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Samsung Galaxy S26/Ultra Imp… — Marques Brownlee shadowing | TryShadowing
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Marques Brownlee
Samsung Galaxy S26/Ultra Impressions: 1 Crazy Display Feature!
Samsung Galaxy S26/Ultra Impressions: 1 Crazy Display Feature!
Marques Brownlee
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9:10 · Feb 25, 2026
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0:00
Yo, what's up?
0:00
MKBHD here, and welcome to what was supposed to be your first look
0:03
and hands-on with the new Samsung phones this year.
0:06
Unfortunately, that is in California, and it just snowed like two-plus feet here,
0:13
and that shut down all the flights for like two days.
0:15
So, I'm still here!... and that's still in California.
0:19
Thankfully, Brandon from the team did actually get all the way out to California
0:22
from a city that got way less snow.
0:24
And so he's seen the phones, and he shot the footage of them,
0:27
he sent it back to me.
0:28
I've got the spec sheets here,
0:29
so I'm going to put it all together
0:30
and we'll still take a first look together... at what looks like a kind
0:33
of interesting new set of phones from Samsung.
0:39
And so as expected, the designs—well,
0:42
they're pretty similar to last year with just some slightly new colors
0:45
and a slightly different looking camera ring with this little extra plateau around them
0:50
now.
0:50
But actually, the first thing
0:51
that stuck out to me is just the new prices.
0:53
Typically I'll just save
0:53
that for the end
0:54
because it's the same
0:54
as last year,
0:55
but not this time...
0:56
This time, the S26 is $900, the S26+ is $1,100,
1:02
and the S26 Ultra is $1,300.
1:05
So this comes with a bump up in base storage.
1:07
So if you remember,
1:08
last year the S25 launched at $799 and was 128 gigs.
1:12
This year, the S26 is $899, but it's also 256 gigs.
1:17
But then also, the S26+... is 256 gigs and it's 100 bucks more.
1:22
It's $1,100 instead of $1,000...
1:24
And then the Ultra was $1,300, it's $1,300 again.
1:26
You know, they've always come out with the Fan Edition later in the year
1:28
as like the mid-range priced version of the phone,
1:32
but it feels like they're making room for
1:33
that now to be like an $800 phone.
1:36
So just a lot of price creep happening in this lineup.
1:39
So then if that's the context for these new phones,
1:41
then what is actually new to justify this new price?
1:45
Well, they all got the spec bump we expected:
1:47
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy.
1:50
We've seen this non-Galaxy version of the chip be excellent already,
1:53
and there's a lot of talk about NPU optimization for AI stuff on the
1:56
Samsung one.
1:57
More on that in a minute, but looks like a good chip.
1:59
And then the Ultra specifically is also a slightly updated design,
2:03
so it's a little bit thinner now
2:04
and a little bit less boxy
2:06
and squared off...
2:07
It's also back to aluminum sides instead of titanium,
2:10
and they've redesigned the vapor chamber to fit in this thinner design.
2:13
And there's also now slightly faster charging across the lineup.
2:16
Nothing dramatic, but 25 watts on the S26, 45 watts on the S26+,
2:21
and 60 watts on the Ultra.
2:24
And then pretty much all the rest of the hardware changes are just on
2:26
the Ultra,
2:27
which now has... slightly wider apertures on those otherwise unchanged primary
2:32
and telephoto cameras just to let more light in.
2:34
So looks like we're going from f/1.7 to 1.4 on the main
2:38
and f/3.4 to 2.4 on the 3X.
2:41
Pretty modest hardware changes, I would say.
2:45
Still no magnets and still no silicon-carbon batteries.
2:48
But there is one... really cool feature to me,
2:52
and it's just in the Ultra phone, and it's the new Privacy Display... feature.
2:58
So I saw leaks of this;
2:59
I didn't want to look into it too much,
3:00
but now that it's real
3:01
and I've seen this— at least the footage of it—it looks incredible.
3:04
So, you know those privacy screen protectors people put on their phones to kind
3:07
of block others... from seeing what's on their screen?
3:10
Probably seen one on someone else's phone at some point...
3:12
They look kind of horrible.
3:14
So instead of that privacy screen protector, which is annoying and also always on,
3:18
this is a hardware-level control over... the pixels on the display
3:25
that can be turned on
3:26
or off whenever.
3:27
And when you turn it on... the display should look unchanged from straight on,
3:30
but as you get off-axis,
3:32
it actually... fades to gray
3:35
and almost black... from both the horizontal axis
3:38
and vertical axis.
3:39
So you're still seeing a normal display from the straight-on view,
3:42
but anyone trying to look over your shoulder
3:44
or sitting next to you will see basically a blank screen.
3:48
That's genuinely really sick!
3:50
And hey, I'm not gonna judge why you need this
3:52
or what you're blocking on your screen,
3:54
but there is actually a pretty good amount of customization over how exactly this
3:57
works or when you can use it.
3:59
So you can turn it on or off, obviously, which is already sick,
4:02
but you can also have it automatically enable in certain locations
4:06
or for certain apps,
4:08
like just for your banking app or just for your... photos app.
4:12
It can even be parts of the screen...
4:15
So just for the password field, while you're filling in a password somewhere,
4:19
it will just black out
4:20
that... or just for the top part of the screen where notifications come in...
4:25
It will do just that.
4:26
I just think, I think this is awesome!
4:28
This also to me, if you think about it, is like the most...
