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Guys, I really love my Galaxy S26 Ultra. I'm sure you know, I used to be a full-time Pixel user, but with the Pixel 10, I was just a little bit bored. There wasn't much new. I was kind of tired of the Tensor G5. Too many AI features that I wasn't using on a daily basis, and because of that, I desperately needed a change. So, I switched to the Galaxy S26 Ultra. I've never owned the latest Ultra phone from Samsung before, and after switching from the Pixel 10, let me tell you, I 100% understand why people consider the Ultra lineup to be one of the best phones you can get on the market. In my eyes, there's just an overwhelming amount of features and hardware to love here. Privacy display with anti-reflective coating, the
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is an absolute screamer. The S Pen, if you actually learn how to use it, is insanely useful. One UI is just so incredibly in-depth, packed with features without needing to overly rely on AI like Pixel does. The 200 MP camera sensor with log video and horizon lock is by far one of the most capable cameras on a smartphone I've used in a while. In my experience, the S26 Ultra is a fully complete device in almost every way. Excellent at pretty much everything, and I'm going to go into more detail as to why in this video from a Pixel user's perspective. And to be clear, this is not a review unit, by the way. I picked this up on my personal Google Fi line. It was on sale for about
$400 off, and let me tell you guys, I feel it was worth every single penny. Let's get started, and I need to say something maybe a little bit controversial here, but I 100% disagree with anyone that called the privacy display a gimmick when this phone first came out. In fact, it kind of makes me question how they came to that opinion in the first place. Those of you who said privacy display is a gimmick, I really honestly need to ask you, do you ever go outside? Do you ever leave the house? Do you have any kind of social life? Because I'm just being honest here, I'm a busy guy. I'm traveling constantly. I'm going to church, restaurants, the gym, outings with friends and family, and privacy display has quickly become the number one most
useful piece of tech on this entire device. I'm using it almost every single day in some way, shape, or form. Many times I go to the gym, occasionally browsing work emails and Slack messages containing private information that obviously no one else can see. On other phones, I just have to turn the brightness all the way down and kind of put my phone at a weird angle, but with privacy display, I just toggle it on and have genuine peace of mind that I can read my own materials without compromising the content. Another time I was traveling. I was on a long 8-hour flight. I wanted to watch a zombie movie on Netflix. Super gory, super bloody, very mature movie. And there was this super sweet, delicate, kind old lady
next to me, and I felt extremely awkward potentially exposing her to that kind of content. So, I just turned on privacy display, and I was able to enjoy the movie. I could see it, she could not. I was very happy with that. One more time, I was at church. I was sitting with people immediately next to me on both sides, and a friend was texting me about an unfortunate, heartbreaking situation. I turned on privacy display and kept talking with them without having to worry about someone else seeing the contents of the conversation. To me, this is what smartphones should be doing for us in 2026, adding new tech that
actually makes my day-to-day genuinely useful. I have privacy display in my quick settings panel. One tap and it's enabled on a basic level that's mildly inconvenient for others to see, or I can long press where I get an option for maximum privacy protection that's basically impossible for other people to view. In addition to that, we have customization options that you can turn on for a per app basis, notifications only, passwords only. It's a great tool built right into the device. And no, I don't think it's the same as getting a privacy screen protector like some people have suggested. If you like that, good for you. I'm happy for you. But me personally, I want to be able to turn
this feature on or off as needed. I want the customization to enable it under certain conditions. I don't want a 24/7 screen protector that permanently affects my viewing angles. And of course, aside from the privacy display, this is still one of the best screens Samsung has to offer. Yes, privacy display technology does slightly compromise the overall viewing experience even if the privacy display is disabled. Some say viewing angles are slightly worse and resolution seems a little bit worse as well compared to ultra panels of the past, but when I look at it side by side to a Pixel 10 Pro or my iPhone 17 Pro that I have for testing, I don't think I'm getting any less of a display at all. We still have
