Review: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra — bigger and better, but only just

Samsung is back again this year with another massive phone, the king of their smartphone lineup, the Galaxy S25 Ultra.  This year’s iteration of the Galaxy S Ultra has a (slightly) new shape, a different S-Pen, different cameras and few other little changes but is it enough to warrant upgrading?

Samsung has been accused in recent times of performing an Apple, where year-on-year iterations of a smartphone are extremely minor, without any real changes or innovations.  

This year seems to be much of the same but that is not saying the Galaxy S25 Ultra is a bad phone – far from it.  The changes are just so minimal that it is a tough sell to anyone who has bought a Galaxy S## Ultra in the last few years.

Read on to hear why it’s a great phone but not worth the upgrade if you already have an Ultra made after 2022.

What’s new?

This year, there are a few small changes:

• The Ultrawide camera gets a bump from 12MP f.2.2 up to 50MP f/1.9
  • The other cameras are exactly the same
• The Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset is the newest version (SD8 Elite (3nm) up from SD8 Gen 3 (4nm)
• The display protection is also the newest from Corning, now Gorilla Armor 2 (last year was 1)
• The rear of the phone is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus 2
• The displays, although exactly the same type and specs, is now 0.1mm bigger (for what that is worth)
• The S-Pen has been downgraded and no longer supports Bluetooth

Design and hardware

The design has changed this year with the design of the S25 Ultra more in keeping with the design of the S25 and the S25 Plus with rounded corners.  It is nice to see the continuity and consistency between the three phones of the same family.

In saying that, the corners are still not as rounded as the lesser S25 versions but a lot less harsh than those on the S24 Ultra.

The frame is flat with relatively harsh corners on the sides, as in recent times with other premium phones from manufacturers such as Google and Apple.  The S25 Ultra is half a millimetre less wide than the S24 Ultra, 1.4mm shorter, and 0.4mm thinner, so all-in-all, it is a smaller phone, although by such a small amount you will not notice it.

The frame is premium titanium and has a nice brushed look, which I quite like. All the buttons, the power button and volume rocker, are located on the right-hand side of the device—in an opposite configuration to that on a Pixel device, so if you’re coming from that, there will be a learning curve before you hit the correct button each time.

The rear of the phone is identical to that on the S24 Ultra with no specific camera island but instead just individual cameras poking out of the back of the phone.

The bottom of the phone is where the speaker, USB-C charging port, sim card slot and S-Pen silo are.  

Display

The display is the exact same display as that in the S24 Ultra – and that is not entirely a bad thing, although Samsung need to be careful pushing out the same thing year after year when other manufacturers are looking for improvements every year.

The display itself is an LTPO QHD+ AMOLED 2X display with a 120Hz refresh rate and a maximum brightness of 2600 nits.  The brightness is slightly less than that on the Pixel 9 Pro but Samsung has included an anti-reflective coating on the display, which they say means you don’t need to make it as bright to see in bright conditions.  The brightness is a lot less than the Pixel 9 Pro though.

The display is big, bright and beautiful, something Samsung phones have been synonymous with for quite a while.  Side by side with the Pixel 9 Pro you would be hard-pressed to spot much, if any, difference between the two.

Camera quality

As mentioned above, the rear camera setup is mostly the same but the ultrawide camera does get a bump in specs, which is nice to see – but something other manufacturers have already done.  This is Samsung’s release cycle though so sometimes they are 6 months behind some others.

Samsung includes the four-camera setup again and includes a 10MP telephoto lens – something Google don’t include at all but OPPO has a 50MP telephoto lens in their Find X8 Pro.  In the end, the results are good across all devices – you’ll have to wait a couple of weeks for the flagship camera shootout for the final verdicts.

As for the photos, in daylight they were great, with colours their usual vivid pop that we expect from Samsung, although this year they do appear a bit more natural than they have in the past.

Using the macro settings the S25 Ultra was able to pick up really good detail of the subject, including all shades etc.  It is so good that you think that maybe there is some AI trickery going on in the background but even if it is, I love it.

Low-light images were really good too, with the detail the camera captured being amazing.  The colours and detail were astonishing for some photos.  For some reason though, Samsung does not seem to apply night mode to shooting automatically by default so you’ll have to decide when to apply it for yourself.  Night mode seems to take longer to snap a picture than other phones so that may sway your decision.

Zoom images were good again, with the camera able to capture great detail when zooming in from afar.

