Samsung might keep us waiting until the Galaxy S28 Ultra for that 10-bit display upgrade

The Samsung Galaxy S26 series launched last month. They’re pretty minor upgrades coming from the Galaxy S25, with perhaps the most noteworthy update being the S26 Ultra’s surprisingly controversial new Privacy Display. We were also expecting the S26 Ultra to come with a 10-bit display, but that change never materialized. Now, though, it’s been claimed that upgrade is actually coming the year after next.

Leaker Ice Universe said in January that a 10-bit screen on the Galaxy S26 Ultra was “confirmed,” but the phone launched with the same 8-bit color depth as the other two S26 phones. Today, industry observer CID tweeted that the Galaxy S28 Ultra will launch with a 10-bit panel — presumably meaning next year’s S27 series will miss out, too.

Take this one with a grain of salt: CID’s post doesn’t include many details, only saying that the Galaxy S28 Ultra “will finally be 10-bit.” We don’t know how they came across this information. It certainly could be true, but even if Samsung is currently planning to use a 10-bit display panel in the S28 Ultra, its plans could change before that phone goes into production.

In a nutshell, an 8-bit display panel (like the ones used in the Galaxy S26 series) is capable of displaying a total of 16.7 discrete colors while a 10-bit panel can show more than a billion. It’s not a difference that’s noticeable under most conditions, but 10-bit media playing on a 10-bit display will look truer to life, especially in gradients where one color gradually transitions to another.

Samsung is showing off its next-generation Privacy Display tech at MWC this week. The improved version will allow phones to obscure only portions of their displays (for example, to make notifications hard to read from an angle). Samsung’s said that version will debut on a future device generation — we’ll see if it lands at the same time as the 10-bit displays CID is forecasting for 2028.