Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

The Galaxy S25 Ultra is Samsung's answer to 'what if a phone could replace a tablet, a stylus, and a proper camera at once' — it's the biggest, most feature-dense phone in Samsung's lineup, and the natural pick for anyone who found last year's S24 Ultra compelling but wants incremental refinements rather than a reinvention. The headline changes are a flatter titanium frame that Samsung says improves grip and drop resistance, a slightly larger 6.9-inch display achieved without growing the phone's footprint, and Qualcomm's fastest current mobile chipset, tuned specifically for Galaxy devices.

Design and build

Samsung moved away from the rounded, curved-edge design of earlier Ultra models toward flat sides with rounded corners, a change most hands-on reviewers described as easier to hold and less prone to accidental palm-edge touches. The frame is now titanium rather than aluminum, shedding a small amount of weight while Samsung claims improved structural rigidity. Corning's Gorilla Armor 2 covers the front, promising both better scratch resistance and reduced glare — a genuinely useful upgrade for a phone this often used outdoors.

Display

At 6.9 inches with a 1440 x 3120 resolution, the S25 Ultra's Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel is among the sharpest and brightest on any phone, with a 2600-nit peak brightness that keeps the screen legible even in harsh midday sun. The adaptive 1-120Hz refresh rate scales down automatically for static content like reading, extending battery life without a noticeable hit to smoothness during scrolling or gaming.

Performance and software

Every S25 model uses the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, a version of Qualcomm's flagship chip with a boosted CPU clock exclusive to Samsung. In practice, this makes the S25 Ultra one of the fastest Android phones available at launch, comfortably handling multitasking, gaming, and Samsung's expanding suite of on-device Galaxy AI features, which lean on the chip's neural processing unit for tasks like live translation and generative photo editing.

Camera

The headline number is the 200MP main sensor, which produces exceptionally detailed 12.5MP-binned photos by default and allows for aggressive cropping without much quality loss. The two telephoto lenses — a 3x and a 5x — give genuine optical reach that few competitors match at once, though Samsung's biggest camera change this generation is actually the ultra-wide, upgraded to 50MP with autofocus, enabling both better low-light ultra-wide shots and close-up macro photography that the previous fixed-focus ultrawide couldn't manage.

Battery and charging

The 5000mAh battery is unchanged in capacity from the S24 Ultra, but efficiency gains from the newer chipset and display typically translate to modestly better real-world battery life. Charging at 45W wired brings the phone from empty to about 65% in 30 minutes, which is solid but well behind the 100W-plus speeds available on some rival flagships, particularly from Chinese manufacturers.

Our take

The S25 Ultra is the clear pick for power users who want the S Pen, the biggest possible display, and the most versatile camera system on Android, and who are willing to pay a premium and carry a genuinely large phone to get it. The loss of S Pen Bluetooth features is a minor but real regression for a small subset of users; everyone else will find this an extremely capable, if expensive, daily driver.