- Samsung has introduced a privacy-protecting display feature for Galaxy phones
- This will allow you to hide certain types of content from anyone who is not viewing the screen in front of you.
- The company is also rumored to be upgrading the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra’s display to 10-bit.
While Samsung remains the biggest Android brand in the business, you could argue that its flagship Galaxy S line has been a bit light on new features and significant updates in recent years. But that could at least change a little with the Samsung Galaxy S26 series, as Samsung has introduced a new feature that it claims will be coming to Galaxy phones very soon.
This is essentially the Privacy View feature that’s been rumored for a while, and while Samsung hasn’t called it that (or given it any specific name) in the announcement, the company has gone into a bit of detail on how this “new front line for privacy” works.
It’s a feature that requires you to look at the screen head-on to see what’s on it, thereby reducing what snoops can see. But in fact, it’s smarter than that, as you can customize it to hide only certain screen elements, such as sensitive notifications.
Samsung hasn’t said exactly how to customize it, but it has said that it can be adjusted, so it’s easy to imagine that it can be toggled only for certain apps or certain types of notifications.
You can see an example of what it will look like in images shared by the leaker. @UniverseIce, with a notification completely cleared when viewed from an angle. This should make the feature much more powerful than a simple privacy screen protector, which blocks the entire screen at all times when viewed at an angle and can also make the screen look washed out.
Exclusive! The privacy screen on the Samsung S26 Ultra goes far beyond a global privacy mode. It also supports partial and localized privacy control. That’s how it works. You can apply privacy protection only to a specific part of the screen, for example a message notification… pic.twitter.com/RWJPtR0qc8January 28, 2026
According to them, it works by allowing the phone to control the direction in which light is emitted from the individual OLED pixels, so that it only shines towards people directly facing the items you want to hide, although this detail has not been confirmed by Samsung itself.
Could be an Ultra exclusive
So this should be an important update for anyone who values their privacy, but it’s still unclear which phones it will actually come to.
Samsung has said “it’s coming to Galaxy very soon” and previous leaks suggested this was a feature of the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, so we’re almost certain it’s coming to that phone, but there’s a chance it could also come to other phones in the Samsung Galaxy S26 line.
Older phones are probably out of luck: While this is at least partially a software feature, it seems likely that there are specific hardware requirements as well, especially as Samsung’s announcement describes it as “a fusion of hardware and software”, so it’s unlikely this could arrive as a simple software update, but we can’t rule it out entirely.
Either way, for the phones that get it, this could be an important differentiating feature: helping Samsung phones stand out from rival Android phones and even iPhones.
And this is not the only screen update that the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra could receive, since @UniverseIce also said to expect a 10-bit display.
This would be an upgrade to the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra’s 8-bit display and would likely allow for richer, more accurate colors and improved HDR. So it looks like display upgrades could be the big focus this year.
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