Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra review: the same, but different in ways that matter

Looking for a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra review? If you’ve used the Samsung S24 Ultra, the S25 Ultra will feel familiar—but Samsung has made key upgrades that might make it worth the switch. In this guide, we’ll compare the S24 vs S25 Ultra, covering what’s actually different, from performance and AI features to design and camera quality.

Luke Hopewell is a gadget veteran of over 10 years (and has attended multiple Apple launches to boot. If it goes beep in the night, Luke has tested it. Got a question for the author? Head to the comments, or email the author at [email protected].

My take: should you buy it?

I’ll be honest. The eagle-eyed tech lover in me wanted to skip this one, as it’s all kind of the same. It’s a movie we already know the twist of.

On the surface, it’s easy to write this off—there’s more that stays the same than changes.

But when you start to actually use it, you notice the small but important changes. There are still a boatload of AI features, but now they’re actually being put to work for you, rather than you working for them.

It gives you the information you need, almost before you even need it. And the more you use it, the smarter it gets. And that’s how it should be. I really dislike AI, but it’s seemingly here to stay. If we must have it thrust onto our devices, I’m glad Samsung is thinking cleverly about how to put its features to work.

The jump from the S24 range of devices to the S25 is a small one when you compare the devices side-by-side. Less one giant leap and more one clever and considered hop. But the S24 wasn’t a bad device, and the S25 pulls off all of the same tricks and then some. And looks pretty nifty while doing it thanks to some hardware changes.

Put simply: if you want AI to work smarter for you, go with the S25. If you want the S25 but at a cheaper price, I’m sure there’s a good price you can get on an S24 Ultra right now!

There’s more power out of the box

Under the hood, there’s a new chipset in the form of the Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite 8 for Galaxy (try saying that 10-times fast). And the smaller devices in the range – the base S25 and the S25 Plus – now come with 12GB of RAM. Presumably to handle all the AI stuff it’s going to have to do everyday.

That AI stuff is actually great, though. We’ll get to that in a bit.

Samsung says that new processor will deliver almost 40% more power while sipping less of your precious battery throughout the day. Graphics are also handled better overall with a 30% boost to the GPU.

It’ll keep it cooler than ever in the process, too, thanks to a “Vapor Chamber” (read: how it dissipates heat generated by these components) that is 40% larger on the S25 Ultra compared to the S24 Ultra before it. The base S25 and S25 Plus get a 15% boost to the Vapor Chamber. After living with it in my pocket and putting the device through its paces recently, I’m glad cooling continues to be a priority for Samsung. This thing still heats up. Especially when you use the camera module.

I haven’t pushed it to the point of overheating just yet. But I can imagine on a balmy summer’s day at the beach, it could get a little uncomfy to slide back into your pocket after taking some happy snaps and videos.

Speaking of warming, though, to help the planet – despite chewing oodles of grid power by using AI all the time (tsk) – half the cobalt in the battery is sourced from recycled devices. The battery is noticeably excellent. I’m a moderate to heavy user of my devices and I can get about a day and a half out of the Galaxy S25 Ultra before I need to find a charger.

That’s what’s noticeably different under the hood. Elsewhere, the device is pretty familiar if you go spec-for-spec.

The camera module is exactly the same on the S24 Ultra as it is on the S25 Ultra (save for a better visual engine that Samsung says will give “4x greater detail”). The connectivity is almost identical – except for Bluetooth 5.4 over Bluetooth 5.3 for more efficient multi-device connectivity.

That battery is exactly the same at 5000mAh – except it supports 25W wireless charging through the Qi2 design, but only if you use Samsung’s magnetic charging case to do it. And the screen is – you guessed it – also exactly the same.

Nerds will rant and rave about this. I imagine they already are on Twitter (never call it X) and Reddit. To me, however, there’s actually a lot to like here.

The focus here isn’t about powerful hardware upgrades. It still has a spec sheet that would blow your mind, though. But instead, Samsung seems focussed on making this new device more useful in your everyday life. That’s thanks to upgrades of its software, UI and AI capabilities. I’ve certainly noticed it in my time with the S25 Ultra so far. It’s actually making AI useful.

The design is smoother than ever (literally)

Before we dive too deeply into how it works, let’s focus on how it looks.

Holding the two devices side-by-side reveals probably the most obvious difference. Samsung has ditched the squared-off corners in favour of smooth corners and chamfered edges. If the S24 Ultra was a perfect rectangular prism, the S25 Ultra could be likened to more of a pill.

Strength has been a big focus for Samsung in recent years, and the S24 range benefits. The back and front are now protected with glass giant Corning’s new Gorilla Armor 2, for example. It offers similar scratch resistance but you get better drop resistance for better durability. Holding it in my hand over concrete still makes me a little nervous. But you’re less likely to smash the thing now than you ever have been in the past if it slips.

