After weeks of leaks, the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra is now official, and is being marketed as the world’s first flagship phone with a built-in privacy screen. There is also a custom 5th generation Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, and the price of the smartphone starts at 1,449 euros.
Samsung has fully unveiled the Galaxy S26 Ultra, which it is touting as the world’s first smartphone with a built-in privacy screen. It is not an additional layer on top of the screen. Rather, it is a hardware-level solution, and the feature can limit visibility from side angles by controlling light scattering at the pixel level.
While side vision is obscured, Samsung promises that frontal clarity will not be affected. Users can also set the feature to activate when using certain applications or when viewing or entering sensitive information. Of course, this feature is not expected to remain exclusive to Samsung phones, as a recent report indicated that Chinese phone makers are also exploring this technology.
However, this is not the only big improvement over the Galaxy S25 Ultra. The new flagship phone comes equipped with the fifth generation Snapdragon 8 Elite processor dedicated to Galaxy. It’s an overclocked version of the regular System on a Chip, and Samsung says it’s been specially tuned to deliver better performance.
To ensure stability under pressure, the Galaxy S26 Ultra comes with a vapor chamber containing additional thermal materials. While the battery hasn’t seen any upgrade, there is support for Ultra-Speed Charging 3.0, and with a fast charger, the battery can be charged from 0% to 75% in 30 minutes (the Anker Prime 160W charger is currently available for $105.99 on Amazon).
In terms of the camera, the S26 Ultra phone features a 50-megapixel ultra-wide camera with f/1.9 lens aperture, a 200-megapixel main camera with optical image stabilization with f/1.4 lens aperture, a 50-megapixel telephoto camera with optical image stabilization and 5x optical zoom with f/2.9 lens aperture, and another 10-megapixel telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom with f/2.9 lens aperture. F/2.4. The setup may not look much different from its predecessor, but the wider aperture on three sensors should lead to better low-light photography.
There’s also an upgraded AI image signal processor, which is said to enhance both portrait and selfie shots, while the Ultra Steady video feature gets a horizontal lock option and promises better stabilization.
The Galaxy’s AI is still deeply integrated across the system, and in addition to Google Gemini, the Galaxy S26 Ultra integrates Perplexity and Bixby. On the software front, Samsung is sticking to its promise of providing software and security updates for seven years.
The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra is now available for pre-order, starting at €1,449 in the EU. It is expected to hit retail on March 11, 2026. Check out the first impressions video below to learn more.
