Design and display

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra has managed to refine the already premium experience of the S25’s predecessor, the S24 Ultra, with a sharper, more streamlined design. It’s 6.9-inch AMOLED display offers a bright and crisp visual experience whether you’re watching movies or playing games. Now the much-welcomed standard for the latest generation of flagship smartphones, the top-of-the-range 120Hz refresh rate ensure seamless scrolling, as well as fluid transitions when you’re moving between apps.

Housed in ultra-strong titanium and reinforced with durable Corning Gorilla Armor 2 display glass and an IP68 rating, the S25 Ultra is the perfect balance of toughness and elegance. This handset is thin; it’s sleeker and lighter than its predecessor, yet manages to pack in a bigger, more immersive display.

Rounded corners add to the sleek look, softening the edges of the handset without losing the signature Samsung design. The S pen is tucked away discreetly, adding to the immersive, screen-first feel.

Performance

If the aesthetics of the S25 Ultra haven’t impressed you already, the powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor should. Alongside 12GB of RAM, Samsung’s most powerful processor yet is designed to effectively handle multiple demanding tasks, so you can take photos or videos, use AI tools or simply scroll social media with complete ease.

Users who need a lot of power – gamers, we’re looking at you – will enjoy the 37% faster processing power on offer. Every action feels effortless here, no matter what game you’re playing. Screens blend into one another seamlessly, illuminating vibrant graphics without any lag; more so than ever, this is an entirely responsive, seemingly intuitive device.

Galaxy AI integration

We’ve waxed lyrical about Samsung’s AI integrations before, and for good measure – the range of features on offer are some of the most thoughtful and well-curated we’ve seen in recent years. Samsung are only continuing to push their AI innovation further with the suite of Galaxy AI tools available with the S25 series – with 40% faster AI performance on offer to boot. Some of our favourites include;

Now Bar and Now Brief

Working in tandem, both of these tools are designed to give you real-time, useful information in a single glance. The Now Bar sits on your lock screen or home page – this is up to you, which is a nice touch - and gives you the option to access the apps of your choice with a single tap. This then extends into the Now Brief to give you handy AI-generated updates all in one place. Weather, news stories and sports scores; you can get a quick briefing, that’s entirely personalised to you.

Audio Eraser

As you might expect from its name, this tool lets you isolate, adjust or remove sounds from any video you take, with excellent performance in terms of picking out individual sounds. If your favourite band is being drowned out by the person next to you at a concert, you can isolate the singing voice you actually want to hear; or remove the sound of a car alarm from an otherwise peaceful-seeming memory. Used alongside the incredible cameras, Audio Eraser lets you create exceptionally high-quality videos, with steady visuals sitting alongside the audio of your choice.

Battery

The considerable 5,000mAh battery is designed to give you lasting power, all day long – or up to 31 hours of video playback. It’s optimised for high performance tasks like photography, gaming and streaming. Like the Galaxy S24 Ultra, it supports super-fast charging as well as wireless charging, which makes it easy to power up without cumbersome wires in the way.

Cameras

While they’ve always been a strong suit of the Ultra series, the S25’s cameras are particularly impressive. The handset features a quad-camera set up, including a 200MP main sensor, an ultra-wide lens – 50MP compared to the S24 Ultra’s 12MP - and two telephoto lenses with enhanced zoom capabilities.

Samsung’s ProVisual Engine really comes into its own with the S25 Ultra, whether you’re taking long-distance shots or more detailed close-ups. The AI-powered engine captures objects in intricate detail, bringing out textures with vivid, realistic tones; paired with the super-sized screen, your subject matter almost jumps out of the screen.

Upgrades are also on display in terms of low light photography capabilities. Night Mode helps you take clearer, brighter photos by combining 30 images into a single shot. This leaves you with a more vivid, detailed image, free of the blurriness accepted alongside previous iterations of nighttime phone photography. To note, Samsung have removed the remote camera control capability of the S pen that could previously be used to take shots from a distance; keeping your phone steady while you snap won’t alter the quality of your final images, though.

Summary

The latest in a series of truly groundbreaking Samsung releases, the S25 Ultra is already a firm favourite in our lineup, thanks to well-curated AI updates and faster processing power than ever before. Explore our pick of the best Samsung phones to find out more about the innovative smartphone technology on offer.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra FAQs