Samsung's Galaxy S26 Ultra Has Tech YouTube Divided — and Both Sides Are Right

The Privacy Display: Samsung's Best Hardware Move in Years

Here's where things get genuinely interesting. The Privacy Display is the one feature on the S26 Ultra that doesn't exist anywhere else. Samsung built dedicated narrow pixels directly into the panel — when you enable the feature, anyone looking at your phone from an angle sees a blank screen. You see everything normally. It works per-app, so your banking app activates it automatically while your Twitter feed doesn't. The "Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra Review: The Most Innovative Galaxy Yet" video [2] called it out as the clearest sign Samsung can still innovate: "This tech blows away third party privacy screen protectors you peel and stick onto your phone because you can turn the feature on and off at will." And they're right — it's not a software trick or a film overlay. It's hardware. The engineering is real. But here's where the split happens. Paul's review notes a meaningful downside: enabling the privacy display slightly dims your screen (you lose some peak brightness compared to the S25 Ultra — roughly 1860 nits vs. 1860 nits baseline, with meaningful head-on viewing difference). Paul said he had it off the entire time. There are reports of eye strain from users who keep it on, enough that some sent the phone back. So it's brilliant and potentially a deal-breaker depending on your use case. That's very Samsung.

Galaxy AI: Samsung's Biggest Bet That Reviewers Aren't Using

Samsung pitched the S26 Ultra as the start of the "agentic AI phone" era. One UI 8.5 on Android 16 brings features like Now Brief (which surfaces contextual recommendations from your conversations — someone texts "what time should we meet?" and a calendar shortcut pops up) and forthcoming automated app actions via Gemini that let you book an Uber or place a DoorDash order with a voice command. As a developer, this is legitimately interesting architecture. Giving an AI model the ability to interact with apps on your behalf — not through APIs but through actual UI actions — is non-trivial to build reliably. If it works, it's a meaningful shift in how people interact with their phones. The problem: reviewers haven't actually used it. Paul's take was unambiguous — "In the few weeks I've had the phone, I honestly can't tell you one time that I've used anything Galaxy AI." [1] The more positive review acknowledged the features while noting most of the useful AI is locked behind Samsung's default keyboard, which "is the worst keyboard you can get." [1] This is a pattern Samsung keeps repeating. They build AI features, demo them impressively at Unpacked, and then watch reviewers and users quietly ignore them. At some point, the gap between what Samsung announces and what people actually use has to get addressed.

The Cameras Are Still Elite — Video Especially

Here's the part where I have to give Samsung full credit: the cameras on the S26 Ultra remain some of the best you can get on any phone, full stop. The 200MP main sensor got a new f/1.4 aperture (down from f/1.7), which means it pulls in noticeably more light in dark conditions. The 50MP 5x telephoto has a faster aperture too. Low-light performance — historically a weakness against iPhone — is genuinely improved this year. Both review transcripts confirmed it with side-by-side testing. But the real story is video. Samsung added Horizon Lock, which uses both the main camera and ultrawide to keep your horizon level no matter how much you're moving. The APV codec support and log profile recording give videographers proper tools. The 5x telephoto video quality is described in both reviews as looking "so nice" and being "top of the tree" for Android. The "Samsung can't keep getting away with this" reviewer — despite being critical of almost everything else — said video quality on the S26 Ultra is "the closest that you can get to the annoyingly good quality on an iPhone." [1] That's a real compliment from a tough crowd.

The Part That Has Both Reviewers Agreeing: The Camera Bump Needs to Go

One thing both camps agree on: the camera bump wobbles. The new translucent pill-shaped glass plateau looks cleaner than the floating lenses on the S25 Ultra, but it's thick enough that the phone rocks on a flat table. Compare this to the iPhone 17 Pro Max's camera island, which spans the full width of the back and doesn't create the same wobble. Small thing in isolation, annoying for a $1,300 phone. And the no-magnets decision is still baffling. Samsung explicitly left off built-in G2-style magnets to achieve the thinner design and larger vapor chamber for cooling. The company says 98% of customers use cases anyway. Fine — but the people who bought G2 power banks or accessories for previous models can't use them with this one because the camera layout changed. That's a real compatibility regression, not just an omission.

So Who Should Actually Buy This?

Here's my take after reading through both transcripts: if you're on an S23 Ultra or older, this is an excellent upgrade. You're getting genuinely better cameras, faster charging, meaningfully improved performance, a useful (if slightly trade-off-laden) privacy display, and the best Android video experience available. If you're on an S25 Ultra, there's almost nothing here for you. Paul said it and the numbers back it up — this phone "feels no different to the S25 Ultra, the S24 Ultra, or even the S23 Ultra." [1] That's the honest verdict. And if you're looking for a phone that genuinely excited the people who reviewed it — reviewers who get paid to care about smartphones — the S26 Ultra didn't deliver that. Not because it's bad. It's good. It's a solid, powerful, well-built phone. But "solid" at $1,299 doesn't feel like enough when Chinese brands are closing the gap fast and Apple is raising the bar on video and battery. Samsung's Galaxy S26 Ultra problem isn't the phone. It's that we've had this conversation before, with basically the same phone, for three years running. At some point "the best Android phone you can get in the US" stops sounding like a compliment and starts sounding like the lowest possible bar.

• Best Android video camera, period
• Privacy display is a genuine hardware innovation
• Finally has 60W fast charging
• Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 — powerful, efficient
• Galaxy AI: cool on paper, invisible in practice
• Privacy display dims your screen slightly — real tradeoff
• No built-in magnets — existing G2 accessories won't fit
• Same battery, same capacity, same good enough for one day
• $1,299 for incremental over S25 Ultra is a tough sell