I just proved the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra screen is slightly dimmer than the S25 Ultra — but it doesn't make me love it any less
Benchmarks and visual tests prove it
· TechRadarNews By Lance Ulanoff published 13 March 2026
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The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra is unquestionably a brilliant flagship smartphone with a powerful, AI-ready processor, excellent cameras, a splendid design, and feature highlights like Super Steady Video and Privacy display. However, it's that last bit that may be responsible for a rather surprising S26 Ultra issue: the screen is ever-so-slightly dimmer than the S25 Ultra, even with the Privacy display disabled.
There have been online complaints about the Galaxy S26 Ultra screen, including some claiming it causes eye strain. As someone who spent many days staring at the 6.9-inch Dynamic AMOLED screen, I can tell you that I never experienced that. As far as I could tell, the screen looked bright, clear, and color-rich.
Still, I had been hearing about the change in brightness, which some thought might be attributable to the new Privacy display; the technology can make it almost impossible for someone to spy on your S26 Ultra display at off angles. This is not a software feature. Privacy display uses alternating narrow and wide pixels, turning off the latter when you enable the feature. When I did so, especially with the Maximum Privacy Protection setting enabled, I noticed that even on-angle, the screen looked slightly desaturated, meaning that there was a small concession for that level of screen privacy.
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When I asked Samsung about this, they confirmed, "When Maximum privacy protection feature is turned on, overall contrast ratio of the display gets lower/dimmer."
When I turned off Privacy Display, however, I did not notice any difference, and the S26 Ultra screen appeared as bright as ever.
After reading today's story and the concerns of Reddit, however, I decided to take another look.
First, I dug back into the Future Labs benchmarks, focusing specifically on brightness in Nits and color volume. The Galaxy S26 Ultra is rated by Samsung for 2600 peak nits, the same number as the S25 Ultra's screen (other than Privacy display, these panels are essentially identical), but it's rare for any flagship to meet these criteria under all of our test conditions.
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