Updated October 4
• Samsung has announced One UI 7, and that it'll appear on new Galaxy phones in 2025.
• Leaked benchmarks show a big performance gain for the Galaxy S25 Ultra over the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
• The Galaxy S25 Ultra could have thinner bezels than the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
• Leaked renders show off the front and sides of the S25 Ultra.
You may not be thinking about the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra at the moment, but rest assured that Samsung is. Even with January's Galaxy S24 launch relatively fresh in the mind, work on the next premier Samsung flagship is already well underway.
We know this because Galaxy S25 Ultra rumors are swirling with greater frequency. We're still lacking the kind of information necessary to get a full picture of what to expect from Samsung's upcoming premium handset, which looks to take its place atop the rankings of the best Samsung phones. But the tidbits we do have combined with Samsung's track record of smartphone updates should be enough to whet our appetite for more Galaxy S25 Ultra news.
After Samsung put its full effort behind Galaxy AI features for this year's phones, expect that to continue with the Galaxy S25 lineup, including the Ultra. As for Samsung's high-end phone, we're already hearing that some camera improvements could be at the top of Samsung's to-do list, as the phone maker tries to show Apple what it takes to make the best camera phone.
Here's what we've heard so far about the Galaxy S25 Ultra, along with some of our best guesses as to what Samsung has planned. We've also got a wish list of Galaxy S25 Ultra features we want to see if you're looking for additional background on next year's flagship.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Rumored release date and price
It's far too early in the rumor cycle for the Galaxy S25 Ultra to say definitively when the new phone will arrive. Outside of an early 2025 release window for the Galaxy S25, your guess is as good as ours.
That said, in recent years, Samsung has been gradually moved up the release date for the Galaxy S series, which used to arrive in the February/Mach time frame. This year's Galaxy S24 release was the earliest ever, with a Galaxy Unpacked event taking place on January 17, and the S24 models shipping two weeks later on January 31.
If Samsung moves up the Galaxy S25 Ultra release date any earlier, the launch event would collide with CES 2025, an event where Samsung typically focuses on its TVs and smart home products. So we'd guess that at the earliest, we're looking at another mid-January Galaxy Unpacked event focusing on Samsung's new phones.
Samsung raised the price on the Galaxy S24 Ultra to start the year, charging $1,299 for the phone after the Galaxy S23 Ultra had cost $1,199. That would seem to preclude a price hike for the Galaxy S25 Ultra, but the cost premium phones is on the rise. Indeed, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 expected to power the Galaxy S25 Ultra could drive up the cost of the phone. It's still early, though, so we'll likely hear more pricing rumors as we get closer to the end of 2024.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Design and display
Having just switched to titanium for the frame of the Galaxy S24 Ultra, we don't imagine Samsung would make a change for the S25 version. Likewise, Samsung has used the same basic design for recent Ultras, with the cameras stacked in vertical rows on the back of the phone and the lenses emerging slightly from the rear. We don't think that's going to change, either, but leaked CAD renders that are sure to start arriving in the coming months will tell the tale.
A Galaxy S25 rumor tips the display on Samsung's entry-level model to increase in size, hitting 6.36 inches compared to 6.2 inches for the Galaxy S24. A similar rumor claims that the Galaxy S25 Ultra screen will approach 6.9 inches, a marginal increase over the 6.8-inch display on the S24 Ultra, but we're not sure how much stock to put into that claim. At the very least, it would match the screen size of the newly released iPhone 16 Pro Max.
Recently, phone makers have been trying to one up each other by boosting the maximum brightness of their handsets' displays. Indeed, Samsung has played this game, too, raising the peak brightness of the Galaxy S24 Ultra to 2,600 nits, after the Galaxy S23 Ultra clocked in at 1,750 nits. We wouldn't be surprised to see the Galaxy S25 Ultra raise the stakes further.
Leaks from Ice Universe have hinted that the Galaxy S25 Ultra will feature a curvier design than the last few Galaxy Ultras, but will remain flat around the front. Another leak from Ice Universe also gives us a look at the S25 Ultra's right side.
It also appears that the Galaxy S25 Ultra could be the thinnest Ultra device with a total thickness of 8.4 mm, making it the thinnest Ultra device we've seen since the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. Despite this, the display of the S25 Ultra could be wider, making the phone easier to handle. The bezels could get skinnier, too, matching another iPhone 16 Pro Max feature.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Cameras
Cameras form the centerpiece feature of the Ultra model, as that's the phone Samsung favors with a 200MP main sensor along with a 100MP Space Zoom feature. We'd expect some sort of upgrade to that setup next year, and early Galaxy S25 Ultra camera rumors suggest we may be on to something.
Specifically, a leaker claims that the wide-angle lens on the Galaxy S25 Ultra will get an unspecified upgrade while the ultrawide lens will jump from a 12MP sensor on the S24 Ultra to a 50MP one on the new phone.
If you're wondering how much stock to put in that rumor, which surfaced before the Galaxy S24 lineup was released, know that the leaker did correctly predict the Galaxy S24 Ultra's upgraded 50MP telephoto lens before that feature's arrival.
Furthermore, the telephoto lens on the S25 Ultra is expected to get "variable capabilities." We're not sure what that means exactly, but we'd guess it has something to do with the ability to change focal length while connecte to a single sensor. Leaker @ISAQUES81 claims this may involve fixed focal lengths between 4-5x zoom and then again between 6-7x zoom. The end result would be smoother zooms particularly when shooting video.
