Samsung's flagship phones used to represent the very best that mobile tech hardware had to offer. If you purchased a Galaxy S or Note phone anytime in the 2010s, you knew you were getting the best screen, the most cutting-edge camera hardware, and just a maximal phone all around.

That is no longer the case, as Chinese flagship phones rountinely offer newer and "more" hardware for less money. Even in the US, which doesn't get most Chinese phones, there's the OnePlus 13 which larger battery, faster charger, larger camera sensors, and a brighter screen than the Galaxy S25 Ultra at a lower price.

But Samsung has a few crucial things in its favor: full carrier presence and support, much bigger brand power, and the most polished and capable suite of AI features in mobile. Add all of those factors up, and it does just enough to justify the S25 Ultra's existence and will probably keep it as the best-selling Android flagship in the world again. It is, however, ironic that the phone line once known for having the most maximal and bleeding edge hardware now has to rely on intangibles and software updates to keep its throne.

About this review: this review was written after two weeks using a Galaxy S25 Ultra provided by Samsung; the company had no input in this review.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Pricing and availability

The Galaxy S25 Ultra is available for purchase now worldwide at practically every carrier or store that sells mobile phones. In the US, the phone starts at $1,300 for the base 12GB RAM/256GB storage variant, but there are deals from Samsung's website or major US carriers.

No more pointy corners

The Ultra loses its intimidating look, but your palm will thank you

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra gets a redesign this year that feels both major and minor. I say this because, on one hand, the phone still looks very similar to the last few generations at quick glance: it's still a boxier, angular slab than most mobile phones on the market. The backside remains mostly unchanged, except for thicker camera rings around the individual camera lenses.

But Samsung has removed the hard 90-degree corners of the last three generations in favor of a slightly rounder corner. The side frame of the phone is also completely flat (it was still slightly rounded last year), which does enough to change the in-hand feel drastically in a good way. The previous S Ultra phones' hard corners jabbed into my palm so much that it was uncomfortable to hold. This year's phone no longer digs into my skin like this.

Of course, the problem was mostly noticeable to me because I often use my phone case-less. Most consumers will slap a case on the phone, so I suppose this was never that big an issue.

The only other new thing regarding hardware is the expected Qualcomm silicon update, a better ultra-wide camera, and slightly thinner bezels that allow the S25 Ultra screen to reach 6.9 inches now (compared to 6.8 inches before) while keeping mostly the same dimensions in height and width. The phone is marginally thinner and 14g lighter at 218g. I find the new phone more comfortable to hold.

The S25 Ultra display is covered by a newer generation of Gorilla Glass that's supposedly sturdier, but otherwise, the resolution and refresh rates remain identical to last year's screen. I'm happy to report the anti-reflective matte coating from last year is also back, and it looks just as amazing this year.

This may be my favorite-looking screen of any smartphone right now. But I must add a caveat: I, like the majority of people, am not PWM (pulse-width modulation) sensitive, meaning my eyes are not particularly affected by flickering lights. There are PWM-sensitive people who find Samsung's display panels particularly tough to look at for long stretches because Samsung's screens have a relatively low PWM rate compared to Chinese flagship phones (the higher the PWM rate, the better it is).

Again, I stress that Samsung's low PWM issue only seems to affect a minority of users, but it is worth mentioning that for people who are PWM sensitive, Samsung's phone screens cause more issues than, say, Honor's phone screens.

The silicon inside is the expected annual chip bump: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite "for Galaxy." The last two words just mean the chip has an overclocked CPU. Personally, I find mobile chips to have gotten more than powerful enough five years ago, and I saw absolutely no performance differences between this overclocked chip in the S25 Ultra or the standard Snapdragon 8 Elite in the OnePlus 13 and a Xiaomi device I can't quite talk about yet.

