Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra may be an iterative update over the S24 Ultra, but it iterates in pretty much every way.
Pros
Refined design
Excellent camera
Top-tier performance
Stunning display
Great battery life
Cons
Expensive
The “Ultra” device in the Galaxy lineup has long served as the best of the best for Android-lovers who aren’t ready to go for a foldable, and want those top-tier specs above all else. But over the past few years, a pattern has emerged. The world of smartphones is slowing down, and the year-over-year innovation that we saw in the 2010s has given way to year-over-year iteration. The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra perfectly embodies this.
Now, to be clear, the Galaxy S25 Ultra is certainly a great phone — maybe the best. And, in every single section below, you’ll see me sing its praises. But, you might also see something else — the noting of the fact that the Galaxy S25 Ultra is more like last year’s phone than ever before.
Is that a bad thing? Nope. It’s just a boring thing. Samsung is quick to point out improvements in AI as what breathes new life into its smartphone lineup, but as a phone reviewer, I’m all too familiar with the fact that software comes and goes, changes over time, and frankly, is only part of a much bigger story when it comes to recommending gadgets.
Perhaps all of this is a little too harsh, though. After all, how much better does the best really need to be?
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra specs
Dimensions
162.8 x 77.6 x 8.2 mm
IP rating
IP68
Display resolution
1440 x 3120 pixels
Display size
6.9 inches
Display type
Dynamic LTPO AMOLED 2X
Display refresh rate
1Hz – 120Hz
Display brightness
2600 nits (peak)
Chipset
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite
Memory
12GB, 16GB
Storage
256GB, 512GB, 1TB
Rear cameras
Wide: 200MP, f/1.7, multi-directional PDAF, OIS
Ultrawide: 50MP, f/1.9, 120-degrees, dual pixel PDAF
Telephoto: 50MP, f/3.4 periscope, 5x zoom
Video
8K at 30fps, 4K at 120fps, 1080p at 240fps
Front camera
12MP, f/2.2
Ports
USB-C 3.2
Battery size
5,000mAh
Charging
45W wired, 25W wireless, 4.5W reverse wireless
Connectivity
Bluetooth 5.4, Wi-Fi 7, 5G
Colors
Titanium Silver Blue, Titanium Black, Titanium White Silver, Titanium Gray, Titanium Jade Green, Titanium Jet Black, Titanium Pink Gold
Price
$1,299.99
A refined, and more cohesive, design
One of the biggest changes to the Galaxy S25 Ultra compared to the S24 Ultra? Design — and the changes are minimal.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra gets rounded corners and flat edges, bringing its overall look much more in line with the rest of the devices in the Galaxy S25 series. I quite like this change — the difference in design has always felt a little awkward and incohesive, even if it made sense given the fact that the Ultra succeeded the much-loved Galaxy Note.
Like last year, the Galaxy S25 Ultra has a brushed titanium frame, and for this year, it curves nicely around the corners. On the right of those edges can be found the volume rocker and power button, while the USB-C port and S-Pen can be found on the bottom.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra comes in a few different colors, but all of them are somewhat muted. I quite like the Titanium Blue color, but I also wish the phone came in the same fun colors on offer by the standard Galaxy S25 models, like the CoralRed option — even if that color is an online exclusive.
Still, you’d be hard-pressed to argue that the Galaxy S25 Ultra doesn’t look incredibly premium. It’s a very well-built phone, with a clearly strong build. And, I’m glad the S Pen is still here.
S Pen
The S Pen may still be here, but it’s not as advanced as it was before. Samsung says that no one really used the features associated with the S Pen’s Bluetooth connectivity — so it removed them. This year, the S Pen is just a basic stylus.
I’m one of the apparently many people that didn’t really use those features, so I never really noticed them gone. That said, those that do use them will be disappointed, and it feels weird that Samsung removed features. It feels even weirder that you can’t even use the Galaxy S24 Ultra‘s S Pen with the new device at all — so you’re stuck losing features even if you’re willing to pay more to get them back.
Still, the S Pen in the Galaxy S25 Ultra still felt natural and responsive, and it’ll still do the trick for power users who actually use it as, you know, the stylus that it is.
A vibrant and responsive screen
On the front of the Galaxy S25 Ultra can be found one of the best displays in the business. We’re kind of in a lull in display development right now, at least as far as smartphones go. That’s to say, all flagship phones offer an excellent display with a high resolution, high brightness, and adaptive refresh rate.
