I think it's a gimmick that Samsung will cut out in future models for cost savings reasons. Like Samsung ditched the edge displays, or the Bluetooth in their S-Pen, or like Apple ditched 3D touch.
Reading comments here looks like most of the commenters didn't read past the title.
This is not the same as a privacy screen protector. The screen hardware itself can dynamically protect parts of the screen on demand down to pixel level, the OS can then dim only the app or notifications you want dimmed. There is no screen degrading for parts that are not in privacy mode.
Do people really care if someone looks at their phone like that? Especially when the apps themselves spy on everything you do?
You could try doing this[0] to your iphone... ([1]).
[0]: https://www.instructables.com/Privacy-monitor-made-from-an-o...
[1]: https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/570453/How+to+remove+iPh...
Samsung makes the screens for iPhones so they most linely will make this tech available after the testing period with the new phone
There’s been screen protector film on the market that does exactly this for almost as long as the iPhone‘s been available. Almost 20 years?
Can the screen protector film only mask banking apps and notifications, but not the lock screen and homescreen?
It's a real, albeit minor, quality of life improvement for the phone screen to only become less-vibrant for a subset of content.
It’s clear that you haven’t really looked much into this. It’s per pixel.
Screen protectors also degrade light output
This also degrades light output off angle. If you're showing someone a picture, you lose up to 50% of light output.
Sure, but presumably you wouldn't have the feature activated when you're showing someone something on your phone?
> Screen protectors also degrade light output
So does this function from Samsung. You can see in all the video demonstrations that the 'privacy' pixels are notably dimmer even head-on compared to normal pixels.
Not the same thing.
These pixels are dimmer by themselfs. They dont get muted by a layer on top of them.
This means way less energy usage therefore longer lasting battery at similar brightness!
Also these pixels can just go bright the moment you dont need this anymore, instantly making everything look good and bright again :)
The Samsung masking tech can selectively mask parts of the screen. And it has configurability so it automatically is turned on only in certain apps and things like that. Because it dims the screen slightly (when you look at it straight on), just like a screen protector, it’s really useful that it can be customized in these ways. You get to keep the quality of the screen high to a much greater amount while still keeping your privacy.
Currently a lot of smartphone power consumption is used to drive the screen, but only a small fraction reaches someone's eye. This could be used to improve the power efficiency of screens by at least an order of magnitude
When your display fails in viewing angles, we call it privacy screen
It's a gimmick, it reduces overall brightness when off-angle.
I much rather have a tandem oled screen.
They will likely copy it in 8 years and label it innovative.