It’s a marvel of engineering and it’s no surprise that the likes of Xiaomi with its 18 Pro series, and no doubt others soon, are adding it to high-end handsets. The feature blocks the person sitting next to you on the train from seeing what’s on your screen, and can even block just a specific section of the display for notifications or a floating app.
Seeing it in real life at the Galaxy S26 pre-briefing in London was the first time I’d thought “wow!” about a piece of new phone hardware in a long time.
The problem here is that, although it’s brilliant and impressive technology, it comes with various downsides.
Chris Martin / Foundry
When the Galaxy S26 Ultra hit the shelves, there was a huge debate about whether the screen was, in fact, worse than its predecessor. Turns out, you can’t just change the way display pixels work without making some compromises.
Users reported a much lower quality of experience even when the privacy display feature was switched off. Lower brightness, worse viewing angles, fuzzy text. It even made some users feel ill to look at it.
No doubt the clever engineers at Samsung Display and other companies can make these panels better in the future, but for now, phone makers adding these to flagship devices could make a simple change to negate the whole awkward situation.