Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra Review – You Don’t Need a Camera or a Laptop Anymore

Samsung released its latest Galaxy S series earlier in the year. The launch featured its flagship Galaxy S25 Ultra, which I spent significant time with over the past few weeks.

With every year that passes, it becomes increasingly tricky to develop a smartphone that not only stands out from the pack but also improves sufficiently upon the previous iteration for fans to want to upgrade. Samsung knows that the average turnaround for phone replacements matches the average consumer contract, between two and three years. As such, many fans expect that every second or third iteration will be a significant jump over the previous generation. However, Samsung has been improving its Galaxy S series year-on-year, and 2025 is no different, especially for the Galaxy S25 Ultra.

A Quick Look at Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra Flagship

Being its flagship mobile product, the Galaxy S25 Ultra continues the rich history of stylish smartphones in the Samsung Galaxy S series, which features a list of premium features and specifications.

Remarkably, Samsung has increased the screen size, although slightly, while reducing the device’s overall weight and real estate. It now weighs 218g, an impressive 14g lighter than the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Its dimensions have also seen it shave off a few on the edges. It measures 162.8×77.6×8.2mm, which makes it 2mm narrower and 0.4mm thinner.

However, these technicalities in its specifications may not matter much to the average user on the street. What does matter is its design. And, judging by its naming convention of the colour range – Titanium Silverblue, Titanium Whitesilver, Titanium Grey, and Titanium Black – it doesn’t take much to guess which material its frame is manufactured from.

Its titanium frame gives it a premium look and feel. It’s brilliant to the touch. Previous designs were reminiscent of the now-discontinued Galaxy Note range, featuring a squared-edge design. The Galaxy S25 Ultra, however, has a design that is more in line with the rest of the Galaxy S25 range, offering rounder corners while still keeping its squared edges. Although the large camera lens housing stops it from lying flush on a desk on the rear, its overall design still feels a step above its previous iterations.

Although you won’t ever get a perfect design, the S25 Ultra gets closer to that line, especially considering its large size. But for the first few instances, the design has been delivered so that you don’t even consider its size after holding it in your hand and using it for a few minutes.

Bigger, Brighter, Better: The New 6.9-Inch AMOLED Display

As mentioned, Samsung has packed a larger screen onto the Galaxy S25 Ultra. Already large at 6.8″ on the Galaxy S24 Ultra, the brand adds another 0.1″ on the diagonal to create the biggest screen on any Samsung smartphone with its 6.9″ screen.

In relative terms, that’s an increase of roughly 3% in the screen size. Mind you, with a 15% decrease in its overall bezel size, it means an increase in the screen-to-body ratio from 88.5% to 92.5%. Again, that’s quite an impressive feat.

At the same time, while fitting more into less, the screen has the same specifications as its predecessor. That’s a Dynamic LTPO AMOLED 2X panel with 120Hz and HDR10+ support and a peak brightness of 2,600 nits. The display also has the exact dimensions of 1,440×3,120px, which means there’s a slight reduction in pixel density, down to 498ppi. Samsung continues its partnership with Corning for its glass protection, featuring the Gorilla Armor 2 on the front and Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the rear. Lastly, the specifications feature a DX anti-reflective coating to assist with any glare from direct sunlight or other bright lights.

In use, the display is bright and beautiful. It looks brilliant. Many users often reduce the screen resolution and frequency (refresh rate) to save battery life. However, I kept these two settings at maximum just for sheer enjoyment. All the while, the battery still held up reasonably well, but more on that later.

I picked up another display aspect after watching a few video clips. Samsung offers native upscaling on the Galaxy S25 Ultra. It uses ProScaler, the brand’s upscaling technology from its TV range. The idea is simple: to take lower-resolution images and, especially, videos and upscale them to a higher resolution for a clearer image. I tested this out on a few older video clips from my archive, and it works well. It won’t upscale a 480p video to crystal clear 1080p, but it still looks impressive compared to its native viewing. This also works for some older games, so users can find some mobile classics and give them new life.