It seems Samsung has really improved the camera software this year, but we’ll have to wait for the flagship smartphone shootout results to be ratified first.  By itself, though, the Galaxy S25 Ultra produces amazing images.

I only took a few videos but the main one was of a concert I went to, in a dark, dingy venue, I think it did quite well, considering I was moving a bit as my favourite song was playing and, well, who can stand still when Hatebreed are playing?!?!  See below for the video:

S-Pen

The S-Pen is there and as long as it doesn’t stop anything important from being included in the phone I’m ok with it.  I have very little use for the S-Pen but some folks do use it a lot.

It’s funny because I was talking to my wife while having lunch at a cafe and I was saying that the S-Pen really isn’t much use when I looked at the table next ot be and saw a guy tapping away on his Samsung with his S-Pen.  Ok, better rephrase that then, was my thought.  

For me, the S-Pen is really only useful for finer control of certain features within the operating system.  Unfortunately, this year, with the new S-Pen, Samsung has removed Bluetooth and the capacitor from the pen.  This has resulted in the loss of some of the really useful features of it such as camera shutter control or air gestures to control a slideshow/presentation etc.  I’m not sure why they did this, but they did, so there it is.

You can still use it to write on your phone (with handwriting recognition,) but these days, with swipe keyboards, is using a pen to write really any faster than typing?

Software

I’ve never been a fan of Samsung and their OneUI.  This year, we see the debut of OneUI 7 based on Android 15 and my thoughts have changed.  

Samsung has changed not just some of the themes but also added a lot of useful features and tweaks to the OS to make it even more user friendly while also being feature-packed enough for even the power user to be satisfied.

Things I loved:

• Daily check-in or recap, an AI function called Brief – it gives you a look at the upcoming weather and any calendar events you have scheduled.  It also provides you with a Spotify playlist that you might like to listen to which unfortunately, appears to be random, rather based on any listening history.  Are Samsung not allowed to hook into Spotify?  It would be great if the playlist was something based on my listening history, but unfortunately, it is not.

• Loved the new quick settings design by Samsung.  It is very similar to that in OPPO’s ColorOS but not quite as good.  Samsung could maybe allow editing and a bit more customisation of it but where it is at is an improvement over what it used to be.

• The notifications shade is now separate to the Quick Settings page (if you select that option).  You can still scroll from one to the other easily but this way you can see all of your Quick Settings panels or all of your notifications with the other not getting in the way.

• Edge Panels – again, not the first to do it but a worthy addition nonetheless.  You can choose from more than one panel to display and you can edit them to show what details you want – eg. apps panel, you choose what you want on there and the same for contacts

• The widgets on the bottom of the lockscreen.  If you have an app that is playing media it will be in the bottom of the lockscreen page, on top of other relevant widgets.  Simply scroll through them.  Great addition by Samsung as it is small and not over powering so the lockscreen still maintains its elegant look and feel.

Things I didn’t love:

• Notifications are very Apple-like now, and that is not a good thing.  Android does a great job of grouping notifications of one app all together but Samsung has redesigned it and totally screwed it up.  It groups some and not others – seems to be random.

• Samsung keyboard still as bad as ever.  Another thing Samsung should just give up on and use Gboard from Google instead.  Even Microsoft’s SwiftKey is pre-installed but that seems to have gotten worse in the last few years and it is now a long way behind the capabilities, smoothness and accuracy of Gboard.

• Bixby is still a thing some how.  The Galaxy S25 Ulrta has Google’s Gemini onboard so I doubt you will ever have a use for Bixby – it has never been any good so I’m not entirely sure why they just don’t put it out to pasture.

• Samsung apps.  Nearly all of them – not just keyboard but calendar, gallery, my files, Internet etc.  Google make better apps for each and every one of these so I recommend using Google’s apps instead – especially the calendar so it syncs with your Google account better.

• Bloatware, aka Microsoft apps.  Nothing but bloatware these days –  Office, OneDrive, Outlook, LinkedIn.  People will install them if they want them Samsung, surely Samsung are big enough to not have to install these although this may be the price they have to pay to allow their ability to sync/cast to a Windows PC.

• Will someone please make a voice to text that is not horribly expensive and integrates well into a keyboard?  Samsung use the default Android one which is ok – it’s still better than Apple’s, but Google’s Assistant Voice blows it out of the water with the use of AI to enhance its grammar and autocorrection – it reads a sentence. It inserts the word that firstly sounds like what you said, but also what fits into the rest of the sentence you have voiced.  All these AI gimmicks from every manufacturer are less useful than what this one would be.

