Second is Privacy Display – the new hero feature that lets you see the screen when you’re looking straight on, but makes the display appear blank to any peeping Tom.
I’ve only had my S26 Ultra for an hour so, but Privacy Display was the first feature I tried, and it works in real life.
You can buy privacy screens from 3M and others, but they’re pricey and unlike this world-first, built-in protection, they can’t be toggled on and off in settings.
Would I use it all the time? No. I prefer the more vibrant look of the display when it’s off.
Would I use it when I’m on a plane, or in a meeting with people from other companies? Absolutely.
By default, the Privacy Display works at a roughly 45% angle, but there’s also a hardcore “maximum privacy protection” mode, where even a slight tilt obscures the screen.
The feature can be manually enabled, always-on, or set to trigger for certain apps or passwords. It’s nicely done.
It is only available for the 6.9-inch S26 Ultra (available for pre-order from today from $2549), not the 6.7-inch S26+ (from $2199) or the 6.3-inch S26 (from $1799).
The third thing that really struck me out of the box is the new “cobalt violet” finish (there are also black, white and sky-blue options), which is something of an homage to the iPhone 17 Pro/Pro Max’s “deep blue” (see photo below).
Content creators will also see the addition of Advanced Professional Video (APV), a Samsung-developed video codec for professional capture, as a hook.
There are also some interesting new agentic artificial intelligence (AI) features, although the hero feature, which will let you order and pay for an Uber with a single voice command, is only available in South Korea for the time being.
The Galaxy S26 series also sees the return of Samsung’s own “Bixby” personal assistant, against the backdrop of Apple’s new AI partnership with Gemini-maker Google – but various Google AI still features heavily on the S26, too.
Straight out of the box, the S26 Ultra looks promising. It seems a contender to go straight to the head of the Android pack. I’ll have a full review next week.
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.