The display on the Galaxy S25 Ultra measures 6.9 inches and has a 1440 x 3120 resolution. It’s an LTPO AMOLED 2X screen with a refresh rate that can vary from 1Hz to 120Hz and a peak brightness of 2600 nits.
All that tech equates to an excellent-looking screen. It easily gets bright enough for use outdoors, and it feels smooth and responsive, whether you’re using it with your hands or with the S Pen.
Gaming-phone performance
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is powered by a custom-built version of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite. Unlike a few years ago, this chipset powers every version of the Galaxy S25, so you don’t have to worry about getting a lower-power Exynos chip like you used to.
So what’s different about this chip? Essentially, it’s designed to reduce power consumption on Galaxy devices, while being better optimized for performance. Will you get a radically different experience compared to a non-Galaxy Snapdragon 8 Elite phone? Not necessarily, but improved power consumption can translate to better battery life, which is always helpful. Additionally, the Galaxy S25 series is the first series of phones to support Snapdragon Satellite features, however that will require support from your cellular provider too — unlike similar features on the iPhone or Pixel series.
In basic performance, though, the Galaxy S25 Ultra performs like a beast. It’s incredibly responsive and able to handle heavy multitasking while loading even heavier mobile games with ease. It’ll run all of those modern games, like Genshin Impact, in high settings without breaking a sweat — and Samsung says it has improved its vapor chamber cooling tech for the Galaxy S25 series. Arguably, the Galaxy S25 Ultra is a better gaming phone than the majority of other gaming phones out there.
Here are the benchmark results I achieved with the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.
GeekBench 6: 3143 single-core, 10123 multi-core
3DMark Wild Life Extreme: 6788
These are excellent results, and they show that the days of Android devices constantly lagging behind the iPhone in performance are over. While the iPhone 16 Pro does still achieve a better single-core score on GookBench 6, for example, the Snapdragon 8 Elite’s multi-core scores are a fair bit better than the A18 Pro.
A responsive feel and the ability to handle heavy multitasking are both things that every other flagship phone can achieve. Regardless, you should expect the Galaxy S25 Ultra to perform well for years to come.
Long battery life
The battery size of the Galaxy S25 Ultra is the same as last year’s Galaxy S24 Ultra — 5,000mAh. That said, the actual battery life seems to have improved.
I was easily able to get through a full day of even heavier use with a good 50% or so remaining, and I probably could have stretched the device to two days of light use. That’s better than much of the competition, and it highlights the improved power efficiency of not only the Qualcomm Snapdragon. Elite, but this particular version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite.
The charging tech on offer by the Galaxy S25 Ultra is a bit of a mixed bag. The device supports fast wired charging at 45W, which is fine, but nowhere near much of the competition from China, and is what Samsung has offered for many years now. It would be nice to see Samsung work on upping the wired charging speeds on its devices.
The phone does support decently quick wireless charging, though. It supports wireless charging at up to 15W, which isn’t bad. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the magnets for Qi2 accessories — so if you want to take advantage of magnetic accessories, you’ll need to get a case with the magnets built into it. I would like to see Samsung adopt full, magnetic Qi2 for the S26 series.
An ever-improving camera
The Galaxy series always offers a high-end camera system, and the Galaxy S25 Ultra is no exception to that rule. Like in previous years, the device has a quad-camera setup, and while most of those cameras are the same as on the Galaxy S24 Ultra, there is an upgraded ultrawide sensor.
First, the hardware. The main camera is a 200 megapixel camera with optical image stabilization. It’s coupled with a new 50 megapixel ultrawide camera with a 120-degree field of view. There are two telephoto cameras, including one 10 megapixel telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom and one 50 megapixel periscope telephoto camera with OIS and 5x optical zoom. It’s a versatile selection of cameras that should make for solid photos in all situations.
Indeed, the phone was able to capture stunning shots in every situation I put it through. In well-lit environments, images are detailed and crisp, and while it was possible to push the phone a little in some low-light scenarios, it easily kept up with the competition in providing reasonably bright images that weren’t blurry. I loved the upgraded ultra-wide camera’s ability to capture excellent macro shots too.
