This Android Phone Is The Second Device To Get A Privacy Screen After The Galaxy S26 Ultra

Six months after Samsung introduced its Galaxy S26 series with an Ultra model with a privacy screen, Xiaomi has become the second major Android manufacturer to offer a similar technology with the Xiaomi 18 Pro series. Like Samsung, Xiaomi's phone implements its privacy feature on a pixel level to ensure that the user is the only one seeing notifications, messages, or specific parts of the display. This effectively creates a privacy screen without the need for outside software or a third-party screen cover. According to the company, the panel features standard wide-angle pixels with narrow-angle privacy pixels. When the standard mode is on, both pixels illuminate the entire display, like you would expect from a flagship OLED panel. With privacy mode on, Xiaomi shuts off the standard pixels, which means that someone viewing the phone from beyond 60 degrees effectively won't see what's on the display.

Xiaomi calls this technology "SuperPixel 2.0," and promises that users won't experience any compromises at normal viewing distances. That's a key difference from Samsung's Galaxy S26 Ultra, which some reviewers have complained is darker and more grainy when privacy mode is turned on. Xiaomi says that the 18 Pro model uses a new M11 luminescent material, which brings up to 4,000 nits of peak brightness and supports the BT.2020 color gamut.

In addition to the new hardware, Xiaomi lets users activate this feature through a Quick Settings shade, a physical AI key remap, or Xiao AI voice controls, as you can set the privacy display in specific apps or pages, or whenever its front camera detects someone is "spying on you from behind."

Xiaomi's new 18 Pro phones come after months of speculation, and just weeks after Apple launched its iPhone 18 Pro models. You'd be forgiven if you mixed the two up at a distance too, though Xiaomi's device adds to the iPhone's polarizing camera plateau design by adding a functional rear 2.86-inch OLED display running at 120 Hz, which can be used to help take selfies with the main camera, and interact with the phone when its face is down. 

With a 6.4-inch main display, Xiaomi 18 Pro is also one of the first smartphones with Qualcomm's recently announced Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 processor. Xiaomi also offers this smartphone with up to 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.

In the camera department, it features a Leica triple-camera setup, with a main 200-megapixel (MP) wide lens with a Light Fusion 960L sensor, a 200MP telephoto lens with 3.2x optical zoom, and a 50MP Leica Ultrawide sensor. The selfie camera features a 50MP sensor, but users also have the option to use the main lenses with the help of the rear screen display.

In China, the company is putting a 7,000mAh battery with 100W wired charging capabilities and 50W wireless charging. Xiaomi also says the 18 Pro will be avaialble globally, even though it only announced prices in China so far, which vary between $900 and $1,500. Without giving more details, the company expects to release this flagship phone in international markets by the end of the year. Interestingly enough, Xiaomi's latest announcement comes a few weeks after it unveiled its 18 Fold series, which BGR exclusively had a hands-on experience at Xiaomi's booth at IFA 2026 before the official launch.