Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra review: sleeker, shinier, faster
How much more powerful can an Android phone get? Samsung’s newest model, the Galaxy S25 Ultra, comes packed with all sorts of bells and whistles, but this time in a trimmer case. It is a lighter and sleeker beast than previous models, while also managing to keep one of its flagship features, the S-Pen.
Delving under the hood (or the screen), the first thing we need to talk about is the phone’s groundbreaking AI integration, which deserves an essay all in itself. This thing is smart: smart enough to organise your life for you, if you let it.
Let’s start with the assistant, which is now more personalised than ever. One of the phone’s major new features is Now Brief, which offers users a summary to start the day. This can be synced with Samsung’s add-on devices like the Galaxy Ring, and includes a summary of the weather, your step count, upcoming appointments and even Spotify playlists. Even better, it will adapt to your needs and offer a more personalised ‘briefing’ as it learns more about you.
That comes paired with the Now Bar, which pops up on the lock screen and displays everything from reminders to directions and messages in a small, neat notifications bar. It’s a nice touch that side-steps the annoyance of opening your phone to access, say, Google Maps.
But what’s even more impressive is just how flexible this AI is. With the tap of a button, I could take a photo of a plant, ask my phone to identify it and write up the information in my Notes app. I could ask questions about a video I was watching on YouTube or take a photo of the ingredients in my fridge and ask it to suggest recipes.
The Galaxy S25 even transcribes calls in real time, and didn’t break a sweat at doing any of these things: proof of the seamless integration between the three different AIs at work (Galaxy’s own AI, Google Gemini and the system network Bixby) was.
Plus, Samsung has also sorted out a problem endemic to the S24 Ultra: the relatively poor battery life. This thing will hold 17 hours of battery on a single charge, and a full charge can be done in as little as an hour.
That’s pretty good, and to talk stats for a second, that’s probably down to this thing being stacked with some of the best hardware on the market. The S25 Ultra comes equipped with a vapor chamber that’s 40 per cent larger than the S24’s, which in layman’s terms means it’s better equipped to siphon off excess heat.
Plus, there’s a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset in here, and the phone itself comes with 12GB of RAM and either 256GB, 512GB or 1TB of storage space. For the accident-prone, the titanium frame and Gorilla Armor 2 screen also make this a pleasingly robust bit of kit.
One of the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s other big strengths is those massive cameras. Like the last two generations before it, this phone comes with more lenses than you’d think could feasibly be packed into a smartphone. That’s five in total (six if you count the front camera), and while Samsung hasn’t changed the specs much from previous generations – beyond adding an ultrawide sensor – it still delivers images that are head-and-shoulders above most of the competition and come backed up with some seriously clever AI technology. Take the Generative Edit capability, which lets you edit photos at the tap of a button (as well as do a remarkably good job removing background lurkers).
That comes paired with Audio Eraser, which can identify and remove any background noise in videos and does an impressively good job even in busy places like streets or clubs. If you really wanted to push the boundaries of what it can do, then there’s also the chance to play around with Samsung’s version of Shazam, which can be activated at any point – I tried it while watching a YouTube video – and had a 100 per cent success rate in identifying tunes from a variety of sources.
There’s also the phone’s much-lauded Sketch to Image, which can add AI-generated images to photos based just off an S-pen scribble (and which, again, proved spookily good at double-guessing what it was I was actually trying to draw).
In terms of downsides, well: it’s still huge. Yes, it’s sleeker than previous models – gone are the sharp, squared-off edges of the S24, in favour of rounded-off curves and thank goodness for that – but there’s no getting around the fact that the 6.2 inch screen (the largest the Ultra line has ever had) is hard to fit into one’s pocket.
Plus, it’s expensive: Samsung isn’t playing around with the price, and at £1,249, it’s certainly an investment. But perhaps that’s the point. This is a flashy bit of kit; one that’s made to play video games and organise your life at the tap of a button. There’s no hiding the S25 Ultra away.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra specs:
Dimensions: 162.8 x 77.6 x 8.2mm
Display: 6.9-inch AMOLED
Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy
Weight: 218g
RAM: 12GB
Storage: 256GB / 512GB / 1TB
Rear cameras: 200MP main, 50MP ultra-wide, 10MP telephoto, 50MP telephoto
Front camera: 12MP
Battery life: around 17 hours