And while we’re on durability, the titanium frame that holds the S25 Ultra together is now made from grade 5 titanium instead of grade 2 in the S24 Ultra. The difference in grade means you get a tougher metal with less weight. You definitely notice that it’s lighter than it should be when using it. Noticeably lighter than the iPhone 16 Pro Max I usually carry around.

The screen is ever-so-slightly larger at 6.9-inches (diagonally) versus the 6.8-inches of the predecessor. Even if you aren’t getting a huge size increase, however, it still feels bigger and better to use in your hand. That’s thanks to a larger screen-to-body ratio. It’s 92.5% screen-to-body, up from 88.5% on the older model. The brightness is still out-of-this-world and using it in direct sunlight is no problem.

It has AI you’ll actually like

The last 12 months have seen the words “AI” plastered on just about everything. From fridges to TVs to even toothbrushes have “AI” now. 

Samsung has opted to partner more closely with Google and its Gemini AI models this time around. Previously, Samsung had hitched its wagon to OpenAI and ChatGPT, but now that they’re in bed with Apple, it’s a slightly different story.

Samsung says that its AI services on devices that support it are sometimes being used up to 10-times a day. But that doesn’t mean that everyone finds what they’re looking for when they use it. This is the problem I’ve always had with it, to be honest. Lots of features, not a lot of benefits.

More often than not, these AI features have had to be something that are activated by a user rather than presented to them. It’s a pull of information from a generative model rather than a gentle push of the stuff you might actually want or need to know to make a decision.

To make it less annoying, Samsung has made the AI more “contextual” across the whole device with the S25 range and the new One UI 7 software (the ‘skin’ Samsung puts around Android). What does “contextual” AI mean? Basically it’s all about giving you the information you need before you know you need it.

All of it comes together in what is being dubbed the “Now” features in the software. When you wake up in the morning, a Now Briefing is presented to you, giving you all the info you need to start your day. It has been great to wake up and read what I have to do that day (admittedly with only one eye open), how I need to dress for the weather and if I need to leave earlier or sleep in based on the traffic to the city.

It also learns from all your other stuff to give you what you need without asking. Someone sent a new document overnight related to your 9am meeting? That’ll be there. There’s a car accident on the route you normally take to work? That’s there to. Train drivers striking again? The phone decides that’s something you’ll need to know. Even just taking an umbrella in your bag or car to work: right there.

And it isn’t just in the morning, either. Throughout the day, Now keeps you up to date with what’s going on via your Lock Screen, too.

Rather than just say “it has AI”, Samsung is showing users what they can actually do with it in the S25 range.

Natural language searches in apps are getting better, for example. “Show me all the photos from when I was last in Italy”, or “find food photos from last month”, you might ask, and that context is taken into account and the results are actually displayed properly, rather than a huge dump of photos from every time you’ve been there. I go to a lot of events and record a lot of video. It has been great to bark at my S25 Ultra to show me videos from that particular day or location than it has been to scroll through a grid of literally thousands of photos. They’re mostly of my cats.

AI features are even put to work around your life, too. You can take a photo of what’s in your fridge and ask for meal suggestions from it. Again, this isn’t a new feature: ChatGPT and Gemini have been able to do this since launch. But until now I’d never used it because I had to go get it rather than it being presented to me. Samsung’s new AI gear even helps control your device’s settings which – to me – is a godsend. “Make this more readable” or “make the text bigger” will now actually produce a result.

There are even actions that work across different apps and different steps, too. It allows you to ask something to go from one app to affect another. “Find my next doctor’s appointment and put it in my calendar”, or “find me places that sell healthy cat food and send it to Mia” are good examples that I have been using.

Some of this stuff you can already do with AI apps on your phone. But instead of just giving users a big blank canvas of smart stuff and letting them figure it out themselves, it’s Samsung taking action to make it actually helpful.

Samsung’s AI feels more like a proactive assistant rather than a gimmick you forget about.

What it’s missing (and why it’s okay)

Remember when tech – especially smartphones – were just super weird?

I’ve been writing about consumer tech for almost 20 years now. Some of the stuff I’ve reported on – even from Samsung – has been straight-up bonkers.

For over a decade now, I’ve sat in Samsung press briefings and watched keynotes where it would throw everything but the kitchen sink at its devices. Remember when Samsung put a camera in a smartwatch? Remember when it made a whole camera running on Android? I was there! 

By the way, I’d love to share the links to other weird announcements I’ve covered by the thousand, but a certain Australian media conglomerate didn’t think it prudent to keep the archives of Gizmodo Australia online after they unceremoniously canned the publication in 2023. But trust me, I saw it, I wore it and I kind of miss its weirdness.

That weirdness has instead been replaced by a more mature focus on what people are actually going to use everyday and actually see benefits from.

The S25 range in particular feels like Samsung is trying to be more grown up. To appeal to more people by doing fewer things better rather than lots of things weirdly.