However, there's speculation that Samsung may be testing a prototype that ditches the second telephoto lens, leaving the S25 Ultra with three camera lenses instead of 4. While Ice Universe has refuted this, @ISAQUES81 says Samsung may swap in a 3x crop zoom feature from the main lens instead.
Camera setups on the standard Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Plus may not have many changes from their predecessors, according to rumors, but chatter around the S25 Ultra model centers around potential upgrades to the ultrawide and second telephoto lens sensors, with both turning to 50MP sensors. That would mean both the telephoto cameras on the S25 Ultra would 50MP zoom lenses, with zoom lengths of 3x and 5x.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Performance
You'd expect the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra will run on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chipset, given the use of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in the Galaxy S24 Ultra. (Indeed, this year's Ultra is the only S24 model to rely exclusive on Qualcomm silicon, as the standard Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus both use the Exynos 2400 system-on-chip in models released outside North America.) Qualcomm has already confirmed we'll be seeing the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 in October, so the timeline lines up with an early 2025 release for Samsung's phone.
Early Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 benchmarks have already leaked out, and while you should never completely trust unvetted numbers like that, they do paint a rosy picture for the chipset's performance. According to the leaked Geekbench results, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 matches the top score produced by an A18 Bionic-powered iPhone. Of course, those numbers emerged when the iPhone 16 lineup was still just a rumor.
Now that Apple has released the iPhone 16 and we've benchmarked those phones, we have a better idea of what the Galaxy s25 Ultra will be up against. In our testing, the iPhone 16 Pro produced Geekbench single- and multicore scores of 3,400 and 8,341, respectively, while the iPhone 16 Pro Max turned in a similar spread of 3,386 and 8,306. Reportedly, a Galaxy S25 Ultra running a Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 produced results of 3,069 and 9.080 — in other words, a lower single-core result, but a much better multicore number. We'd caution you that those numbers come from a phone and and chipset that have yet to be confirmed.
There's talk that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will have a 4.3Ghz prime core, after the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 topped out at 3.4GHz. That's a pretty big jump in power, and it will require Samsung and Qualcomm to figure out how to pack such a chipset into a mobile device without causing it to overheat.
A credible rumor suggests that the Galaxy S25 models will use a mix of Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 and Exynos 2500 chipsets, much like the Galaxy S24 did. If Samsung follows the Galaxy S24 playbook to the letter, that would mean the Galaxy S25 Ultra would likely stick with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 exclusively, while the S25 and S25 Plus models would use the Exynos silicon in some instances. It's a significant distinction as even our Galaxy S24 benchmarks indicated that the Exynos models of the Galaxy S24 lagged slightly behind the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-powered phones.
But luckily for us, the Exynos 2500 chip may be more efficient thanks to new architecture. So maybe it appearing in the Ultra model wouldn't be too terrible after all.
We've also heard that Samsung might turn to a MediaTek chip for some Galaxy S25 models. Even if that does happen — and we'd be skeptical that it will barring any further evidence — we'd imaging that the Galaxy S25 Ultra wouldn't be among the models using that silicon.
Another rumor hints that the Galaxy S25 Ultra will gain faster UFS 4.1 speeds that could boost the phone's performance even more. It doesn't sound like it's coming to other S25 models either, which gives more incentive to the S25 Ultra. Not only would it be able to handle on-device AI capabilities, but this has other practical applications — like being able to recording 4K video directly to a hard drive, much like the iPhone 15 Pro Max.
RAM capacity could be going up on the Ultra model to 16GB, up from the 12GB of the current Galaxy S24 Ultra. Great for multitasking and dealing with AI feature requests.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Battery life
When it comes to battery life, we're not sure how Samsung could squeeze in a bigger power pack than the 5,000 mAh cell in the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Since that device landed on our best phone battery life list with a 16-hour, 45-minute result on our battery test, we're not exactly worried about Galaxy S25 Ultra battery life. However, rumors indicate that the same 5,000 mAh battery will be in place with the S25 Ultra, and the same 45W charging speed too. But battery life could still improve thanks to improved GPU efficiency.
The battery may be getting larger in order to account for the power draw of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip, another source has claimed. So even if the capacity does increase, we may not see any difference in practical battery life because of the chipset's needs.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Software and features
Android 15 is now out, so expect the Galaxy S25 Ultra to debut with that version already in place, in the form of the freshly revealed One UI 7 that is confirmed to be coming to next year's new Galaxy devices. We'd imagine the Galaxy S25 phones will get the same seven years of software support that the Galaxy S24 receives.
Another expectation of ours: the Galaxy S25 Ultra will add more Galaxy AI features similar to the ones that debuted with the S24 lineup. There's no word on what those features will be or whether some will be earmarked as exclusives for the higher-end Ultra. With the Galaxy S24, the same Galaxy AI features were supported by all three models, so the entry-level S24 can pull off the same tasks as the premium Ultra.
Samsung executives have already raised the possibility of one potential Galaxy AI update themselves, as Won-joon Choi, executive vice president of Samsung's mobile business, discussed possibly equipping the Bixby personal assistant with generative AI capabilities.
Outside of AI, satellite connectivity could be on its way to the Galaxy S25 series. We've seen this put to good use on Apple devices since the iPhone 14, so it makes sense that Samsung would try and adopt it too.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Outlook
Though it may be early for you and I to be thinking about the Galaxy S25 Ultra, it's a safe bet Samsung has already put a lot of thought into what goes into its next device. Now that the iPhone 16 has debuted — and that our iPhone 16 Pro Max vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra face-off yielded a comprehensive win for Apple — the stakes have never been higher for Samsung's next phone.
We should find out more about those efforts throughout the rest of this year, as we get closer to the S25 Ultra's 2025 launch date.
