Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra arrives with 'first-ever' Privacy Display and overclocked SoC

Samsung has fully unveiled the Galaxy S26 Ultra, and it's being touted as the "world's first" smartphone with integrated Privacy Display. It's not an additional film on top of the display. Instead, it's a hardware-level solution, and the feature can limit side-angle visibility by controlling pixel-level light dispersion.

While the side view gets obstructed, Samsung promises that the front-facing clarity won't take a dip. Users can also tune the feature and make it activate when using certain apps or when viewing or entering sensitive information. Of course, this feature isn't expected to stay exclusive to Samsung's phones, as a recent report suggested that Chinese phone makers are also exploring the tech.

Nonetheless, this isn't the only big improvement over the Galaxy S25 Ultra. The new flagship phone comes with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy. It's an overclocked version of the regular SoC, and Samsung says that it's custom-tuned to deliver better performance.

To ensure stability under load, the Galaxy S26 Ultra comes with a vapor chamber that has additional thermal materials. While the battery didn't see an upgrade, there's support for Super Fast Charging 3.0, and with a fast charger, it can get the battery from 0% to 75% in 30 minutes (160W Anker Prime charger curr. $105.99 on Amazon).

On the camera front, the S26 Ultra features a 50MP ultrawide with f/1.9 aperture, a 200MP primary with OIS and f/1.4 aperture, a 50MP OIS telephoto with 5x zoom and f/2.9 aperture, and another 10MP telephoto with 3x zoom and f/2.4 aperture. The setup might not seem much different than the predecessor, but the wider aperture on three sensors should lead to better low-light photography.

There's an upgraded AI ISP as well, which is said to enhance both the rear and selfie shots, while the Super Steady video feature gets a horizontal lock option and promises better stabilization.

Galaxy AI is still deeply integrated across the system, and in addition to Google Gemini, Galaxy S26 Ultra integrates Perplexity and Bixby. On the software end, Samsung is sticking with its seven-year software and security updates promise.

The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra is now available to pre-order, starting at €1,449 in the EU. It's expected to hit the retail market on March 11, 2026. Check out our first impressions video below to learn more.