For example, the S-Pen stylus now does less stuff, but Samsung says that’s okay. And to be honest, it kind of is.

Tucked inside the S25 Ultra is Samsung’s trusty S-Pen stylus. It’s back for another go-around this year, but you’ll get fewer features out of the box this time.

Samsung had given the S-Pen in the S24 a lot of interesting ways to use your phone. You could swipe through the air to make gestures and even use it to control your camera.

It looks like, however, that these features won’t be coming along for the ride in the S25. Samsung says its Air Action gestures are being removed from the S25 model, simply because few people actually used them in the first place.

Triggering a photo with the S-Pen was actually super cool, and it’s a shame to lose the feature. Having used it myself, it was great for taking long-exposure night shots when the device is on a tripod, for example.

But all is not lost: a subject can still wave their open palm at the device when it’s looking at them and the camera will take a snap. You can also still use your Samsung smart watch to trigger the shutter if you really miss external device support.

Just because certain features are being taken away, doesn’t mean the device is ‘worse’ as I’ve read some saying. It means that more development resources have instead been pointed at stuff that can actually deliver you a benefit day-to-day.

The Now briefings, powered by AI, are genuinely useful. The amount of stuff I have to scroll through every morning to see if there’s a nugget of info I need when I wake up is almost maddening. Having a little AI butler on my device at all times that I can ask about everything going on in my life is truly handy.

It’s something I’ll use way more than snapping shots with a stylus, that’s for sure.

The camera is still GOATed

Speaking of the camera, it’s still unreal.

A few of the changes first up: you can now reduce unwanted sounds from your videos. And you shoot in 10-bit HDR+ by default. Camera nerds, meanwhile, will enjoy shooting in LOG for better dynamic range. You also get “exclusive” LUTs from Samsung for better colour-grading.

Everywhere else, it’s the same as the S24 Ultra. But again, it doesn’t make it a bad thing.

The camera is an absolute dream to use. It snaps really sharp (but sometimes overly sharpened) images, with a swathe of zoom lenses strapped on for good measure. My one criticism of the iPhone 16 Pro Max is that images taken on the 5x telephoto lens can look a little blurry. The iPhone camera can also sometimes have difficulty figuring out if it should be using a digital zoom setting or just engaging the 5x telephoto camera. That can make some results appear blurry after you’ve snapped a pic.

From my testing of the S25 Ultra, it’s a great shooter and one of the best zooming cameras I think I’ve ever seen.

Night mode is where the S25 Ultra stumbles, just a little. Night mode shooting typically sees you hold the lens open for a few seconds to make sure you capture the scene correctly. The natural shake of your hand is typically compensated for with a device’s optical image stabilisation. I’ve found it to be lacking a little on the S25 Ultra.

Here are two pics of the night sky, taken with the iPhone 16 Pro Max and the Galaxy S25 Ultra. You’ll see that the star I wanted to capture was blurry on the Samsung shot, and believe me, I really tried to get a good result with the S25 Ultra. When I do these tests, I hold both devices side-by-side, both at the same focal length and both with no image-altering effects or settings turned on. I aim to figure out how it performs straight out of your pocket. That’s exactly how 99% of users will snap photos on their phones anyway, so it checks out.

With this photo of the night sky, I tapped the star to focus on it, and snapped a single pic on both phones. The iPhone 16 Pro Max captured it beautifully, first time. The S25 Ultra, not so much. I tried a few more times to get a better shot out of the S25 Ultra by holding it with two hands and making sure the star was the focus of the frame. What you’re looking at is the best result of around five attempts.

Don’t get me wrong, you’ll still get great photos on the S25 Ultra, but you may need to do a little bit of extra tinkering with the settings to make sure you grab your shot. Just make sure not to miss the action while you’re messing with your settings.

Pricing and release date

So how much for all of this new-ish-ness? Again, pretty much the same. That’s a good thing.

The S25 Ultra will cost $2149. If you want to go smaller, the S25 Plus will cost $1699 and the S25 base model will cop a $1399 price tag.

The device is on sale right now.

FAQ: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra vs S24 Ultra

Is the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra better than the S24 Ultra?

Yes, but the upgrades are subtle. The S25 Ultra features a new Snapdragon Elite 8 processor, improved AI features, and slightly-different and more-refined design. However, the camera hardware and battery life remain similar to the S24 Ultra.

What’s different between the Samsung S24 and S25 Ultra?

The biggest S24 vs S25 Ultra differences include 40% better cooling, improved AI-powered features, and a sleeker, stronger and lighter titanium design. The camera remains largely unchanged but benefits from enhanced image processing.

Should I upgrade from the S24 Ultra to the S25 Ultra?

If you already own an S24 Ultra, the S25 Ultra doesn’t offer a huge leap forward. However, if you want better AI functionality, improved cooling, and the latest chipset, the upgrade could be worth it.