The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is finally here, making its debut at Galaxy Unpacked 2025 alongside the Samsung Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Plus. After countless leaks and rampant speculation we finally know what the phone has to offer, and most importantly how much it will cost.
A lot has changed with this year’s phone, and while a lot of things are still the same as last year we’ve got some great upgrades to dig into. Upgrades like the 50MP ultrawide camera, the custom Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chipset, a larger display, and oodles of AI technology hiding under the hood. Better still, prices haven’t changed, so your entry point is the same $1,299 as last year.
Here’s everything you need to know about the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. And be sure to check out our Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra hands-on review for a more in-depth look at what the phone is like to use.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Major Changes
- Galaxy S25 Ultra is slightly bigger with a 6.9-inch display
- Samsung TV’s ProScaler technology comes to Galaxy phones for improved display quality
- Gorilla Glass Armor 2 promises stronger displays with less glare
- The Ultrawide angle camera has jumped up to 50MP, and now works as a macro lens
- New virtual aperture lets you switch between f/1.4 and f/14
- Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy offers a massive boost to performance, beyond the standard 8 Elite chip
- Galaxy AI has had some upgrades, including Audio Eraser and Dynamic Island-style NowBar
- Qi2 wireless charging has arrived, just without the magnets
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Price & Availability
Prices for the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra start at $1,299 / £1,249, which is the same price you’d have paid for a Galaxy S24 Ultra with similar specs. That gets you a model with 256GB of storage, though 512GB and 1TB options are also available. All models come with 12GB of RAM.
Pre-orders for the phone opened on January 22, while the entire Galaxy S25 series will go on sale on February 7. Color options include Titanium Silverblue, Titanium Whitesilver, Titanium Gray and Titanium Black. Samsung online exclusive colors include Pink Gold, Jet Black and Jade Green.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Specs
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: What's New
While this may seem like an iterative upgrade at first glance, there are a number of key changes that help differentiate the Galaxy S25 Ultra from the Galaxy S24 Ultra we saw this time last year. The main one is that Samsung has tweaked the design, rounding off the corners and flattening the edges even more — scrapping the harsh right-angles of previous Galaxy S flagships.
Samsung has increased the size of the phone ever so slightly, with the 6.8-inch now growing to 6.9-inches. Samsung has also promised a 15% reduction on the bezel thanks to this new design. General screen specs have stayed the same, with 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate and QHD+ resolution. Samsung has added some TV tech in the form of Proscaler, an automatic content upscaler that boosts picture quality by 43%.
The glass has also been upgraded to Gorilla Glass Armor 2 on the front and back — a change exclusive to the S25 Ultra. This glass promises to be stronger and offer better anti-reflective properties that should prove useful in those bright environments
We also have an upgraded 50MP ultrawide camera lens, up from 12MP on the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Apparently this will offer better low-light performance for the camera, with the ability to function as a macro lens for the ultra-close-up photos. That’ll function alongside the 200MP main camera, and the pair of telephoto lenses with 50MP and 10MP resolution respectively. Plus 5x and 3x optical zoom.
The camera also offers a new AI-powered Gen Pro Visual Engine, which can remove noise and blur from photos to produce better shots in different conditions. Samsung has also added a Spatial Temporal Filter, which is exclusive to the new Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy Chip, alongside virtual aperture controls that let you switch from f/1.4 to f/14.
As for the chip, Samsung claims that it developed the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chipset alongside Qualcomm. This means, according to the phone maker, that it hasn’t just finetuned an existing chip, it’s actually been built with Samsung Galaxy phones in mind. This helps offer additional performance with a 40% improvement in the NPU, 37% improvement to CPU and 30% improvement to GPU.
Samsung also increased the size of the vapor chamber cooling by 40%, while also adding a new Thermal Interface Material for an 8% boost to heat dissipation. So even when the phone is using all that performance, the heat build-up should be much lower compared to S24 Ultra.
The Galaxy S25 will come running OneUI 7 out of the box, bringing with it a number of new Galaxy AI features for you to enjoy. One major offering is the Now Bar which is a Dynamic Island-style feature that shows important information at the bottom of your home and lock screen. Now Brief will also offer summaries at different parts of the day, explaining what’s on the agenda. This also features a so-called “ProActive AI” that can make sure you stay ahead of potential problems — like heavy traffic.
