Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2026 LIVE: The S26 Ultra Reveal Is Here
Finally, seeing the Galaxy S26 Ultra at Unpacked 2026 didn’t really change my mind about the rounded design (still not a fan), but it did clarify the compromise Samsung is making. The phone feels more consistent with the rest of the S26 lineup, and it’s undeniably more mainstream and easier to live with. In doing so, however, the Ultra loses some of the visual authority it had, in my opinion. The boxy look of the previous Note era made it feel like it was the phone for people who wanted the most phone, not just the most beautiful.
That said, the new privacy view is the kind of feature that made me stop complaining. Built directly into the display hardware, the feature limits side visibility and can automatically hide sensitive notifications or activate when you use specific apps such as banking. As Katie Collins notes in her review, this is one of the few features of the phone that actually feels new. This is not a flashy AI per se, but a smart, invisible solution to a real everyday problem.
In general, most of the AI announcements didn’t resonate with me that much. Much of this still feels like table stakes at this point: summaries, photo editing tools, nudges, briefs, blah blah blah. I don’t really care about additional AI features unless they do something to save me time or reduce friction. And that’s why AI call screening stood out. Spam calls are the bane of my existence (I get dozens of them a day), and anything that can intercept them, summarize what happened, and allow me to decide if it’s worth my attention is exactly how AI should be used.
So yeah, I’m still mourning the sharp-cornered Ultra a bit, but between the privacy screen and some genuinely handy AI touches, the S26 Ultra at least makes a case that it’s evolving in ways that really matter… to me.