Galaxy AI

I’m not entirely sure what to say about Galaxy AI.  It has improved since its first release with Writing assist working really well and actuall ycam ein handy for some emails I needed to write.  If I’m messaging friends though I really don’t need to have an AI help me though.

Note assist and transcript assist came in handy during meetings and would use them again.  The accuracy of these was really good, as was the speed.  I highly recommend using them if you are in a lot of meetings and have trouble remembering everything that was said.

Gemini is still present and as useful as always.  The more you use it, the more useful it becomes and the more you realise just what you can do with it.  Gemini can now be used to search and integrate with Gmail, Calendar and Samsung’s native apps (but that still isn’t enough for me to recommend Samsung’s apps to anyone.  It would be great if you could give Gemini access to every app on your phone, whether first, second or third party developer.

There are still times when the AI in Gemini wasn’t super accurate – where does it really gets its answers from sometimes?  So be careful to check the sources of Gemini’s answers, and especially on medical information – apparently a lot of pepole are suing AI for health matters more and more these days.

There is now a feature Samsung has included called Brief which I briefly mentioned above.  Loved it but would prefer the ability to customise just what it showed or looked for as well as the ability of it to incorporate more apps.

At this stage, these AI features are free “through 2025,” so it is unclear if they will remain so. Google charges for some of its more advanced features, so it will be interesting to see what Samsung does next year.

1. A Samsung Account login may be required to use certain Galaxy AI features. Galaxy AI features will be provided for free on supported Samsung Galaxy devices until the end of 2025. Different terms may apply for AI features provided by third parties.

AI on a smartphone is getting there, with it becoming more and more useful. The more you use it, the better it gets for you and also the better you get at using it. My advice is to look into it closely and see what would help you the most. Try them all anyway, but pay close attention to what you think is most useful and use it extensively.

Battery life + charging

Samsung are still very shy with their charging speeds – no different to Google though but they do offer 45W fast charging – assuming you can find and purchase a quick charger that supports this.  They do not include one in the box, which while annoying, is not something they stand alone on.  

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra supports wireless charging and they state it complies with the Qi 2.1 standard but keep in mind that it does not support the “Magnetic Power Profile,” so you cannot use any of the magnetic mount accessories etc.  Damnit Samsung, this is possibly the main reason people want Qi2 charging, for the magnets and the associated accessories.

The 2.1 standard tnhough does include a movable charging coil that the phone uses to optimally align itself to the charger.  I’d prefer magnets and access to all those amazing MagSafe accessories please.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra through Qi 2.1 does support 25W wireless charging with a supported charger – good luck finding one of these as most Apple ones are only 15W (a tad slower than the 50W wireless AirVOOC charging that OPPO supports – and you can buy their AIRVOOC charger directly from their store).

The S25 Ultra charged quickly though when connected to a PD charger including quick top ups.  The battery life on the S25 Ultra was very good, though, and I was able to get over 7 hours of screen time and a full day of use out of a single charge.  This battery life is affected by not just the refresh rate of the display that you choose along with the brightness but also the resolution you decide on using –a full 2K resolution uses more power than setting the display at FHD+.

Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra?

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is a great phone and worthy of the flagship moniker. It offers blazing fast speeds, a big beautiful display, software that is improved once again, and a camera system that offers flagship-quality photography in all lighting conditions.

The problem is that the Galaxy S25 Ultra is barely better than last year. It is worse in some areas such as the S Pen but slightly better in others. The small incremental improvement is disappointing and Samsung need to be careful that they are not overtaken by the other manufacturers. If you have a Galaxy S23 Ultra or S24 Ultra then this update in the S25 Ultra will unlikely give you much improvement, if any.

For all others though, if you have a Samsung smartphone, this is an improvement. The software is improved but still not as smooth as some other Android smartphones. I commend Samsung for making a great phone once again but admonish them for making such a very small incremental improvement over last year. Where is the innovation that Samsung used to show?

If you are looking for a flagship smartphone then you should consider the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra but I recommend you go and check one out at your local store first to see if the software by Samsung is for you. Some dislike it with a passion. If you need a stylus for your phone then there is no other option, get the S25 Ultra.

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is available now starting at $2,149 from Samsung.com and all good stores. You can get it in Titanium Jetblack, Titanium Jadegreen, Titanium Pinkgold, Titanium Silverblue, Titanium Grey, Titanium Black and Titanium Whitesilver.