Received it earlier (the official release day is March 11 but many others have also been receiving theirs since last week). Samsung doesn’t seem to be as anal as Apple (where they are really strict about pre-ordered devices arriving on the actual release day and never earlier). I pre-ordered after Galaxy Unpacked 2026 was completed.
Will run it through a series of usage tests and see if the complaints with the privacy display are valid in terms of the display itself being less sharp even with the feature turned off. If it is really noticeable, I will probably return it unless Samsung issues an update before the 14 day window closes.
I set it up to copy my S25 Ultra via cable (Samsung’s Smart Switch handles most of the tasks); it took less than 30 minutes. The only “problem” is Samsung Messages no longer being easily available (it migrated them into Google Messages). Even when I tried searching Samsung’s Galaxy Store, it didn’t show up (but it still does on the S25 Ultra). Searching around, it seems this has been ongoing since the S24 (when it looked like they were pushing everyone to Google Messages). Part of it seems to be due to RCS messaging.
The only alternative at this time is to sideload the APK (which is what I ended up doing). Something as simple as this reminds me why switching away from iOS isn’t an option for me at this time. I might end up picking up a Motorola in the future (2027) since they are partnering up with GrapheneOS.
As for the display, I haven’t really noticed any difference in the first few hours of use but when I did turn privacy display on (for the entire screen), I can see how that can be problematic because even viewing the screen at a slight angle, some text shows this distortion at that terminator line where the light transitions from its wider to straight up focus. It’s kind of easy to understand how that can cause eye fatigue (because your brain is going to send these signals to your eyes to try to compensate).
The feature can be turned on more granularly for specific apps and/or for specific actions (such as when entering a PIN, pattern, or password in Settings, secure folders, or the lock screen). The maximum privacy protection does warn this may make it more difficult to view the display even under normal use. Regardless, this is something that Samsung could tweak or better yet, provide a way for users to make granular adjustments for their own vision.
To be continued…