AI will be powered with both Bixby and Google Gemini, with Bixby taking on all the on-device AI features. Cloud features will be a mix of the two, though Samsung couldn’t be more specific on which AI models will operate which features. Generative AI editing will also be done on-device on Galaxy S25, though cloud processing will still be available if users want it.
Finally Samsung has added Qi2 wireless charging, but not completely. Everything has been upgraded to Qi2, but there are no magnets inside the phone itself. Apparently they interfered with the display, and the S Pen functionality. So while the phone offers upgrades like 15W wireless charging and adaptive wireless charging, the magnetic support is limited to people who use a special magnetic case.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: How it compares to other phones
The design changes may make the Galaxy S25 Ultra look distinct among Galaxy flagships, but it’s very reminiscent of rival phones. Both the iPhone 16 Pro Max and Pixel 9 Pro XL have a similar look, with flat edges and curves that match the Galaxy S25 Ultra pretty evenly. It’s only the differing camera bumps that actually cement the differences between the three phones at this point.
The same is broadly true of the displays, with the same size and overall specs. The only real difference will be brightness, but so far we don’t know how bright the S25 Ultra’s screen will actually be. That said, Gorilla Glass Armor 2 certainly beats the Pixel 9 Pro and OnePlus 13’s use of Victus 2 glass. We can’t say how it compares to Apple’s proprietary Ceramic Shield display right now, not without testing it first.
The standout feature in the camera department is, once again, the 200MP main camera — something that rival cameras don’t even come close to matching. Resolution isn’t everything, but considering most flagship phones only offer 50MP cameras it’s certainly a win for Samsung in the eyes of people who like bigger numbers.
Likewise the addition of the 50MP ultrawide camera matches what we’ve seen elsewhere, and should offer a good boost to camera quality. Particularly with the new AI visual engine inside the phone. Plus Samsung has continued with the dual telephoto lenses, though they’re unchanged this generation. Sadly we won’t know just how much things have improved (or not) until we can actually test the camera for ourselves.
We have an idea of how well the regular Snapdragon 8 Elite performs against the competition already. Naturally it absolutely destroys the Pixel’s Tensor G4 chipset in benchmarking tests, and beats Apple’s A18 Pro in certain graphics and multicore benchmarks. However the A18 Pro still regularly beat it in other areas, like single-core performance. But since the S25 Ultra uses the special “For Galaxy” variant of the chip, that should offer a boost to performance — but so far we’re not entirely sure how much.
The same goes for battery life. The Galaxy S24 Ultra offered some of the best phone battery life, but not enough to unseat the likes of the OnePlus 13 or iPhone 16 Pro Max. While the battery capacity on the S25 Ultra has stayed the same, we should see some extra efficiency from the chipset (and possibly other areas). But until we actually do the testing for ourselves, we can’t say just how much better or worse things actually are this year.
What helps set the Galaxy S25 Ultra apart from Android rivals is its use of Qi2 wireless charging. According to Samsung the phone has everything except the magnets, which means users get to take advantage of upgrades like faster wireless charging speeds and adaptive wireless charging — something we haven’t seen with Qi1. Sadly the wireless charging speeds are still quite low, just 15W, and the lack of magnets puts it at a disadvantage compared to iPhone MagSafe.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Verdict
There are a lot of changes happening to the Galaxy S25 Ultra this year, with upgraded hardware and a myriad of software changes — which we’re only scratching the surface of. It’s clear that Samsung is making another big push with AI, especially in the camera and display categories, so it’ll be interesting to see how much of an impact that makes.
It’s going to be especially interesting to see what improvements stem from the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chip. With performance promising to be better than the standard 8 Elite chip, which isn’t exactly a slouch, and the potential for serious energy efficiency gains it proves to be the S25 Ultra’s secret weapon. But we won’t know for sure until we get the phone into our lab for thorough testing.
Best of all Samsung hasn’t increased the prices, despite rumors suggesting that may be on the cards. Samsung hasn’t produced a phone that’s likely to entice Galaxy S24 Ultra owners, but anyone rocking an older phone with money to spend might be very interested in the Galaxy S25 Ultra.
