Thanks to the magic of modern air travel (and sleeping while traveling), the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra has arrived at GSMArena HQ and is straight in for review!
The unboxing isn’t amazingly interesting – you get a USB-C cable and the phone, that’s it. We have the 12/256GB Cobat Violet S26 Ultra.
The new phone may appear quite similar to its predecessor at first glance, but it isn’t. The S26 Ultra is slightly taller and wider, but it’s thinner and also slightly lighter. The design is a bit different, too, thanks to the slight camera island. It’s a personal choice whether you like the new one or the old one, but we’re fans of the new design.
The big new feature in the Galaxy S26 Ultra is Privacy Display. It uses pixel-level light control to reduce the screen visibility at an angle. Technically, it uses something called Flex Magic Pixel tech to direct light per pixel, reducing visibility at off-angles.
It’s truly impressive, and we haven’t seen something like it in the office before. Now, whether it’s a useful feature is up to you as the user. Turning the feature on dims the entire display slightly, which is a slight detriment to usability.
Privacy display
Speaking of the display, it’s excellent. It’s less reflective than your typical OLED, which isn’t new, but is still somewhat exclusive to the Galaxy S Ultra models. The panel on top is also flat, and feels excellent in use.
Around back, things feel unchanged. The camera system is fundamentally the same – there are no bigger sensors, for example. The biggest changes are to the lens aperture of the main camera – it’s now an f/1.4 rather than an f/1.7 – and the 111mm zoom camera has an f/2.9 lens instead of an f/3.4. But those aren’t major changes.
We’ll test the cameras thoroughly, of course, so stay tuned.