4:31
Samsung thing ever.
4:32
Like, like Samsung for the past couple years, as we know,
4:35
has been super conservative with these like flagship phones, especially with the design...
4:39
But they're also the same company that will try absolutely insane stuff,
4:43
like the Galaxy Note Edge back in the day where like one side of
4:46
the display curved over the bezel for the first time,
4:48
and then that turned into the other Galaxy S edges where both sides melted
4:52
over.
4:53
They did the Galaxy Note first, which is this huge display,
4:55
and then of course Galaxy Fold, which is super early and risky.
4:59
And now they have a literal tri-fold, which is nuts!
5:01
And all of these things,
5:02
all these crazy designs
5:03
that they decide to try are all based around... display innovations...
5:07
so curved screen,
5:08
waterfall screen, folding screen, multiple folding screen, and now this privacy screen.
5:14
So like, this feels like a very Samsung thing to try,
5:16
and I hope it catches on,
5:17
because I know if any other company was trying this,
5:19
their fans would all be loving it too...
5:21
I just hope this finds some success in the Ultra
5:24
and then starts making its way... to other phones,
5:26
because it's sick.
5:26
So then, most of the rest of what's new in this S26 lineup is—I
5:30
mean,
5:30
you're going to see commercials with it.
5:31
I'm guessing most of the keynote is going to have a lot of this...
5:35
It's AI features and they range from decently useful to... full-on slop.
5:41
Like they're just trying a bunch of stuff.
5:43
They managed to clone over some of Google's biggest hits from the Pixel,
5:46
like call screening, which is welcome...
5:48
They also added their own version of Magic Queue, which they're calling now Nudge,
5:53
which basically lives in the keyboard
5:55
and gives you suggestions of things to bring in from other apps.
5:57
It's context-aware; it should be decently helpful.
6:00
And there's also some big claimed improvements with Bixby now being LLM-powered.
6:04
We've seen some other companies struggle with that lately, but you know,
6:07
with some Gemini integrations and some new Perplexity integrations could be... decent.
6:13
I mean, I'm not going to say anything until I try it,
6:15
but you know, new Bixby... could be good.
6:17
But then they also did something called Photo Assist, which,
6:20
which is essentially what Google did with Google Photos.
6:22
It's like...
6:23
AI photo editing... but built into the gallery, which it's cool tech.
6:29
I don't know if it's selling any phones.
6:30
It'll probably be a software update for older phones, but they did that.
6:34
They also did...
6:35
Creative Studio, which is kind of the same thing as, like, Apple's Image Playground.
6:41
Borderline useless in my opinion. but like I said,
6:43
it feels like they're just throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall in
6:46
the world of AI just to see what will stick,
6:48
see what people will like.
6:50
They're actually calling it an AI phone in some of the press stuff
6:53
that I've seen for it,
6:55
which I don't love.
6:56
I feel like in an age where it's... more important than ever to get
7:01
real photos and videos from people's cell phones,
7:04
the slippery slope of, like, all this AI stuff in our photos... it's weird.
7:08
I'm not sure I love how far down the slope we're going,
7:10
but... here we are.
7:11
Anyway, no real massive surprises.
7:13
These all very much look and and feel like Samsung phones,
7:17
where most of the differences are just, like,
7:18
the small quality-of-life things under the skin and subtle evolution over time.
7:23
This is not one of their big Hail Marys.
7:24
My take is the Ultra feels like a little bit of a refresh
7:27
and it's a cool place to try this privacy screen thing.
7:29
I'm very excited to... see it... in person
7:33
and try it out... looks pretty sick!
7:36
The base phones going up by a hundred bucks.
7:38
Not so excited about
7:39
that... seems like they didn't try a whole lot of other stuff with—with those
7:43
phones.
7:44
But let me know what else you want to see in the full reviews
7:47
in the comments section below.
7:48
And of course, get subscribed to see the reviews
7:50
as soon as they come out,
7:51
because that's what the button is for.
7:54
If you're planning on grabbing an S26 Ultra,
7:57
would you rather have a case for it
7:59
that looks like this
8:02
or a case that looks like this?
8:04
Because if you've never used a Ghost case from channel sponsor dbrand before,
8:07
the main thing to call out is
8:08
that unlike pretty much every other clear case,
8:10
the Ghost case is guaranteed to never turn yellow.
8:14
And dbrand really means guaranteed;
8:16
they'll literally replace your Ghost for free for life... if it ever turns yellow.
8:21
And, of course, it's got all the other features you'd expect from a dbrand
8:23
case:
8:23
super strong magnets since the phone doesn't have them, clicky buttons,
8:27
and up to 10 feet of drop protection.
8:29
You know, just in case...
8:31
And fun fact: even though Samsung just announced the phone,
8:33
dbrand's entire S26 lineup—the zero-yellowing Ghost, customizable Grip,
8:37
and super rugged Tank case—are all available and shipping now.
8:41
Plus, if you want to pick up a screen protector while you're at it,
8:42
you can save 15% by bundling their Prism screen protector with any case.
8:46
They're super easy to install, they include two in the pack, and yes,
8:50
it does work with the new privacy display.
8:52
So dbrand's new S26 lineup is available on their site
8:55
and nationwide at Best Buy in the US.
8:58
I'll leave a link down below if you want to check them out,
8:59
but thanks for watching.
9:01
Let me know what you think.
9:02
Catch you guys in the next one. peace!
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