Privacy Display is the most interesting new feature of the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra – here’s how it works

The most interesting feature of the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra this year – apart from the full redesign – is undoubtedly its new privacy display. This smart new technology builds the power of a digital privacy screen at the pixel level, so that when you’re out and about you can prevent people from shoulder surfing, checking your emails, or even seeing what code you use to unlock your phone.

But how does Privacy Screen actually work? Is it easy to close and open? Does it affect screen brightness? After hands-on with the feature at the Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event in San Francisco, I’m here to answer all those questions and more.

How does this work?

The privacy display uses something Samsung calls “black matrix” technology, which uses a combination of small pixels and wide angles to control the viewing angle of the display.

Turn on the feature and the S26 Ultra reduces the intensity of wide pixels, leaving smaller pixels in full brightness. The result is that without an axis, you cannot read what is on the screen easily. It’s the perfect tool for reading critical business emails while sitting on the bus … or sneaking pictures of tractors during a work meeting.

The effect kicks in as it rotates 30 degrees away from perpendicular and works in both vertical and horizontal planes, the effect becoming progressively more pronounced the higher you get. If someone’s sitting really close, it won’t help much – but, hopefully, you’ll have seen them checking out by now anyway.

Now, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen privacy screen technology built right into the screen. Laptop manufacturer HP, for example, has been putting SureView digital privacy screens on business laptops for some time.

Where the S26 Ultra differs is that it can control the effect on a per-pixel basis, allowing certain areas of the screen to be filtered, so you can show what’s on the screen to a friend without worrying about critical notifications popping up and being read.

The same caveat applies, however, if they are shoulder to shoulder, the effect is reduced, and they will still be able to read your notifications.

How do you use it?

I worry about exciting new hardware features like these, because they’re often introduced to many fans, and then most users can’t take full advantage of them because the settings are hidden, deep in the menu system.

Not here. As soon as you remove the control center’s menu system from the top-right corner of the display, you’ll see a large, lozenge-shaped button titled Privacy Display, just below the brightness and volume sliders. Tap the circular button embedded inside this controller and it toggles the feature on and off. Tap on the right side of the circle and you will be taken to the settings screen.

This is where things start to get interesting. The first thing you’ll notice is that you can increase the intensity of the setting. In normal mode, the contents of your screen are always slightly visible when viewed from the side. Flip the Maximum Privacy Protection button, however, and the screen goes completely black for, well, maximum privacy.

This screen is also where you can set the Privacy Screen to block notifications only. That’s a straightforward thing to do: simply tap on “Opening conditions” and enable turning on notification pop-ups.

But it doesn’t end there. On the same screen you can quickly set the phone to enable privacy mode automatically when you enter passcodes on the lock screen and end. And if you tap the Apps option, you can set the privacy screen to open automatically only when you use certain software; maybe you don’t want your passengers to see that you are sharing confidential government information with your contact on WhatsApp. This is your go-to setting in this situation.

Here it is in action at the Samsung Unpacked event in San Francisco:

Does it affect the brightness of the screen?

The simple answer to this question is, yes. Tap the toggle in the control center and you’ll quickly see the brightness drop by a few nits. Is this a big problem? Not unless you’re in the habit of looking at your screen at full brightness all the time.

In most cases, all you’ll need to do is move the brightness slider up a few notches or two, which begs the question: why doesn’t the phone automatically adjust for this? Maybe it’s because increasing the brightness affects the battery life, but I don’t think it will affect it that much.

Regardless, the effect on contrast isn’t that great, and it doesn’t seem to affect color vibrancy, either. I will confirm this once I can test the display properly with my colorimeter, but to the naked eye, watching Netflix with this feature enabled is not easy to watch without turning it off.

Final thoughts

I love that Samsung introduced this feature in their flagship phone; it is a very useful tool that works very well, and is incredibly easy to use. I’d like it even more, though, if Samsung would introduce it to its entire range of S26 smartphones, though – not just the expensive Ultra.

However, more than anything for now, it’s good to see some decent hardware innovation in the smartphone space once again. As many manufacturers focus more on AI features – understandably, perhaps – they have long felt that hardware has been neglected. Well done Samsung for producing something that cuts through the noise.

Display Privacy probably won’t sell the Ultra itself to potential Ultra customers, but it certainly created a stir.

Written by

Jonathan Bray

Head of reviews at Expert Reviews, Jon has been testing and writing about products since before most of you were born (well, only if you were born after 1996). During that time he has tested and reviewed hundreds of laptops, PCs, cell phones, vacuum cleaners, coffee machines, doorbells, cameras and more. He has worked on websites since the early days of technology, writing game reviews for AOL and hardware reviews for PC Pro, Computer Buyer and other publications. He has also had work published in Trusted Reviews, Whither Computing? and the Observer. However, even after so many years in the industry, there is nothing he likes more than getting to know a new product and introducing it to its categories.

More about