# Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra Review: A Private Screen Only Goes So Far > Source: > Published: 2026-06-25 11:30:15+00:00 The [Galaxy S26 Ultra](https://gizmodo.com/samsungs-galaxy-s26-phones-are-light-on-hardware-upgrades-heavy-on-ai-2000725899), Samsung’s latest flagship Galaxy S-series phone, needed a gimmick to give it extra oomph over premium devices like the iPhone 17 Pro Max and Google Pixel 10 Pro. So that’s exactly what Samsung did with the phone’s “Privacy display” feature that, with the tap of a button, makes it harder or nearly impossible for anyone to peep at your screen. The Privacy display feature works as advertised, and it’s more than just a hardware-level privacy screen protector, but it’s not without some minor tradeoffs. The rest of the Galaxy S26 Ultra is as you’d expect: feature-packed but not exactly groundbreaking. The phone is slimmer and lighter (though the camera bump and rings remain massive), so it feels better to use and slip into a pocket. The cameras take excellent photos and video. And I’ve got nothing to complain about for performance and battery life. For a phone that starts at $1,300 and has it all—including a built-in stylus—I felt pretty indifferent while reviewing it. To be fair, I could say the same for the [iPhone 17 Pro Max](https://gizmodo.com/iphone-17-pro-max-review-practical-perfection-with-two-capital-ps-2000660140), [Pixel 10 Pro](https://gizmodo.com/pixel-10-pro-and-10-pro-xl-review-familiar-hardware-smarter-gemini-ai-brain-2000649131), and any other premium phone. These are all just better versions of previous models. Unless you’re upgrading from a much older phone, in which case all of the features might really wow you, the only temptation to get the Galaxy S26 Ultra is for the Privacy display feature, but the novelty may quickly wear off. Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra The Galaxy S26 Ultra is once again Samsung's best non-folding smartphone and our favorite flagship Android phone of 2026 so far, but it lacks any standout feature. Pros - Privacy Display really works - Flagship performance - Great battery life - Solid cameras Cons - Lacks magnets for Qi2 wireless charging - Screen quality gets worse with Privacy display turned on - Forgettable new Galaxy AI features ## Feels so much better this year Part of the reason why phones—flagship phones in particular—are now so forgettable is that they’re mainly a specs-bump upgrade. The changes are mostly internal and hard to notice, especially year over year. You might look at a chart and think the Galaxy 26 Ultra is basically identical to the [S25 Ultra](https://gizmodo.com/samsung-galaxy-s25-ultra-review-2000556968), considering it shaves off *only* 0.3mm in thickness and *only* sheds 4g in weight. Those numbers can’t tell you how the phone feels, and boy, does the Galaxy S26 Ultra feel so much better than Samsung’s previous flagship. The corners are now rounded to match the design language of the S26 and S26+, and the frame feels less chunky in the hand thanks to the change from titanium alloy in the midframe to Samsung’s “Armor” aluminum. The hand-feel really makes all the difference when you’re picking up the phone hundreds of times a day, holding it up to snap photos during a concert, or backpocketing it. The aluminum frame has been plenty durable, and resistant to water and dust thanks to its IP68 rating. Apple also switched from titanium to aluminum with the iPhone 17 Pros, but the metal seems to be softer, making it easy to scratch or dent even from light drops. I’ve not babied the Galaxy S26 Ultra, and other than a barely visible nick here and there, the metal body looks as pristine as it did several months ago. Sure, the camera bump is still a monstrosity and rocks the phone on the table, but I’ll take the excellent photo and video quality over the small inconvenience. The Galaxy S26 Ultra comes in five colors, including the sky blue that I’ve been testing. I’m not typically a light blue phone guy, but even I have to admit the colorway looks good. It’s a neutral shade that doesn’t scream for attention in public and actually looks light blue compared to the [sky blue iPhone Air](https://gizmodo.com/iphone-air-review-a-magic-sheet-of-glass-with-expected-tradeoffs-2000659864), which appears more white most of the time. ## The very best Samsung offers As far as big phones sold in the U.S. go, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is the Swiss Army knife of Android. Things are a different story in Asia and Europe, where flagship phones from the likes of Xiaomi, Huawei, and Oppo have long left Samsung in their exhaust fumes. The 6.9-inch, 120Hz, AMOLED display is as big and sharp as the same-sized and specced screen on the Galaxy S25 Ultra. The bezels are so thin it feels like the whole phone is screen. The stereo speakers get pretty loud. The S Pen stylus is… fine. It works, but it feels like Samsung only kept it around because of tradition, not because it’s a major differentiator anymore. I can’t say I’ve used the S Pen in the four months I’ve been testing the Galaxy S26 Ultra. The feature that I did use often on older models—the Bluetooth camera shutter remote—was removed from the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s S Pen. I had no issues with the phone’s performance, software experience, or battery life. It’s excellent across the board. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy chipset can handle everyday apps and gaming without missing a beat. I’ve been getting back into *Fortnite* and *Call of Duty Mobile* (don’t judge me, it’s my guilty pleasure when I’m stressed out) recently, and both 3D shooting games ran at peak speed. Samsung’s One UI 8.5 version of Android 16 looks and operates as smooth and responsive as ever. At the very least, it’s not a shameless ripoff of iOS and Liquid Glass like you’d find on many Chinese flagship phones. Samsung touts new Galaxy AI stuff like Now Nudge, Now Brief, automatic screenshot sorting, and Circle to Search for recognizing multiple items in an outfit photo as time-saving and convenient features. There’s some utility if you’re patient enough to learn how to use them in the first place, but I would say few of the many*, many* Galaxy AI features have changed how I use the phone. Automatic app action, which lets you use voice controls via