioned that the impact will be very minimal, and you will only notice it when the brightness is set to the maximum level.
It's worth noting that in our in-house testing of the latest Ultra phone from Samsung, we found its display quality to perfectly justify the flagship tag. So, am I saying that all the concerns that users have with the brightness of the phone are false? Definitely not.
I, personally, think it's not a "one size fits all" issue. Basically, as is the case with every new technology, some users are actually finding the privacy display really helpful, while others believe that enabling it negatively affects the brightness of the phone.
Since it is really a groundbreaking feature, I am pretty confident that Samsung will certainly improve it and address even that negligible brightness difference that it is causing. However, whether it will happen in the S27 lineup is something we will need to wait and see.
There's a huge demand for privacy display
Market research firm SigmaIntel's report suggests that the privacy display feature is definitely a hit, and users are buying more phones that come with such tech. More than 1 million units of devices that feature privacy display technology were shipped in 2025, and this number is expected to climb to 21 million in 2026 and 29 million in 2027.
The importance of this feature can also be understood by the fact that many Chinese manufacturers, like Huawei and Xiaomi, are working on their own versions of privacy display. There are also reports that Xiaomi will launch its version as a software feature with the upcoming HyperOS 4 update.
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Aman Kumar is a news writer at PhoneArena covering Google Pixel phones, Android features, AI-powered smartphone tools, and mobile tech news. Before joining PhoneArena, he spent over five years writing about consumer technology for publications like MakeUseOf, How-To Geek, and Guiding Tech. His current daily drivers are the Pixel 10 and Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus, while his red iPhone SE (2nd gen) remains a personal favorite. Aman also appreciates bold smartphone experiments and still considers the Nokia N-Gage one of the industry’s most iconic designs.
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