Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra Review: The Flagship to Beat in 2025?

Samsung’s finest, most premium device of the year is here as the Galaxy S25 Ultra. Its priced at $1,299, the same as last year’s model. This time, with thinner trims, unprecedented performance, and all of the AI you could need. Still, there is chatter surrounding the device both online and offline. And after using the device for a good part of the week, I will help settle the debate for you and share my opinion in this review of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Specs at Glance

Now before starting with the review of the Galaxy S25 Ultra, let’s take a glance at its key specifications first.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Box Contents

While nothing much has changed regarding what you get in the box, I like the new silhouette of the phone on the box itself. With that said, here’s everything you will find along with your new Galaxy S25 Ultra in the packaging.

• Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
• USB Type-C-to-C charging cable
• SIM ejector pin
• Manual and other paperwork

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Design

We have the Titanium Grey variant with us, but the phone is also available in 3 other offline colors and 3 more online-exclusive shades. This time, the Galaxy S25 Ultra sports a newer, thinner look compared to the past iterations. The company has flattened the sides completely and snipped off the corners in exchange for smooth, rounded ones. Having used last year’s S24 Ultra frequently at the Beebom office, I am glad they went this route.

The S24 Ultra felt quite uncomfortable to use, given its large form factor, and it felt out of place as a smartphone. This new S25 Ultra is easily more manageable, ergonomic to hold, and feels lighter too. That’s because Samsung has removed some heft from the body, bringing it down to 218 grams. It has also shaved off some of the thickness, bringing it down to 8.2mm. Honestly, I feel a lot more confident gripping this phone and still can’t believe that I’m clutching onto an Ultra.

Keen-eyed readers must have noticed there are new rings around the lenses similar to the Galaxy Z Fold 6. In fact, the phone takes a lot of cues from it with flatter edges and soft rounded corners design terms. The rest of the camera arrangement hasn’t changed at all.

The grey variant gives off this brushed metal aesthetic that I love, with a smoother finish at the back. This is protected by Gorilla Glass Armor 2, which also looks after the front display panel. Apart from that, it’s the usual affair with power and volume buttons on the right, followed by the USB-C port, main speaker grill, S-pen housing, and the SIM card tray sitting at the bottom. The left and the top of the phone are mostly left untouched.

Taking a quick look at the S-Pen, Samsung has made a controversial decision to remove Bluetooth from it. Dumbing it down to a regular stylus and chopping off air gestures. This also plays a part in helping the phone shed some weight but at the cost of functionality. The stylus itself feels sort of hollow and doesn’t have the tight bounce back to it as it used to.

The design changes bring it in line with the rest of the S25 lineup, rather than make it look like the odd one out. However, the Galaxy Note-like appearance these phones used to sport has gone with it. While those series of devices were quite near and dear to my heart, this visual change in the S25 Ultra could be Samsung’s way of burying the hatchet once and for all.

Talking about the front, the Galaxy S25 Ultra sits at the cusp of being a tablet. It sports a large 6.9-inch QHD+ LTPO AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and HDR 10+ with 2600 nits of brightness. That’s quite a mouthful, but it’s not enough to justify the crisp, vibrant, and sharp screen on the device. Colors look mostly natural with the Natural settings applied, albeit a tad warmer for my taste. The orangish hue doesn’t go away despite switching to Vivid color mode.

That said, the panel handles details and dark environments elegantly. I was watching James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad on the phone and compared it with the OnePlus 13’s display. I preferred to watch it on Samsung because it looks just that much better. The new anti-reflective surface on the screen might have had a part in it. The OnePlus, on the other hand, had visible reflections that was not on the S25 Ultra.

It also houses an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner. It’s quick to unlock, as long as you don’t go with an after-market screen protector. The large brick of metal and glass slab is protected by IP 68 certification, making it water and dust-resistant.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Performance

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra gets its yearly spec bump with the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite processor. The good thing is that this 3nm beast is available across all regions this time around. So, you don’t have to worry about picking the Exynos version. This powerhouse of a CPU is coupled with 12GB LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB UFS 4.0 storage on our unit. But you can also get it in 512GB and 1TB variants.

To visualize the capability of this new chip, we have run the typical set of benchmarks. As you can tell from the results, the phone does really well in terms of numbers. It did struggle with the CPU throttling test, dipping constantly into reds after 3 minutes. That said, not once did the S25 Ultra show any signs of heating errors. That’s because Samsung has used a 40% larger vapor chamber which helps keep high temperatures at bay.

I can say the same in terms of gaming too where the S25 Ultra steamrolled through any game I played on it. Whether it is PUBG Mobile or Call of Duty Mobile that played like a charm at 120FPS. As well as demanding titles like Genshin Impact and Warzone Mobile. I played both the titles on High Settings and 60 FPS (Uncapped in the case of Warzone) and had no issues whatsoever.

Genshin played like a dream, offering a smooth comfortable experience even during intense battles. This is also true for Warzone, except for a few instances where the game got choppy. But I will chalk it up to the game’s poor optimization, not with the phone itself. However, this is where I noticed that Samsung has tweaked the touch sensitivity to be a lot more responsive. It isn’t noticeable generally throughout the UI, but you will notice it when playing games.

After all that gaming and benchmark tests, it is time to look at the battery. The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra has a 5,000 mAh cell like last year. This can easily last you for about 7 hours of screen time or about 1.5 days of usage. Samsung has optimized the battery pretty well this year. In my time with the phone, I managed to drain it quickly on the day of initial setup, and the next day while running benchmarks and gaming on it. But struggled to do the same on days of light usage.

