Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra hands-on: Surprisingly awesome

With the Galaxy S26 Ultra, Samsung is doubling down on the formula that has worked well so far. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, is what they say.

The super-awesome Privacy Display feature

This one really deserves a cooler name, but Privacy Display is what was settled on. (Mind-Your-Own-Business sounds like a strong choice to me; not sure why Samsung didn't pick something along these lines.)

You know those privacy screen protectors some people use, right? They tend to compromise image quality, but one thing they do very well is to make your phone’s screen appear black (or off) when looked at from the side, in order to discourage prying eyes.

The Galaxy S26 Ultra is the first phone in history to have such a privacy screen feature built-in. I would never use a privacy protector, because of how they degrade image quality, plus I don't think it's cool to not be able to view your own phone from an angle, which is something we do all the time without even thinking about it.

The other bad thing about a privacy protector is you glue it onto the display and so no matter if you're looking at your bank account or cat videos - everything gets blacked out.

However, with the S26 Ultra’s Privacy Display feature built into the screen at the pixel level, the Galaxy S26 Ultra can do some very smart things like making only certain content invisible to people around you. For example, if you don’t want Privacy Display to run all the time, you can choose to have it run only when you’re viewing certain more sensitive applications, like banking apps, or notes, or whatever.
You can also have it black out everything, or just incoming notification pop-ups, which is also a convenient option. You can also choose to activate Privacy Display during other sensitive moments like when entering your PIN or password.

There are two levels to Privacy Display. From my initial impressions, the default setting didn’t seem to reduce image quality when viewing the screen from the front. As you increase the viewing angle, things on screen quickly become very dark, almost black. They are not perfectly black and invisible, though. If there’s someone sitting right next to you, they might still be able to catch a glimpse of what you’re viewing, albeit much harder than if you didn’t have Privacy Display enabled.

The maximum privacy option makes screen content fully invisible when viewed at even a slight angle. The drawback of this option is that it tends to reduce contrast and image quality a bit. However, you could configure it to work only in certain sensitive apps, like your banking app, for example, in which case you’ll have top-notch privacy where it counts, and you’ll still be able to enjoy YouTube videos and PhoneArena articles with perfect screen quality.

A slimmer body makes the Galaxy S26 Ultra feel that much cooler and more desirable

Last year, Samsung made the Galaxy S25 Ultra more ergonomic by getting rid of the signature sharp corners and going for a more rounded design. That was all cool, although I still miss that signature, boxy look.


The Galaxy Ultra is a big phone, so the slimmer design of the S26 Ultra is a very welcome change that makes the phone look and feel more attractive and desirable. Great job, Samsung!

Still a 5000 mAh battery, but now charges at 65W (finally!)

Thankfully, this reduction in thickness hasn’t caused any battery-related compromises. Samsung has managed to keep the capacity at 5000 mAh. We still don’t get silicon-carbon tech, but at least wired charging speed has been upgraded from 45W to 65W which is awesome.

Since my hands-on session with the Galaxy S26 Ultra was relatively brief, I can’t speak to the battery life yet, but with the new chip and improved thermal solution, I expect it to be the same as with the S25 Ultra at the least, or even slightly better. Our in-depth PhoneArena Battery Score will arrive soon, so we’ll know for sure how the S26 Ultra fares before long.

When is the Galaxy S26 Ultra review coming?

There’s obviously a lot going for the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra. In addition to the above-mentioned upgrades, it has a bunch of cool upgrades to its Galaxy AI experiences (generative add to photos!) a more powerful chipset (Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy) and improved camera thanks to newer processing and a wider aperture for the main shooter.

All of these upgrades will be enough for the Galaxy S26 Ultra to retain its position as king of the Android hill. There are some Ultra-level flagships out there, mostly from Chinese brands like Xiaomi and Vivo, but those are either hard to get, just as pricey, or simply can’t offer the breadth of value-adding features that Samsung has on offer here.

Sure, it doesn’t have a silicon-carbon battery, but that doesn’t mean the battery life with the Galaxy S26 Ultra won’t be superb. Time will tell! And when I say that, I mean we’re already hard at work testing the S26 Ultra and its camera, battery, performance, and all other crucial aspects of its performance. For now, I’m personally very excited for the future of this phone, as I believe Samsung was focused on upgrading it in all the right places. For everything else, stay tuned for our full review!

The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra is currently in pre-order and will be released on March 11, at a price of $1300 for the 256 GB model.

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