- Some press apparently got the wrong Galaxy S26 Ultra specs
- The phone’s screen has 8-bit color depth, not 10-bit
- Samsung has the AI craze, but buyers want top-end hardware more
The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra isn’t even out yet, and it’s caught up in a controversy that probably won’t make sense to many people, but has caused quite a bit of anger and a lot more confusion.
So what has happened? Well, the Galaxy S26 Ultra has a 6.9-inch, 3120 x 1440, Dynamic AMOLED 2X display, and it looks great, but it only supports 8-bit color. Some media initially reported that the display supported 10-bit color, apparently on the back of information given at briefing sessions, leading to it being widely reported before the confusion became apparent.
It was initially not clear whether this was erroneous information provided by Samsung, or a simple misunderstanding on the part of the press. But a Samsung spokesperson has now cleared this up, telling us: “The Galaxy S26 series uses an 8-bit display panel. It has the custom chipset for Galaxy, which offers up to 4x imaging power for improved viewing. In a recent briefing, “10-bit” referred to 10-bit mDNIe color processing, not the panel’s bit depth.”
Due to the 10-bit to 8-bit ‘downgrade’, some online commentators recently claimed that Samsung lied to buyers and the press, branding the situation “completely embarrassing”.
There was no evidence that this was a deliberate bait by the brand, although some marketing materials did surface (on Reddit) showing mentions of a 10-bit display. But overall, it looks like it’s mostly been down to some specification misunderstandings and lost-in-translation communication.
8-bit vs 10-bit: what’s the big deal?
Some Samsung fans are outraged by the change, but many others are probably scratching their heads wondering what a ‘bit’ is.
Simply put, this number refers to how many colors the screen can display. With 8-bit showing 16 million colors and 10-bit a billion, there is a big difference. The most tangible change is in banding, which is when a gradient of color appears in distinct chunks rather than an even spectrum of hues, and in my experience it’s most noticeable in shots of sunsets.
This range of colors might not be important to everyone, but the kind of users who pay four-figure sums for a top-end Android phone might need it. Content creators who, e.g. wanting to record, edit and release their videos on a phone may need as wide a range of colors supported as possible.
A few phones on the market have 10-bit color depth displays, including the OnePlus 15 and Honor Magic 8 Pro, and the Xiaomi 17 even hits 12-bit, according to the company. However, the iPhone 17 family is also 8-bit. Many users have pointed out that an expensive phone must have the best available specifications.
Samsung is a big name in mobile displays (Samsung Display supplies panels to many other manufacturers), and for a long time Galaxy devices had the best phone displays money could buy.
But more than its rivals, Samsung has bet hard on AI being the central selling point of its new devices. It’s taken to drop the name “smartphone” for “AI phone”, for example. In an interview I recently conducted with Samsung UK’s VP of Product and Marketing, Annika Bizon, I was told “AI is our soul”.
“We believe we are so far ahead of the market with AI,” she continued, “by the end of this year there will be 800 million AI-enabled Galaxy devices”.
The display controversy suggests that hardware is still king for some buyers and new AI tools aren’t that important. With the rising cost of technology, people want advanced features, especially if they pay for an ‘Ultra’ device. And with its 8-bit display, Samsung fans argue that there isn’t enough bang for the buck, with the whole 10-bit confusion only serving to emphasize what buyers could have had.
At least we have one easy thing for the Samsung Galaxy S27 wish list: a 10-bit display… or at least some clearer communication about the phone’s specs.
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