I also really like the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s dual telephoto camera approach. It helps plug the gap between the lossless 2x zoom you can get on the main camera and the 5x zoom you’ll get with the periscope telephoto lens. Of course, it does make for a busy look on the back, but for many, it’ll be worth the trade-off.
As we’ve come to expect from Samsung, images looked reasonably natural and vibrant, without applying too much of a “look.” By contrast, the default settings on an iPhone will produce slightly more orange-looking shots, while the Pixel will introduce a little more contrast — though all of these companies have been working on tech that lets the user change image processing.
Because of Samsung’s emphasis on excellent zoom tech, the Galaxy S25 Ultra does indeed capture better images than much of the competition at higher levels of zoom. Images captured at 10x zoom were more vibrant and colorful than the likes of the iPhone 16 Pro, and more detailed than the OnePlus 13. The main competitor in digital zoom quality is the Pixel series, but even then, I thought the Galaxy S25 Ultra produced slightly more detailed and vibrant shots than the Pixel 9 Pro XL.
All that to say, the camera on the Galaxy S25 Ultra is fantastic. It’s not necessarily objectively better at 1x zoom, for example, but it is better at higher levels of zoom.
As you would expect, there are some AI-based camera features new for the Galaxy S25 Ultra. The device now has the Pixel’s Audio Eraser feature, which essentially uses AI to detect different noises in a video and allows you to boost or remove them to your preference. It can come in handy for removing things like wind noise or background noise and focusing more on something like a conversation or a musician playing. Other features have been improved, like the ability to remove objects in a photo and have the device naturally replace those objects with whatever was in the background. This feature seems to be working better and better, and images that make use of it are starting to look a whole lot more natural.
Personal AI, embedded in One UI
AI is getting increasingly embedded into Android as a whole, but Samsung is often the first to debut some of these new features. The Galaxy S25 Ultra ships with One UI 7 along with a range of new AI-based features that some may love and others may not find all that useful.
Perhaps the most hyped of these new features is the Now Bar that Samsung has been marketing. It’s similar to the iPhone’s Dynamic Island but at the bottom of the screen instead of the top. It can show information like sports scores, weather, and so on. Tapping on it can bring you to the “Now Brief,” an overview of the day, including weather, calendar items, sleep information, and more.
It’s a neat way to bring a range of information into one screen — though I imagine that those not deeply embedded in Samsung’s ecosystem may not necessarily find it as useful as those who use a Samsung smartwatch, Samsung smart home devices, and so on.
Other software changes come in the form of increased support for Google’s Gemini. Gemini is the default assistant on the Galaxy S25 Ultra and can be pulled up with a press and hold of the side button. For the S25 series, Gemini can also perform actions within some apps, such as creating calendar events and finding a season schedule for your favorite sports team. Essentially, Samsung is further and further deprioritizing Bixby, though you’ll still need to rely on Bixby to control some things, like the devices in Samsung SmartThings.
Many of the AI-based features in the Galaxy S25 series are powered by what Samsung calls the Personal Data Engine, which analyzes your data to deliver personalized responses. I expect we’ll see more and more personal features as AI continues to evolve, but for now, they still feel somewhat limited and a little forced.
Conclusions
Unsurprisingly, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is an excellent smartphone. It may feel like an iterative update over the Galaxy S24 Ultra, but it definitely helps pull everything together into a more cohesive and smarter experience. In other words, everything is just a little bit better. The phone looks a little bit better, the camera is a little bit better, and it performs a little bit faster.
If you’re a fan of the productivity-focused Galaxy phone, want a big screen and a top-tier camera, and don’t mind spending some serious cash, then the Galaxy S25 Ultra, like the Ultra phones before it, is still the way to go.
The competition
Much of what I love in a phone still comes down to the overall software experience, and I still prefer Google’s Pixel software to Samsung’s One UI. That said, there’s no denying that the Galaxy S25 Ultra is better performing than any of the Pixel phones currently available. While the cameras are arguably neck and neck, there are some situations in which I find the Galaxy S25 Ultra camera system to be slightly better.
That may not necessarily be enough for everyone, though. The Galaxy S25 Ultra is probably the most well-rounded Android phone out there — there’s nothing it isn’t good at.
Should I buy the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra?
Yes. It’s expensive, but it’s perhaps the best Android phone available right now.
The post Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra review: Iteration done right appeared first on BGR.
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Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra review: Iteration done right originally appeared on BGR.com on Wed, 29 Jan 2025 at 15:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.