Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra's display to be brighter and more efficient

Samsung is now rumored to apply Color Filter on Encapsulation (CoE) technology to the screen of its Galaxy S26 Ultra, due to launch in about a year. The news comes from Samsung's home of Korea.

CoE has been used in Samsung's Galaxy Fold line since the Z Fold 3, but this would be the first time it's used by the company in a slab-style device that doesn't fold.

Note that the report only mentions the S26 Ultra, so we assume that means the S26 (if it will even exist) and S26+ won't be getting this. That said, the rumor does claim CoE will then spread to more candybar-style smartphones in the future, so it won't be exclusive to the Ultra forever (like the Gorilla Glass Armor seems to be).

So if you're wondering what CoE is all about, it replaces polarizers with color filters, thus improving light transmittance and making the OLED panel thinner in the process. Samsung has also changed the general Pixel Define Layer (PDL) to a black PDL, which reduces the light that's reflecting inside the panel.

That's necessary because that was the primary function of the removed polarizer - which had the downside of decreasing brightness by more than 50%. This isn't a thing with color filters but reflections still need to be addressed, hence the black PDL.

All of this means the display will be brighter versus a comparable one that doesn't use CoE and black PDL, and more efficient as well. The Galaxy S24 Ultra's panel can already go up to 2,600 nits of peak brightness, and this means the S26 Ultra could go way past that, in theory at least.

Source (in Korean)