the anti-reflective coating, which gives a display that extra bit of depth and cuts down on the glare that most phones don't have. The panel itself is still excellent. It's a 6.9-in LTPO AMOLED screen, 505 pixels per inch covered in Gorilla Glass Armor 2, literally top of the line. It's still plenty vibrant and gorgeous to consume content on. I'm very happy with it, to say the least. I would say the only real complaint I have is peak brightness is a little bit low at 2600 nits, but that's really the worst thing that I can say about it. And that's just one particular aspect. Another thing that genuinely blows me away is how different One UI is compared to Pixel UI, and for me, it is really
good, if not one of the best Android skins, period. And again, I see why it's regarded as such within the general community. There is an insane amount of customization here. So many options, so many ways to set your device up exactly how you want it to within the core operating system itself. Every single tab in the settings menu has dozens on dozens of tweaks that you can make. Go to display options, battery options, home screen options, quick settings customization, the advanced feature section, everywhere you look, Samsung goes above and beyond to give you control, and every year they're adding more and more, which is so refreshing coming from a Pixel. And then on a visual level, they give you even more
control with Good Lock modules that you can download right from the official Galaxy Store. You don't have to install any third-party apps. It is Samsung endorsed all the way through. You can fully customize almost every single aspect when it comes to the look and feel like the stock keyboard example with effects and color changes through Keys Cafe. You can run custom themes and third-party icon packs with Theme Park. You can effectively build a custom lock screen with LockStar and clock face and with the QuickStar module, you can completely overhaul your quick settings with custom backgrounds and more. As you can see, I'm mainly running stock. I've
just been way too busy as of late to dive deep into all the Good Lock stuff, but I have peace of mind how easy it is to make changes and I fully intend to do so one day. With that said, One UI is incredibly functional, too. I know a lot of Pixel people don't like Samsung's apps. They always call it bloatware. I hear you. Don't get me wrong, but it's not bloatware, simple as that. A lot of Samsung's app alternatives are just as good or straight-up better than Google's versions. Samsung's own contacts, clock, calendar, calculator, and reminders apps simply have more options than what Google gives you on Pixel. That doesn't make Pixel bad by any means, but calling these apps bloatware is honestly
disingenuous. They're a solid offering. If you prefer Google apps, that's totally fine, but I'm just being honest here. It's not bloatware. Another thing about One UI and of course by extension with Ultra phones is you get the S Pen. And I understand not everyone uses it, but since I paid for it, I decided I'd intentionally give it a fair shot and I have to say this is one of the smoothest digital writing experiences I could ask for. Samsung Notes has every single feature you can imagine for the S Pen. For me personally, I found the summarization feature and the ability to clean your handwriting the most useful. Alongside
the line paper option, I've actually been truly enjoying my experience taking physical notes. Also, it's been proven that taking physical notes is objectively better for long-term memory retention and conceptual understanding anyway, so if you're trying to take notes on subject matter, learning to use the S is definitely worth your time. I also find myself using the S Pen as a cursor from time to time as well, mainly for games that need precise touch. Lately, I've been playing a lot of Poke MMO. On a phone screen, there's a lot of small touch targets, so being able to use the S Pen like a stylus takes me right back to the good old Nintendo DS days. All that is a lot, but even more
so, I've been absolutely loving my time with Samsung DeX. The reason I'm thinking about it is because Pixel recently rolled out their own desktop mode with Android 16. I've been using it here and there, but almost a year later after release, it is still very basic. It seems progress is really slow when it comes to the development of that for some reason. DeX, on the other hand, is basically feature complete. It's an actual fully fleshed out experience. It's literally years ahead of what Pixel's doing with desktop mode, with shortcuts and widgets available right on the desktop, an actual truly thought-out notification center, the ability to use your phone as a secondary extended
display, and that's really not even the half of it. But, what makes this the definitive mode, even with all those other features, is the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, where you can crank up the graphics as high as they can go for an almost console-like experience. Playing Destiny Rising, I feel like I'm playing on a PS5. The graphics look great, and it's a truly surreal experience. Finally, when it comes to One UI, it's a great piece of software where, yes, there is a lot of AI. It has tight feature parity with Pixel phones.