I suppose we have to talk about the S Pen stylus, which you may have heard lost its Bluetooth functionality, meaning it can no longer double as a remote control for the phone. This loss does not bother me much personally, but I can see why others are upset. I know several friends who used the Bluetooth S Pen as a camera remote shutter for group selfies, and the general optics of Samsung removing a feature from a $1,300 phone without adding anything of value in return is a bad look. For what it's worth, the S Pen stylus experience is still quite useful for making fine photo edits and annotating documents.

Same old camera, but better processing

The S25 Ultra only gets one camera hardware upgrade: its ultra-wide camera now uses a more pixel-dense 50MP sensor instead of 12MP from before. The other cameras remain unchanged from last year, and in the case of the 3X zoom lens, unchanged since 2021's S21 Ultra.

I must say I'm a bit disappointed by the lack of a camera hardware push from Samsung, especially since Chinese brands like Vivo and Xiaomi are pushing boundaries using newer and larger sensors every year. But Samsung's image processing has noticeably improved this year, with better dynamic range, including more details in the shadows.

Samsung also gave its S25 phones a new set of film simulation filters that alter the color science and tones of an image. I know most people will see this and assume Samsung is following the iPhone's "Photographic Style," but I actually think this trend was pioneered by Vivo and Xiaomi's critically acclaimed color rendition in the past two-three years.

Samsung's image processing has noticeably improved this year, with better dynamic range, including details in the shadows areas

Whatever the case, the S25 Ultra can produce very good photos in a vacuum. Colors and dynamic range are consistent across all the lenses, and the 50MP 5X zoom lens still gives Samsung the best zoom lens in the American market, easily besting the smaller weaker iPhone and Pixel zoom lenses.

But if I compare the S25 Ultra against the absolute best phone cameras (the ones with the noticeably better hardware), the S25 Ultra cameras fall short, especially in telephoto photography. Below are low-light portrait samples snapped by the S25 Ultra's 5X lens (left) and a soon-to-be-announced Chinese Ultra phone's zoom lens (right). I cropped into the shot and placed them side-by-side for easy reference. It's clear that the Chinese phone's larger sensor produces a more detailed shot.

Here's another low-light sample from the two phones, this time shot in auto mode, with the two long zoom lenses again. Again, Samsung's shot on the left, and the upcoming Chinese phone on the right. The S25 Ultra's shot is noisier, with less background depth, and the bike's details are softer.

This is nitpicking, of course. I think most people would be perfectly fine with the 5X shots from the S25 Ultra, and if I didn't place them side-by-side and cropped in, if I had just uploaded them on Instagram viewed on a phone screen, people may not see much difference between the shots at all.

Plus, there's one photography trick Samsung has that bests what other phones can do: generative AI.

I actually find Samsung's AI features useful, unlike Apple's

It's ironic I just spent all those words talking about the S25 Ultra's hardware, because Samsung's own marketing does not seem to care much. Whether it was press briefings or marketing materials, Samsung, for the second year running, has focused mostly on its Galaxy AI features.

The truth is the bulk of Galaxy AI's features, like "Circle to Search," or multistep Gemini integration, are just Google features, so they should be able to run on other Android phones. But Samsung and Google have developed this annoying habit of gatekeeping new Google features from other phones, all so Galaxy and Pixel phones have more features to advertise.

But Samsung has done a better job of curating the unwieldy list of AI features better than just about anyone, and some features are exclusively Samsung's, like "Drawing Assistant" and "Now Brief". Drawing Assist lets you draw a crude sketch and turn that into digital art or a realistic-looking part of the image, and Now Brief is a new widget that lives at the bottom of the lock screen that's slightly more intelligent than widgets of this type. Now Brief usually understands the time of day and my location, and thus gives contextual information like weather in the next few hours, or upcoming schedules. It also suggested a good coffee place near the hotel where I am staying, which was impressive.

But the best, and perhaps most disturbing, flex of Samsung's AI prowess is its generative AI photo editing, meaning doctoring photos using original pixels created by AI. Just about every phone has a version of this now, but Samsung's version seems to me the most realistic, and willing to do more doctoring.

