The people who are genuinely concerned about shoulder surfing probably slapped on a privacy filter anyway. They're no different from a screen protector. What the S26 Ultra can do is cool and super useful for the few people who need it, but I'd bet that all the rest will just show it off as a cool party trick and nothing more.
I've seen this with laptops that came with integrated electronically controlled privacy filter. They were nice but eventually the added cost, complexity, and lowered image quality didn't make them a popular choice even for enterprise users. I think only HP still offers them from the big brands, Dell and Lenovo don't do it anymore.
> The people who are genuinely concerned about shoulder surfing probably slapped on a privacy filter anyway.
So only the people concerned about it should get privacy?
> They're no different from a screen protector.
Privacy filters are way worse than screen protectors, they permanently degrade your display experience by a LOT, and you cant turn them off when you dont need them.
> I've seen this with laptops that came with integrated electronically controlled privacy filter.
Which are a completely different thing than this privacy display.
> lowered image quality
Exactly, these addon filters or layers degrade image quality, this new display doesnt. In normal mode its just a normal 2600 nits, HDR, 120hz, and whatnot OLED smartphone display.
> So only the people concerned about it should get privacy?
To call this an uncharitable interpretation would be an understatement. The phone has a feature that costs money and if you look around you’ll see most people don’t bother with this concern.
It has nothing to do with “should”. I have the same privacy now and for way less than the price of that phone. The solution for privacy exists already and the one Samsung offers was already “rejected” in the past because of the added cost most likely. Why do you think it comes on one of the most expensive phones on the market?
> these addon filters or layers degrade image quality
You didn’t read my comment carefully. I wrote specifically about integrated electronically controlled privacy filters on screen laptops which lowered image quality.
A phone at this price level already targets a tiny niche just because of affordability. A small part of that niche buys the phone because they want the privacy screen.