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We got our hands on the Galaxy S25 Ultra pretty much on the day that it was launched – and the timing is impeccable as it is just a week before the Lunar New Year. It’s a super busy time, and actually got sick at that time – that means I get to spend a lot of time with the phone before actually doing this review.
Design
One of the biggest changes this year with the S25 Ultra is the design. Well, not by much – but a little tweak does improve the overall usage of the phone. As you all know, the corners are now rounded rather than being square like the predecessor. Gripping the phone with my hand means that it won’t dig into my skin anymore, and reaching to the far end of the phone also feels better.
That’s not all. I have always questioned the weird bulge around the two sides of the S24 Ultra – and Samsung has flattened the frame on the S25 Ultra. The phone now looks so gorgeous and feels so much nicer to hold.
At the back, well – it’s a very minimalist design. It’s a matte finish, and is available in 7 different colors. The colors are quite reflective this time and they do change color depending on what angle light is hitting.
This Titanium Whitesilver is not very white. It’s a tad bit yellowish, kinda like eggshell white.
Screen
With a change in the phone shape, the screen also got a change. It is now a 6.9-inch display. Slightly larger than before, and everything else remains the same – 1440p resolution screen and 120Hz refresh rate.
The screen also got quite a lot of flak since the last generation as the color saturation was an issue. Samsung has since introduced a saturation slider. The default is now in the vividness level 1, but you can change it to natural or to vividness level 2 or 3. Honestly, I’ve been using the S24 Ultra at vividness level 2 since that is the most comfortable to my eyes.
Using our colorimeter, we did the vividness test for all the color profiles again. This S25 Ultra is indeed doing great, as it got a super small bump in max brightness to around 1290 nits. The color vividness though, is a bit weird.
For our particular unit of the Galaxy S24 Ultra and S25 Ultra, the new one seems to have a slight reduction of the DCI-P3 color gamut coverage across all the vividness levels – but the ΔE number is much better, except for the vividness level 3.
Either way, this is a great display – and I don’t think it’s an issue for anyone because that anti-reflection tech that they have is just so good. Seriously, shining a flashlight on the phone now looks like there’s a bright dot – that’s it.
I mean, seriously – I can watch a video under the bright sunlight and have zero issues at all. No other phone can do that – except for the S24 Ultra, of course. But then again, if we slap a screen protector on it, then the anti-reflection is totally gone.
Performance
Alongside the new design and a magnificent screen, the S25 Ultra also comes with the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite For Galaxy chipset with a mild overclock. And I’m honestly not a fan of this chip.
In our gaming test, it can run Genshin Impact rather well. Samsung tuned it to the point that when it does thermal throttle at 44°C, it’s not an abrupt drop in frame rate. It’s rather gradual, and it drops to around 40fps – which is very respectable at this resolution at the highest graphical settings.
As for Zenless Zone Zero though, this is the most demanding battle in the game that is repeatable and lasts long enough for the phone to literally hit the thermal limit. This is where we can see the GPU is always pegged at 100% utilization, and the frame rate can drastically drop. If we do increase the thermal limit to 47°C, that wouldn’t help either since it will just hit the thermal limit a few minutes later.=
What we really need is to have a thermal limit so high that it is unreachable – or an active cooler.
Battery life
Now, how’s the battery life? Well, Samsung continued to use a 5,000mAh battery on the latest S25 Ultra – and it lasts around 16 hours and 27 minutes at 1080p resolution in our standardized battery life test, and 15 hours and 35 minutes in 1440p resolution.
Sadly though, if we put the battery life numbers against the S24 Ultra when it was new, the improvement is only 8.8146% better at 1080p resolution, and a measly 5.7754% at 1440p resolution. Qualcomm claims that it’s vastly more efficient compared to the 8 Gen 3, but that is really not the case.
Whatever claims Qualcomm had about the battery life improvement will be further explored and explained in our upcoming video about the current state of chipsets – because I already found out the true answer.