Samsung has their own exclusive AI features not available on Pixels, and it's very, very common these days for a lot of the latest Gemini features to be released alongside the Pixel 10 and Galaxy S26 series at the same time. But, what I've noticed is AI really isn't even the main selling point, the same way it is on Pixel. With One UI, all the AI features are that extra bit on top, but if you turn them off or decide not to use them, you still have an incredibly feature-rich software experience. On Pixel phones, by comparison, AI is kind of the main deal, the most important part. If you turn off those AI features, you're left with a relatively bare-bones experience. So, it's something I really like about One
UI. If I decide not to use these AI features, I don't feel like I'm missing out on extreme value like I am on Pixel. If I had to name one specific thing that I really, really don't like about One UI though, no questions asked, it's still the update timeline. It feels as soon as your Samsung device turns into a last-gen phone, it no longer has priority unlike on Pixel phones. I think it took around 5 months for last year's S25 Ultra to get the latest One UI 8.5 update. If I spent $1,200 on a device that took that long for the latest software, I'd be pissed. No doubt, very different from how Google handles updates where every device gets the major software version day one. It's something that I'm honestly still
surprised Samsung is dealing with after all these years. Finally, let me talk to you guys about the camera and this section will be relatively short by comparison. The camera on the S26 Ultra is truly the icing on the cake from both the hardware and a software perspective. It's a quad camera setup with a 200 megapixel main, a 50 megapixel ultrawide, a 10 megapixel telephoto, and another 50 megapixel telephoto. And no matter what you're shooting, you're going to get great results. I don't really have much in-depth thoughts, to be honest. It's a typical Samsung experience with heavily saturated, over-sharpened images that my ADHD brain actually really enjoys. Day or night, sunlight or lowlight, cropped, zoomed,
indoors, outdoors, images are always great. Yes, I do think it isn't as consistent as Pixel phones. Motion blur is still an issue when it comes to Samsung's camera, but in general, I really can't complain. What I really care about and would rather talk about instead are the features, and again, it is almost overwhelming. The camera app has options on options. Probably five times more than what I have on my Pixel 10 Pro XL. Then, if I had to pick a few that had the biggest impression on me, I would have to say one is log video, which is absolutely gorgeous if you know how to grade it. Recently, I went on a trip to San Francisco and used this as a secondary camera to my DSLR, grabbing some nice traveling shots. I put them in Final Cut
Pro, applied my typical color grade that I use for my Canon R8, and I was genuinely impressed with the results. The video looked colorful, detailed. I felt confident slotting it into my professional projects without there being a noticeable dip in quality. Truly a top-tier video that I actually want to share, and I intend to use a lot more of it in the future. Horizon Lock is awesome as well. Now, to be clear, it's more of a niche feature. It is a good party trick on the surface, but it's genuinely most helpful when you're actually shooting a lot of video in tricky situations. While you're walking, biking, running, or filming from a moving vehicle, it's what Pixel's video boost always wanted to be, except
instead of having to send everything to the cloud, it all works on device. Which after what, 3 years being released at this point, why is video boost on Pixel still sending footage to the cloud? If you're someone that actually needs to rely on this on any professional level, that cloud buffer kills any momentum that you would possibly have, and it's not an issue on the S26 Ultra, which makes it a great option to have in the creator toolkit. And look guys, I feel I shouldn't have to spell this out, but I'm going to anyway. I love the S26 Ultra. I see a lot of good in it, and my job is to be honest about what I see. That said, me liking the S26 Ultra doesn't mean that I hate Pixel phones. I
just have to be clear about that. Every time I make a Samsung video, I get comments saying that I'm a Pixel hater or I'm trying to make them switch to Samsung. That's just simply not true. Both phones are good in their own ways, but for me, Jordan Floyd personally, I'm a hardware guy. I'm an options guy. If I'm going to use a top-of-the-line flagship phone, I want everything and the kitchen sink. On the flip side, there are a lot of people out there that aren't like me. They're happy with the role Pixel's fill, which is good enough at most things. I appreciate Pixel phones for what they are, and I don't think that's a controversial opinion in
any possible way. In the world we live in, there are Ferraris and Toyota Camrys. Both are good in their own way, but for me, I'm a Ferrari guy, okay? I'm driving a Ferrari to the grocery store, I'm driving a Ferrari to pick up my kids from daycare, and I don't care if it's overkill. I like the feeling. I like the experience. That said, I'm going to be going back to the good old Toyota Camry, aka the Pixel 10 Pro XL for a while after this review. As someone that covers Google news, I want to do more deep dives before the Pixel 11 arrives, and I want to make sure my mindset is ready to understand how much more the Pixel 11 improves over the Pixel 10, if at all. And for you guys, I'm going to
go back to daily driving Pixel phones, so I can give you the best possible coverage. With that said, let me know what you think on my take of the Galaxy S26 Ultra, especially coming from a Pixel user like me. Trust me, there is a lot more that I wanted to say about this phone, but this video's already super long, so I had to kind of cut it down to the most important parts. I'm willing to do a part two though, if you want to hear it. Either way, leave some comments. I want to hear more from people in my shoes that are torn between the bells and whistles of Samsung versus the clean and clear experience of Pixel.
Until next time, my friends. This has been Jordan Floyd from 9to5Google. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see in the next one.
