Samsung Galaxy S26/Ultra Impressions: One Crazy Display Feature!

[00:00] and welcome to what was supposed to be your first look and hands-on with Unfortunately, that is in California, and that shut down all the flights for like two days.

[00:16] and that's still in California. Thankfully, from a city that got way less snow. he sent it back to me.

[00:28] so I'm going to put it all together and we'll still take a first look together... at what looks like a kind of interesting new set of phones from Samsung. they're pretty similar to last year with just some slightly new colors

[00:44] and a slightly different looking camera ring with this little the first thing that stuck out to me is just the new prices. Typically I'll just save that for the end because it's the same as last year,

[00:58] This time, the S26 is $900, the S26+ is $1,100, So this comes with a bump up in base storage. last year the S25 launched at $799 and was 128 gigs.

[01:12] This year, the S26 is $899, but it's also 256 gigs. is 256 gigs and it's 100 bucks more. And then the Ultra was $1,300, it's $1,300 again.

[01:26] year as like the mid-range but it feels like they're making room for that now to be like an $800 phone. So then if that's the context for these new phones,

[01:42] Well, We've seen this non-Galaxy version of the chip be excellent already, stuff on the Samsung one.

[01:56] And then the Ultra specifically is also so it's a little bit thinner now and a little bit less boxy and squared off... and they've redesigned the vapor chamber to fit in this thinner design.

[02:13] And there's also now slightly faster charging across the lineup. 25 watts on the S26, 45 watts on the S26+, and 60 watts on the Ultra. And then pretty much all the rest of the hardware changes are just on the Ultra,

[02:28] slightly wider apertures on those otherwise unchanged primary and telephoto So looks like we're going from f/1.7 to 1.4 on the main

[02:40] Pretty modest hardware changes, I would say. and still no silicon-carbon batteries. and it's just in the Ultra phone, and it's the new Privacy Display...

[02:55] I didn't want to look into it too much, but now that it's real and I've seen this— you know those privacy screen protectors people put on their

[03:08] Probably seen one on someone else's phone at some point... So instead of that privacy screen protector, this is a hardware-level control

[03:23] the pixels on the display that can be turned on or off whenever. the display should look unchanged from straight on, fades to gray and almost black...

[03:35] So you're still seeing a normal display from the straight-on view, but anyone trying to look over your shoulder or sitting next to you That's genuinely really sick! And hey,

[03:51] I'm not gonna judge why you need this or what you're blocking on your screen, but there is actually a pretty good amount of customization over how exactly So you can turn it on or off, obviously, which is already sick,

[04:04] in certain locations or for certain apps, photos app. It can even be while you're filling in a password somewhere,

[04:19] or just for the top part of the screen where notifications come in... This also to me, if you think about it, is like the most...

[04:31] as we know, especially with the design... But they're also the same company that will try absolutely insane stuff,

[04:43] like the Galaxy Note Edge back in the day where like one side of the display curved and then that turned into the other Galaxy S edges where They did the Galaxy Note first, which is this huge display,

[04:55] And now they have a literal tri-fold, which is nuts! all these crazy designs that they decide to try are all based around... folding screen,

[05:10] So like, because I know if any other company was trying this, I just hope this finds some success in the Ultra and then

[05:24] most of the rest of what's new in this S26 lineup is—I mean, I'm guessing most of the keynote is going to have a lot of this...

[05:36] decently useful to... full-on slop. They managed to clone over some of Google's biggest hits from the Pixel, They also added their own version of Magic Queue,

[05:51] which basically lives in the keyboard and gives you suggestions of things it should be decently helpful. Bixby now being LLM-powered.

[06:04] but you know, with some Gemini integrations and some new Perplexity integrations could be... but you know, new Bixby... could be good.

[06:17] which, It's like... AI photo editing... it's cool tech. I don't know if it's selling any phones.

[06:31] they did that. They also did... kind of the same thing as, like, Apple's Image Playground. it feels like they're just throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall in the world

[06:47] see what people will like. stuff that I've seen for it, more important than ever to get real photos and videos

[07:02] the slippery slope of, like, all this AI stuff in our photos... but... here we are. These all very much look and and feel like Samsung phones,

[07:16] the small quality-of-life things under the skin and subtle evolution over time. My take is the Ultra feels like a little bit of a refresh and it's a cool place

[07:29] in person and try it out... The base phones going up by a hundred bucks. seems like they didn't try a whole lot of other stuff with—with those phones.

[07:44] in the comments section below. And of course, because that's If you're planning on grabbing an S26 Ultra,

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[08:41] you can save 15% by bundling their Prism screen protector with any case. it does work with the new privacy display. nationwide at Best Buy in the US.

[08:57] but thanks for watching. peace!