Charging speed
The charging speed also remains the same at 5,000mAh – and the charging speed is about the same as before. It can take in a maximum of around 41W maximum and takes about 55 minutes to charge from 15% to completion. Pretty good so far.
I have to mention again – Samsung uses USB-PD PPS charging standards – the same one that your laptop uses. So, you can basically share a charger between your phone and your laptop if you wish to do so. We’ll have links to our recommended charger in the description below. Not sponsored, by the way – I just use those chargers every day.
Camera
Now, one of the biggest points of contention about the new Galaxy S25 Ultra is the camera upgrades – the lack thereof, I mean. The ultrawide angle camera was upgraded from a measly 12MP sensor to an ISOCELL JN3. I was also hoping that the 3x optical zoom camera would get an upgrade – but no. It’s still the same measly 10MP sensor as many years ago.
To have a look at all the pictures and videos taken with the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, watch our video at the top of this review.
Software
With the arrival of the Galaxy S25 series comes the new One UI 7. Basically, One UI 7 is a redesign of the existing One UI. It refocuses the original mantra of being a one-handed UI with all of the commonly-used buttons located at the bottom of the screen, but I think that it doesn’t really work that well on the Ultra because of the sheer size of this phone.
Anyway, One UI 7 comes with a bunch of new features. Most notably is the Now Brief works really well as it tells me everything I need to know for the day. I realized that I am already doing it with my Google Home routines – and having it integrated into the phone and displaying this list is just much more convenient than listening to whatever my Google Nest Mini says.
The Now Bar is a place that pools together the “now playing”, the timer, the shortcut to jump to the Now Brief, and a few more things.
It’s definitely useful, though I don’t think I’ll interact with the Now Bar much since I always skip the lock screen.
The existing features like Samsung Wallet, Modes & Routines, and particularly Edge Panel – got some changes and upgrades too.
S Pen
Of course, the S Pen. Samsung removed the Bluetooth connectivity this time, and that means no more magic wand functionality. All of a sudden, many people “remembered” that this feature exists, and then complained about it.
Seriously, how many times did you actually use this feature? Me personally, I only take out the S Pen once in a blue moon to draw some stuff only. The only one sensible comment is this – using the S Pen to take pictures. but then again, there are already plenty ways to take pictures remotely – like showing your hands or just saying “cheese”.
I’d be more angry if Samsung took away the Bluetooth functionality on the tablets. I have a bunch of customizations done via Modes and Routines for the Air Gestures.
For some reason, there is a rumor going on that Samsung will sell a Bluetooth-enabled S Pen separately for the S25 Ultra – but that doesn’t seem to be the case either. I also tried putting the S24 Ultra’s S Pen into the S25 Ultra – and while it fits, it doesn’t click into the phone.
The “new” S Pen also has a slightly thicker nib, but otherwise functions the same as before if we’re just drawing things on the phone.
Also, the new S Pen kinda juts out like this and makes the phone frame not exactly have a nice round curve. I just find this to be weird. It doesn’t affect anything.
A few more things to mention
And of course, a few more things to mention about the Galaxy S25 Ultra. It still has a USB 3 port at the bottom, so transferring files in and out is quick. I do wish that Samsung will somehow pull us a fancy trick and include a USB 4 port in the future, though. It might get hot by just transferring files – but if the file transfers are quick enough, then it wouldn’t even have the chance to heat up.
Of course, Samsung DeX is still here and we can use display output over USB-C, and it also has a double SIM card slot – at least for our region here.
Should you buy the Galaxy S25 Ultra?
Overall, the Galaxy S25 Ultra. On the surface, there aren’t that many changes compared to the S24 Ultra. It has a new, refined design that I think is much better, an arguably better screen as it has low reflectivity, and also magnificent colors and brightness.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy does indeed show a bit of improvement over the 8 Gen 3, but it’s pretty mild. So, should you buy the Galaxy S25 Ultra? Yes, only if you’re coming from something like the Galaxy S22 Ultra or older.
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