Samsung’s Galaxy S26 series has an 8-bit display, not 10-bit

There seems to have been a mistake, and Samsung’s Galaxy S26 base model and Ultra variant are shipping with a display capable of 8-bit color, instead of 10-bit. This was always supposed to happen, but Samsung initially said the phone would offer support for more colors.

When the Galaxy S26, S26+, and S26 Ultra were announced, Samsung noted a couple of conflicting specifications. It went unnoticed at the time because the two key tech specs were stated in slightly different language.

According to confirmation from Samsung (via SamMobile), the Galaxy S26 series ships with an 8-bit display, and not a 10-bit display like Samsung said it would. This seems to be a mistake made during press briefings, with the company specifically noting that the Galaxy S26 Ultra would offer a 10-bit display to match its camera capabilities.

All the devices will support 10 bit. Previously we could do 10 bit on video, but we could only support 8 bit on display side. This time all three will be able to support both video as well as display up to up to 10 bits.

The above quote comes from a closed-door briefing prior to launch. All of that information is public now, but the spec page on Samsung’s website doesn’t line up. A 10-bit display is capable of reaching 1.07 billion colors with improved accuracy, while an 8-bit depth means hitting 16 million.

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Samsung’s spec page for the Galaxy S26 series notes that the display supports 16 million colors, and that’s correct according to Samsung. This has been the same color reach for some time, with no previous device capable of a larger reach.

The advantage of a higher color depth is greater accuracy and improved rejection of visual artifacts, such as banding, when viewed at certain angles. Some reports emphasized the Galaxy S26 series’ improved color banding performance, and while it was originally thought to be a product of the 10-bit display, that isn’t the case. Samsung did something else under the hood to make that improvement.

The granular error may upset some users who upgraded because of the display change. Color depth wasn’t assumed to have changed when Samsung essentially confirmed nothing had changed from the Galaxy S25 displays. Both new and old models appear to have the same AMOLED 2X panel. Samsung would likely have made a bigger deal if the phones were to bring a 10-bit display, but they did verbally recall the seemingly wrong spec in briefings with the press.