Samsung has shipped the Galaxy S26 Ultra with an innovative Privacy Display feature, which aims to protect your on-screen content against prying eyes. Samsung is known for its display technologies innovation; it was the first to introduce OLED on smartphones and popularize it worldwide. However, the past few years have brought the phone maker criticism for being easy with new Galaxy S-series phones.

Yet, Privacy display marks a new milestone and has denounced those criticisms, especially since no other smartphone has this feature. The leaks and rumors around this feature have appeared on the internet long before the Unpacked event, but the picture wasn’t clear about the extent to which it would protect the screen.

However, hands-on experience has proved that Samsung’s words and actions are well aligned on this matter.

All the users need to do is enable the Privacy display feature from the quick panel, and it will block the majority of the viewing angles from all four directions. Yes, the feature will block the screen visibility based on the distance of the other person next to you or around you. Ultimately, it does a fantastic job of saving the screen from your nemesis.

Behind-the-scenes tech

The S26 Ultra’s AMOLED screen has two types of pixels – narrow, which emit light on the front, and wide pixels, which disperse light in broad angles (left, right, up, and down). The normal mode keeps these two pixel types enabled simultaneously.

However, the privacy mode dims wide pixels and keeps the narrow pixels in full effect. That’s how it creates a clear picture on the front and reduces visibility on the sides.

Reviews and user reports

Reviewers have praised this technology for its effectiveness in hiding the screen, which is a good thing for the company’s portfolio because getting genuine reviews isn’t an easy thing for a new tech.

However, there’s a side that we can’t ignore: eye fatigue. Some users report that the feature is causing eye fatigue and headaches on long runs. However, such reports differ from those of users who have been using the S26 Ultra since day one of their delivery.

With that said, Privacy display is proven as an innovation for Samsung, and it shows that the company is still doing new things in the background to improve user experience.

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Samsung may have been focusing on selling and promoting the Galaxy S26 series, but its next-gen foldable phones, including the Z Fold 8 Wide, have already started creating buzz online.

Recently, CAD renders of the upcoming Z Fold 8 surfaced online courtesy of Onleaks. The phone looked almost like the Fold 7 with the same size and shape. At the time when users called it a Fold 7 clone, another set of renders appeared, this time, it was Z Fold 8 Wide.

Similar to its name, the phone is wider than the Z Fold 8. The Wide version aims to go for a more tablet-like experience in folded and unfolded states.

But we’ve dived deeper into this new foldable and found five major differences you will find against the Fold 8.

It’s wide

The Z Fold 8 is 143.2mm wide, but the Fold 8 Wide measures 161.4mm when unfolded. Meanwhile, the Fold 8 Wide shrinks to 82.2mm, and the Fold 8 to 72.8mm when folded. It can be seen that the phone remains wide on both fronts.

This will directly impact the viewing experience with a revamped resolution that will be more horizontal, view-friendly for multitasking two apps on each side, or watching a YouTube video.

Wide cover screen

The cover screen will only be 5.4 inches, but it will be wider, like a vertical tablet. On the other hand, the Fold 8 will offer a 6.5-inch smartphone-like display.

The Fold 8 Wide’s display also goes corner to corner with small bezels, which will improve its hands-on experience. However, it may not be comfortable to operate with one hand.

Image via Android Headlines

Smaller

Despite increasing the width, the Z Fold 8 will be taller than its wide sibling. The former stands at 158.4mm (folded, unfolded) and the latter comes at 123.9mm.

The size reduction here will contribute to the horizontal experience that we’ve talked about earlier.

Galaxy Z Fold 8 CAD Render (Source – Androidheadlines)

Small Internal screen

The Fold 8 Wide’s specs gave it a clear win over the Z Fold 8 in terms of overall width. Still, it has a smaller foldable screen; according to the leaked data, it will sport a 7.5-inch panel, compared to 8 inches on the Fold 8.

The size difference could belong to the bigger bezels on the wide fold, but the current picture looks gleaming.

Thicker

Furthermore, the wide fold will add around 0.4mm and 0.8mm thickness for unfolded and folded states, respectively.

Cameras

Samsung isn’t using an under-display camera on the internal screen, nor on the cover. On the rear side, you will see two cameras, and it kind of reminds me of the Galaxy S25 Edge. It means the phone might have a main 200MP and a 12MP ultra-wide-angle camera, followed by an LED flash.

Conclusion

Overall, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 wide provides a new orientation to Samsung’s foldable device portfolio and will allow customers to choose a different version of what they currently have in the market.

Besides these revelations, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Fold 8 Wide will come with a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, new AI features, the latest One UI  version, and other key improvements.