For example, below is a S24 Ultra selfie shot of my friends and I. Part of my face and body was off frame, because my arms were not long enough to get everyone in the shot. Using Samsung's generative AI, I was able to move myself further in the shot, and then Samsung's AI generated pixels to "create" part of my face and body.

It gets crazier. In the collage below you can see I was able to use Samsung's generative AI to remove the camera blocking my friend's face, and then the AI created a face for him — that actually looked quite realistic and close to how he actually looks.

I understand this level of doctoring a photo may leave some feeling uneasy. And I am aware offering this level of easy photo manipulation on a mass consumer product could raise concerns about ethical use of AI, but that's a whole debate to be had by people far higher on the pay scale than me. I've always enjoyed editing photos of friends as a joke, and Galaxy AI really takes it to the next level.

Other performance bits and final thoughts

I enjoyed my time with the S25 Ultra over the past couple of weeks. Even though its 5,000 mAh battery is now up to 20% smaller than competing Chinese Ultra phones, Samsung's phone still gave me just about all-day battery life, though just barely. I'm a heavy user and I tend to spend my weekends outside all day. On those heavy usage days (where I leave the house at 10am and may not return home until midnight), the S25 Ultra would finish that 14-hour stretch with 10-20% battery. It's enough juice, but the OnePlus 13 or Vivo X200 Pro would have 25-35% battery left.

Also, Samsung's 45W charging speed feels slow for me, someone spoiled by Chinese phones' 80W or 100W charging. The S25 Ultra takes just about an hour to charge from 0 to 100, which isn't too bad, but I have other phones that can do the same charge in 30-35 minutes.

Overall performance as a daily tool is great. The S25 Ultra has improved thermals over last year, so the device never got warm, even during CapCut editing or mild gaming sessions. I am not a heavy gamer, but the S25 Ultra did run the graphically intensive Devil May Cry at peak graphic settings at a sustained 60fps framerate.

The speakers of the phone are also quite good (though not as great as the Honor Magic 7 Pro's best-in-class speakers). Combine that with a large screen and a boxy design, and the S25 Ultra is an excellent multimedia consumption device.

I also found OneUI 7, based on Android 15, to run smoothly, and OneUI's multitasking capabilities is second best in Android (behind Oppo/OnePlus' software). With the S Pen allowing me to quickly sign documents, I very much enjoyed using the S25 Ultra as a work phone.

Should you buy the Galaxy S25 Ultra?

You should buy the Galaxy S25 Ultra if:

• You want the most polished and capable suite of AI features in a phone
• You own a Galaxy S22 Ultra or older and you want to upgrade to another Galaxy
• You want a powerful Android flagship, but you don't want to use a Chinese phone

You should not buy the Galaxy S25 Ultra if:

• You own the Galaxy S24 Ultra — the upgrades are too minimal, and the new software features will come to the S24 phones
• You want the absolute best in mobile tech hardware, especially cameras
• You don't really care for AI features on a phone

I enjoyed my time with the S25 Ultra, and in a vacuum, I think it is a fine phone. But I can't ignore that Chinese brands right now are just offering newer, better hardware for less money. I understand that most Chinese phones do not sell in North America, but the OnePlus 13 does, and it outperforms the S25 Ultra in several key areas including display PWM rate, camera sensor sizes, and battery capacity.

I think Samsung knows that, due to various reasons, Chinese brands will never have a major presence in its two biggest markets of North America and South Korea, so it can effectively shrug off the Xiaomis and Vivos and Honors of the world. But what about other regions? What about power users? Whether it's anecdotal experience from being in Asia, or being immersed in online Android discourse, I know many people are aware that the Vivos and Xiaomis of the world offer better hardware than Samsung.

I hope Samsung will step up its hardware push again for the next year, because I miss the time when a Samsung Galaxy phone meant the best hardware, not just intangibles.