Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked at the SAP Center in San Jose, California, on January 22 was the grand reveal of the Galaxy S25 Ultra. I was there for the event, and while the audience was enthusiastic with applause, the broader response was somewhat tepid.
One Redditor called it "the most underwhelming Galaxy phone ever." That may be the popular opinion, but I think it's wrong, and the data backs up my experience. The Galaxy S25 Ultra just might be Samsung's sleeper hit.
After almost a week of using the phone, I have to disagree with this perception. I love features like the new ultra-wide camera and Audio Eraser, and Samsung's additions to Galaxy AI are the most compelling I've experienced on a phone.
However, now that the phone has been through our lab testing, I can also state definitively that the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chip powering the Galaxy S25 Ultra, combined with the super-strong new display, makes it a more significant update than you realize. It offers a considerable leap over the Galaxy S24 Ultra and beats the iPhone 16 Pro Max in several key metrics.
Here's a closer look at how the Galaxy S25 Ultra performed in our lab tests.
Performance
For years, the iPhone's performance reigned supreme in the smartphone space, but last year's Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in the Galaxy S24 Ultra finally saw Samsung claim performance wins in several categories. Now, with the Snapdragon 8 Elite in the Galaxy S25 Ultra, Samsung enjoys an even larger advantage.
Geekbench 6.3 shows how significant of a year-over-year upgrade the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy represents, with the S25 Ultra hitting an incredible multicore score average of 9,829. That's roughly 18.3% higher than the iPhone 16 Pro Max (8,306) and 35.6% higher than the Galaxy S24 Ultra (7,249).
Single-core still goes to the iPhone at 3,386, 11.7% higher than the Galaxy S25 Ultra (3,031). However, this is a massive leap of 31.8% over the Galaxy S24 Ultra (2,300).
Graphics performance was already in favor of the Galaxy S24 Ultra at 29.95 frames per second (fps) in the 3DMark Wild Life Extreme Unlimited test compared to 22.4 fps for the iPhone 16 Pro Max. But the Galaxy S25 Ultra pushes things even further at 34.42 fps, beating its predecessor by 15% and the iPhone 16 Pro Max by 53.6%
The iPhone still maintains an incredible lead in video processing, completing our Adobe Premiere Rush test in just 21 seconds. That's twice as fast as the Galaxy S24 Ultra (42 seconds); this is one area where the Galaxy S25 Ultra (52.4 seconds) loses ground on its predecessor.
Overall, this year has been a decisive performance win for the Galaxy S25 Ultra. Although it seems unlikely that the iPhone 17 will close the gap in some of these metrics, the iPhone still holds on to a couple of wins.
Click to view chart in table format.
Display
Never bet against Samsung in a display fight. The Galaxy S25 Ultra continues Samsung's dominance in the smartphone display arena across every metric.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra's 1,231 nits of brightness with adaptive brightness turned on easily bests the iPhone 16 Pro Max (1,031), although it is a slight slip from the 1,242 nits achieved by the S24 Ultra last year.
Color gamut is a much clearer cut win compared to the iPhone 16 Pro Max and its predecessor. The Galaxy S25 Ultra reproduced 151.5% of the sRGB color gamut and 107.3% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. The iPhone (114.1%, 80.9%) doesn't come close, while the Galaxy S24 Ultra (119.9%, 84.9%) was only narrowly ahead of the iPhone.
Click to view chart in table format.
Battery life
Finally, we come to battery life, where the Galaxy S25 Ultra lasted 17 hours and 15 minutes in our Laptop Mag battery test that has the phone browse a set series of web pages while running at 150 nits on 5G until the phone dies.
The iPhone holds on to its lead in this regard. In this same test, it lasted for 17 hours and 35 minutes on average. However, the S25 Ultra narrowed the gap further, as the S24 Ultra gave up at 16 hours and 46 minutes last year.
Click to view chart in table format.
Bottom line
While Samsung would love to claim a clean sweep against the iPhone, this was still an impressive showing and hopefully gives you an idea of just how much of an upgrade the Galaxy S25 Ultra represents despite its limited apparent hardware changes.
Now if you currently have a Galaxy S24 Ultra, you certainly don't need this upgrade, though the massive trade-in discount offers may make it tempting. However, if you are coming from the Galaxy S23 series or earlier, this is an massive upgrade in performance, battery life, and display tech.
And for those Apple fans considering the switch, Samsung's Galaxy S25 Ultra has staked out its position as the pinnacle of Android hardware once again while also eclipsing the best Apple has to offer in several regards, and that's before we talk about Galaxy AI beating Apple Intelligence.