As for charging, it supports up to 45 Watts that can top up the phone from 0 to 100% in a little over 1 hour and 20 minutes. For a 50% charge, you only need to wait for 30 minutes. It also comes with 15-watt wireless charging and reverse wireless charging support. However, there are no Qi 2 magnets available inside the S25 Ultra. Not sure why Samsung omitted those, I wish they were here.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Software

The Galaxy S Ultra series is often considered the King of the Android, and you can’t earn that title without a good software experience. This phone delivers on that front too featuring the latest One UI 7 (review) based on top of Android 15. It includes several new changes in terms of looks, feel, and animations. Booting up to the interface will present you with a more cheerful and bouncy look.

The entire One UI interface carries a “pill-shaped” theme, which is most prominent in the Now bar (hands-on). This is a new addition to your S25 Ultra’s lock screen showcasing the latest updates, news stories, map directions, recordings, and music playback. It works similarly to Apple’s implementation of Live activities on their iPhone. Though it does lack third-party support, which is soon to arrive according to Samsung.

The rest of the skin feels good to browse through, and it is hard for me to keep my hands off it. As mentioned, Samsung has also updated the animations, which adds to the experience. Plus, you can use tools like Good Lock to further enhance the animations if you feel the need to. Like last year’s model, you will receive regular updates for the next 7 years, so the phone is good to go until 2032.

That said, we can’t gloss over all the new Galaxy AI features bundled this time around. I feel since last year, this year’s additions are more practical and make a useful case for themselves. Some of these AI trickery like the Writing Assist is something I found myself using pretty often. It was the reason I stuck to the Samsung keyboard most of the time to bring up the handy AI tool anywhere anytime.

Then there are other features like the Audio eraser, which helped clear background noise in any video. I also used their new Call transcript tool that creates a live transcription of an ongoing call, and you can read it later on. Google’s Gemini also steals the limelight from Samsung’s Bixby this year, featuring new prowess to carry out multiple tasks at the speech of a single command. It could look up movie release dates and automatically add them to my calendar when asked.

There’s just so much more AI goodness (here’s the full list of new AI features) at your disposal this year with the Galaxy S25 Ultra. And unlike last year, I am glad that brands are starting to slightly shift from gimmicks and have started thinking about it from a practical perspective.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Cameras

Coming around to cameras, there’s a total of five lenses in focus here. The main 200MP camera, the secondary 10MP 3x telephoto lens, the third 50MP 5x periscope sensor, and the new 50MP ultrawide lens. The fifth one is the 12MP selfie snapper in the front. This might not look or sound too different from the S24 Ultra, which is true, but the S25 Ultra benefits from the new ISP included in the Snapdragon 8 Elite, and the results speak for themselves.

The main f/1.7 sensor clicks amazing photos filled with rich details, colors, and highlights. Samsung has tweaked the color science this time, so it appears to be a tad more saturated which is especially visible when bright colors are in focus. While some may not prefer it, it works out great for social media-ready clicks. Apart from that, this 200MP sensor still pulls ahead of many other flagships and the results are evident below.

The effect remains the same, even when the day turns dark. There are ample details in the shadowy or dark areas. That said, one can easily make out plenty of noise in dark regions as well. Unlike other phone makers, Samsung’s post-processing does little to tackle it, but I’m alright with it as it also offers a good amount of details. This makes night shots with the Galaxy S25 Ultra stand out.

Zooming into the 10MP 3x sensor can get you some decent results, in both day and night scenarios. However, the photos may not be as crisp as the ones taken from the main sensor, even at a 2x crop or the 50MP 5x periscope lens.

Talking about it, you will instantly notice the difference in clarity and details when switching over to the 5x lens. While the noise I talked about earlier is still present in zoomed photos, I feel Samsung is using some different sort of processing for photos clicked from this 5x sensor. Why? Because the results appear more true to life when clicked in 5x, 10x, and 30x.

As for the 50MP ultrawide sensor, the higher resolution definitely helps it capture more details in the shot and Samsung’s post-processing helps correct the warping effect we typically get with ultra-wide images. But I don’t feel it is a big step up from the last time as it takes a hit at nighttime shots. Still, you can produce some jaw-dropping shots if you know your way around the camera. The macro photos also benefit from the improved sensor and come out sharper.

In terms of selfies, you wouldn’t be disappointed by the 12MP shooter. This is a tried and tested camera and it keeps shining on the S25 Ultra. The selfies and portraits come out beautiful with organic skin tones and keeping the natural look of the face. That goes for both the day and night selfies. The portrait modes create a rich bokeh effect.

The video quality is as top-notch as it was last year. The phone is capable of recording 4K 60FPS HDR video from all five cameras. It can even do 8K at 30FPS as well. I recorded a couple of videos from the back and the front cameras and both turned out pretty spectacular. There were no focus-hunting issues, the video was steady and you can even lock the exposure now with the updated Camera UI which is useful when recording in direct sunlight.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Verdict

At a starting price of $1299, The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra offers about everything you have come to expect from the series so far. You get a massive 6.9-inch display, a top-of-the-line processor, an S-pen, and an amazing camera setup. Plus, there are some new refinements in terms of a more ergonomic design, a better ultrawide lens, and tons of useful AI goodies.

I understand that some fans prefer the older, heftier look of the previous S24 Ultra, and that phone is still available to be picked up. But what S25 Ultra offers is an improved take on the same old formula. Samsung has done such a commendable job with the device, packing in everything latest and the best. This is why the series has earned the title of “the king of the Android,” and the Galaxy S25 Ultra retains that mantle.

So if you love the Ultra devices, and find the need to upgrade to a new one then I am sure that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is not going to disappoint you at all. In fact, you will find a new appreciation for its design once you pick up the device and I am sure about that.