A video shared by leaker Ice Universe on X demonstrates a large gap in display quality between the iQOO 16 and the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra. The iQOO 16 uses Samsung Display’s latest M16 OLED panel — a panel that also graces the iPhone Duo and is expected to be used on the upcoming Galaxy S27 Pro and Galaxy S27 Ultra — while the Galaxy S26 Ultra uses the M14 OLED, which the video shows as notably dimmer, less colorful and poorer at wide viewing angles.
M16 OLED vs M14 OLED
The clip highlights the iQOO 16’s M16 panel as brighter and more vivid, with superior off-axis viewing. By contrast, Ice Universe says the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s M14 display “seemingly suffers when viewed from wide angles,” reporting visible color shifts and reduced skin-tone fidelity. In the video the leaker adds that, even with the Privacy Display turned off, “you still have to live with the side effects of this optical structure every single day. Tilt the phone a little and colors shift. Skin tones collapse.”
Privacy Display hardware limits
Ice Universe attributes the S26 Ultra’s viewing-angle problems to its Privacy Display and stresses the key issue: the Privacy Display is a hardware feature and “can’t be tweaked or tuned with software updates.” Reports indicate the Galaxy S27 Pro and S27 Ultra will retain the Privacy Display, and the leaker therefore does not expect those models to “match the clean, transparent, and consistent color performance of the iQOO 16.”
The video frames the difference as a hardware-driven gap between Samsung’s M16 and M14 panels, and raises questions about the trade-offs introduced by the Privacy Display even when the feature is not in active use.
