iFixit earlier announced Samsung's recent launchflagship phone Galaxy S26 UltraDetailed disassembly reportThis phone features the innovative and freely switchable "Flex Magic Pixels" hardware-level smart privacy screen design, which has indeed attracted many people. However, this screen is also obviously the most difficult part of the entire phone to disassemble and repair properly. Therefore, after considering many factors, iFixit ultimately only gave this flagship phone a repair rating of 5 out of 10, highlighting the huge contradiction between Samsung's pursuit of hardware innovation and the practice of the "Right to Repair".
The most eye-catching innovation: "Flex Magic Pixels" hardware-level privacy screen
In this teardown, iFixit actually devoted a significant portion of its coverage to praising the 6.9-inch AMOLED screen on the Galaxy S26 Ultra, due to its "Flex Magic Pixels" hardware-level smart privacy protection technology.
Commonly available "spy screen protectors" work on a similar principle to blinds, maintaining privacy once applied. Users can only view the screen from a frontal angle when sharing content with friends and family; from the side or larger angles, the screen content is invisible. Samsung's "Flex Magic Pixels" technology, however, achieves the same effect as a privacy screen protector by switching the screen's pixel structure. It allows for manual shutdown to restore normal display mode when necessary, a feature praised by many for its convenience.
However, this feature, currently only available on the Galaxy S26 Ultra, is actually facing polarized opinions. Users who value personal privacy find this feature quite useful, but many others believe that this feature is clearly just a marketing gimmick by Samsung, and therefore they will not enable this feature when using the phone.
When iFixit attempted to disassemble the screen, they found that the privacy-protected screen was difficult to remove, and the display panel inside the screen was even prone to separating during the disassembly process, rendering the screen unusable. Samsung currently provides a "complete set" design for the original screens offered for this phone, mainly to facilitate subsequent repairs by directly replacing the entire unit and completing the repair in a short time, but this also results in higher overall repair costs.
According to iFixit, the screen replacement cost for the Galaxy S26 Ultra quoted by third-party repair channels is almost $399, which is more than half of the original starting price of the phone, and almost enough to buy a brand new Galaxy S25.
This design also suggests that while Samsung is pursuing hardware innovation, it seems to be going against its original practice of advocating consumers' right to self-repair in the United States.
In addition to pointing out that the Galaxy S26 Ultra's screen is difficult to repair, the replacement parts are designed as a "whole unit," meaning that users cannot just replace and repair a specific damaged part of the screen, but must replace the entire screen module, which will increase the repair cost.
On the other hand, iFixit also pointed out that Samsung's current official repair parts labeling is confusing, including unclear and misleading descriptions of parts. In addition, the screen is difficult to disassemble by the user, which means that ordinary consumers can only seek repairs from Samsung's official or third-party services.
It has a good design, but the parts don't break down very often.
Aside from the screen, iFixit also praised Samsung for the ease of repair in the Galaxy S26 Ultra. For example, the battery components are not held in place by adhesives that are difficult to remove, unlike previous phones. The Galaxy S26 Ultra's battery adhesive can be easily peeled off by hand, allowing for easy disassembly of the battery components. This is significantly easier than Apple's adhesive, which requires heating to peel off.
Currently, the USB-C port on most mobile phones is easily damaged due to frequent plugging and unplugging of the charging cable. However, in the Galaxy S26 Ultra's design, it is fixed on a modular sub-board, making it much easier to disassemble than many other phones. In addition, the entire device uses standardized screw fixing points, and the internal ribbon cables are also very easy to disassemble, making subsequent repairs much more convenient.
However, in reality, the screen is usually the most easily damaged part of a smartphone, followed by the battery and ports. Especially under normal use, batteries typically only show signs of aging and need replacement after a long period of time, while USB-C ports may only become damaged after many plugging and unplugging cycles.
However, the screen can shatter due to a slip of the hand or being hit by other objects. When users need to replace the screen, they may face problems such as the difficulty in disassembling the screen components and the high actual repair costs.
Analysis of viewpoints
iFixit's teardown report on the Galaxy S26 Ultra illustrates Samsung's dilemma regarding its mobile phone products between "high component integration" and "ease of repair".
Objectively speaking, Samsung's progress in quick-release batteries and USB-C modular design is commendable; however, in the most critical and most frequently damaged area, the screen, Samsung's focus this time was clearly on promoting the hardware innovation of "Flex Magic Pixels," completely neglecting to consider the convenience of subsequent repairs and the possibility of high repair costs.
iFixit ultimately gave it a score of 5 (the same rating they previously gave the Galaxy S25 Ultra for ease of repair). This is because while Apple's iPhone Air and iPhone 17, with their slimmer designs last year, adopted easier-to-disassemble and repair structures and closely complied with EU repair rights regulations, Samsung's internal design seemed to have stagnated. iFixit's earlier decision to end its repair partnership with Samsung was actually due to Samsung's continued failure to address the issues of high repair barriers and expensive replacement parts.
In other aspects, Samsung is also facing numerous disputes regarding the after-sales service of its phones. For example, there is the "green spit" problem that has been criticized by users for the past few years (i.e., green lines appearing on the screen after normal use or firmware updates, or even large areas of greening). The newly launched Galaxy S26 Ultra also experienced fogging of the main camera lens under non-high temperature conditions. However, Samsung seems to prefer to treat these as isolated cases or not respond at all, only asking users to handle them through official customer service. As a result, many users have started to form self-help groups on social media platforms such as Facebook and even share their phone problems.