Gemini to order an Uber didn’t work on my review unit during the first two months after the Galaxy S26 Ultra launched in March, even though I was on the latest software version. I eventually got the feature to work in early June so that I could simply press and hold the power button and say, “Book me an Uber ride to the Empire State Building,” and Gemini would provide a shortcut to the app’s preferred ride selection option, but it was no faster than tapping through the Uber app myself. I still needed to choose my ride option and then confirm payment—with my fingers. The dream of a truly automated “agentic” phone that can perform multi-step tasks across apps with a voice command or text prompt is still at least a few phone generations away (if that soon at all). Battery life on the Galaxy S26 Ultra has been terrific. I easily get 6 to 8 hours of screen-on time during weekdays when I’m using my phone a lot; rarely have I drained the phone from a single charge. And in those times, I know I can fast charge with a 60W charger to get 75% battery life in about 30 minutes. The one annoying thing about wireless charging, via Qi2, is that the Galaxy S26 Ultra doesn’t have a built-in magnet ring like the iPhone 17 Pro Max’s MagSafe or the Pixel 10 Pro’s Pixelsnap. Yes, you can buy a case with magnets, but a phone that starts at $1,300 really should have it. I have several MagSafe charging stands in my bedroom and at my home desk, so having to fish out a USB-C cable was kind of annoying. The cameras are solid. They don’t quite push the image quality envelope on phones anymore. The 200-megapixel main camera takes good-looking photos that are slightly brighter than shots out of the S25 Ultra. Details can be a little mushy, especially in low light, but unless you’re doing a side-by-side comparison with another phone camera, you won’t notice. The 10-megapixel 3x telephoto, 50-megapixel 5x lens, and 50-megapixel ultrawide are good enough. Picture quality in most lighting situations looks serviceable, though you will notice it’s visibly worse the higher the zoom levels you go, especially when you reach for the 30x and 100x. Selfies from the 12-megapixel front camera look fine. The Galaxy S26 Ultra has a versatile set of lenses that do the job, and that’s more than enough for most people. The Galaxy S26 Ultra also has one video feature that’s a fun party trick: Horizon Lock. The mode lets you take even more stabilized video, keeping the horizon line locked, even if you rotate the phone. It’s like having a built-in gimbal. However, cool as it is, I didn’t find myself using it very often. If you take lots of videos of your pets or kids running around the house or at the park, it’s nice to have. ## Is the Privacy display a must-have feature? I wouldn’t call myself paranoid, but I do think I care more about my privacy when I’m out in public. If I’m on the train, I try to hold my phone in such a way that the people standing shoulder to shoulder around me wouldn’t be able to sneak a peek. I also never view apps that might include sensitive data like banking information or passwords outside. I’m aware that a $10 privacy screen protector that darkens my phone would make my life less stressful, but I don’t use the display shields because they degrade screen quality—for both sharpness and brightness. Samsung’s “Privacy display” feature built into the screen of the Galaxy S26 Ultra has similar tradeoffs when it’s toggled on. There are two levels to how protected your screen can be. The standard “Turn on Privacy display” toggle lightly tints the screen so that it’s harder for someone to peep. From the sides and top, it works quite well. Display brightness is reduced, though. Somebody would have to really squint or lean over to see your screen. The “Maximum privacy protection” mode makes it just about impossible for anyone to view your screen; the downside is that brightness drops a lot and so does the clarity of the pixels. There’s a light haze to everything, and blacks appear as grays; it sometimes fatigued my eyes because I was straining to look harder. I wouldn’t leave the maximum protection on unless you really need it, and if you do, I have to wonder what you need to hide to require that kind of privacy? In most cases, the regular Privacy display mode will suffice. The best use for the Privacy display is on a per-app or notification basis. You can customize the mode to turn on when you open up a certain app, like a banking app or messages. You can even darken incoming notifications and they’ll appear tinted for your eyes only as they slide in from the top of the phone. This is really neat and I found it gave me peace of mind. As to whether it’s a must-have feature? I would say no. As I said, privacy screen shields are cheaper than a whole new phone, and unless what you’re doing on your phone involves very sensitive data, it’s not really a game-changer. I’d take a more anti-reflective display than Privacy display. Speaking of the anti-glare screen, it’s somehow worse than on the S25 Ultra, likely because of the Privacy display. So that’s another tradeoff. ## Another safe Samsung flagship There’s nothing I really dislike about the Galaxy S26 Ultra. It’s a very solid flagship phone with all the bells and whistles that Samsung could shove into its metal and glass slab. The Privacy display feature is a novel and sometimes useful feature, but it’s far from necessary. It’s probably too much to expect more from a phone like the Galaxy S26 Ultra. It’s one of the best that a bar-style premium phone can be. The real innovation is *finally* happening with foldables—flip and book-style. The Galaxy S26 Ultra is a well-rounded phone that competes with the other flagship phones out there (again, except the Chinese ones) on camera quality and plays it very safe. It’s a little better in all the small places, but it’s not going to wow like the [pricier $2,000 Galaxy Z Fold 7](https://gizmodo.com/samsung-galaxy-z-fold-7-review-foldable-perfection-thats-tempting-me-to-leave-my-iphone-2000629703). That phone still has the bleeding-edge appeal nearly a year after its release. If there’s any place where Samsung could make the Galaxy S27 Ultra more exciting, it’s probably the S Pen. Either add some real innovation there or remove it and give us the very best camera and/or battery life that lives up to the “Ultra” name.