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Recently, Samsung released the 8th One UI 8.5 beta software for the Galaxy S26 series, bringing nearly dozens of bug fixes and improvements to the system. These fixes are applied to the gallery apps, camera app, Studio app, notifications, Now Brief, and some cross-device connection capabilities with Samsung’s notebooks.

Test programs are designed to provide insights into the upcoming features and software capabilities. Usually, the first changelog comes filled with a ton of features, but the next few have to be explored to find hidden gems.

Besides bug fixes, the company hasn’t mentioned any other system improvements. By doing so, I gave the system a free run on my Galaxy S25 Ultra.

Similar to my previous explorations, I compared it with the Galaxy S26 Ultra for task execution and touch response speed tests. This time around, the S25 Ultra performed even better in terms of opening apps and sending them back to the background. The scrolling and app loading have been improved as well.

The stability in the beta version is far better than any other OTA update released under the Galaxy S25 series’s beta program. It means that the software is ready to roll out for all Galaxy S25 series, but there’s a catch.

You know, Samsung might be fixing some more bugs before calling the program off for the S25 series users. However, we found that the software is working just fine with all of its features working without any issues.

Samsung has confirmed that the beta program will expand for more devices in April, and this should be an indication that the S25 series is likely to conclude its testing phase in the same month.

Did you install the 8th One UI 8.5 beta on your S25 series phone, and how’s your experience so far? Share it here on my dedicated thread on X.

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The past week was a joy ride for the One UI 8.5 beta program, with more Samsung devices joining the test phase, but without the Galaxy S25 Edge.

The Galaxy S25 FE, S24, S24+, S24 Ultra, S24 FE, Fold 6, Flip 6, Tab S11 series entered the beta in the latest round. Despite being limited to key markets, Samsung enabled these device owners to test the new features and prepare the firmware for the final release, which could happen in April.

Providing the beta slot to the S25 FE and not doing the same for the S25 Edge doesn’t make sense. The phone has a higher price point and also has high-end specs, which collide directly with the latest generation of S-series.

It also serves 7 generations of OS upgrades, which makes it worthy of a device to enter the beta program first. Yet, the decision to keep the phone in the dark is worth noticing. For now, Samsung hasn’t said anything on this matter, nor have its community moderators, but we’ll have to wait for the next major development in this story.

S25 Edge

This Galaxy phone brings aesthetics and power in one package. Samsung said it has to revisit internal component assembly and reduce the size of components, such as the charging port, to make it thinner than any Galaxy S-series phone.

The phone measures 5.8mm thin and weighs only 163 grams, which makes it easy to hold and operate at the same time. Despite this thin outlook, the phone doesn’t compromise on the specs. It has a 6.7-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with a smooth frame rate. The phone offers a 200MP main camera on the rear, the same as the S25 Ultra.

With these specs and a premium build, the Galaxy S25 Edge should have been included in the One UI 8.5 beta program, yet it is still missing that in action.

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With the Galaxy S26 series, Samsung introduced a 24MP photo mode that captures higher-resolution photos, different from the default mode.

Despite offering the 12MP mode by default, users can enable 24MP mode in the main camera app. You just need to enter the camera assistant settings and select the advanced camera resolution. Once enabled, you can switch the resolution from the camera UI and capture images.

The new 24MP mode offers fast captures and high-quality images for users. With AI fusion, it captures 12MP multi-frame static to get the high-dynamic range, while simultaneously shooting a 50MP high-resolution frame to improve the quality.

Eventually, the AI analyzes these 12MP and 50MP shots and combines them into one picture with rich colors and texture details in a single image. That said, the output won’t mess up with the storage due to its resolution file size.

This mode lives in both worlds, for example, a 50MP photograph lacks vibrant color patterns due to complex HDR processing for higher-resolutions. However, cutting this resolution ceiling to 24MP meets the baseline requirements and helps to speed up the HDR process for sharper and more detailed captures.

Support for older Galaxy devices

So, the 24MP camera does have the potential to provide a better photography experience. That leaves many Galaxy S25, S24 series, and S23 series users asking whether the 24MP camera mode will reach their devices with One UI 8.5.

The 24MP camera mode is part of the camera assistant and not the stock camera app. Camera assistant is a Good Lock module, which is also supported by the previous generation of devices.

On the other hand, past S-series and Foldables bring high-end camera specs, some of these matches the latest releases. So, Samsung shouldn’t have any problem in offering the 24MP camera mode to old Galaxy devices.

Eventually, the technical answer to the user’s question is yes, Samsung can rollout 24MP to old Galaxy devices, but only an official confirmation could clear the clouds.

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