Snapdragon 8 Elite & AI Power: The Galaxy S25 Ultra Is a Speed Demon With An Impressive Battery

With each iteration of the Galaxy S series, Samsung delivers more and more power under the hood. Samsung’s partnership with Qualcomm has yielded improved results with each passing year. The Galaxy S25 Ultra features Qualcomm’s SM8750-AB Snapdragon 8 Elite (3 nm) chipset. This features an Octa-core processor, which includes x2 4.47GHz Oryon V2 Phoenix L CPUs and x6 3.53GHz Oryon V2 Phoenix M CPUs. This is partnered with an Adreno 830 GPU for all your gaming needs.

There are four variations of the RAM and internal storage combinations. This includes 256GB 12GB RAM, 512GB 12GB RAM, 1TB 12GB RAM and 1TB 16GB RAM. The review unit I received is at the bottom of the range, with 256GB internal storage and 12GB RAM. That said, the device didn’t lack anything regarding its performance.

Many of the features on the Galaxy S25 Ultra have been incorporated into Samsung’s Galaxy AI. If someone speaks another language on the other end of the call, no problem. Galaxy AI enables real-time translation of phone calls directly on the device. Even if you’re not on a call and require this feature, you can use the Interpreter app to get your message across effortlessly. Capturing and Editing Images: As with previous iterations of the Galaxy S series, the Galaxy S25 Ultra features great image capturing features, both as you take the photo, in which Galaxy AI will detect the objects and surroundings to adjust for the best settings for the image. Thereafter, if you’re still not happy with some of the objects in the image captured, you can simply use the Photo Assist AI to select an object and remove it from the end result. All it takes is a few simple clicks and you’re ready.

There’s quite a lot happening under the hood. This includes the performance and efficiency of the Qualcomm chipset, as well as the software improvements to make things even more snappy. Opening apps and processing files is a breeze. Everything just feels a lot quicker and more responsive with the seamless actions across apps and multimodal search features. With the additions of its AI capabilities, it’s not simply for creating new artwork and editing videos and translations; it does a lot to manage the resources available.

As a result of all this background work, the battery life has drastically improved. Video playback of a 1080p clip over WiFi and using medium brightness results in over 31 hours of continuous use. Additionally, reference testing shows over 40 hours of call time, over 12 hours of web browsing and roughly 10 hours of gaming. Compared to its predecessor, that’s one hour of additional battery life across these categories.

Galaxy S25 Ultra Camera Review: Minor Tweaks, Major Impact

However, the Galaxy S25 Ultra has a similar configuration to the Galaxy S24 Ultra, with a few changes. Its new layout is a design improvement. Its hardware configuration includes: 

• Main camera: 200MP 

• 5x telephoto: 50MP (which includes 10x zoom) 

• 3x optical: 10MP 

• Ultra-wide: 50MP 

• Front-facing camera: 12MP 

If you compare the camera lenses directly, you’ll notice that the only new addition is the ultra-wide lens, which now features a 50MP camera. This lens boost features more pixels, creating better low-light imagery and macro shots. By default, the camera software utilises pixel binning. Simply put, the camera software takes adjacent pixels to create a larger pixel for more clarity. This improves light sensitivity and reduces overall noise in each image.

As a result, users can choose between 12MP and 50MP images for better clarity. However, if you still need a high-resolution image, the 200MP raw image is still available.

Another of Samsung’s software presets is its vibrant colour palette. This results in beautifully rich images with bold colours. This would be sufficient for most average users, but it may be considered oversaturated for professionals. This resembles a filtered approach, where the blue sky, for example, appears too blue. However, these settings can be adjusted for a more natural appearance.

Overall, the camera’s image quality, clarity, and colour are good. For those requiring more natural imagery and settings, the professional settings on the app and the Export RAW files will support your editing requirements.

Final Verdict: Should You Upgrade to the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra?

There’s a lot to enjoy about the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. There are improvements across the board, whether with its internals, software improvements, or even design and reduced size. There’s a lot to extract for your daily usage and professional tasks to make it a worthwhile purchase. Yes, it’s a bit of a steep starting price for most users, but with its impressive performance and features, the Galaxy S25 Ultra delivers on all fronts.