Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra Review: A Refinement, Not a Revolution

Samsung didn't reinvent the Ultra line this year, and it didn't need to. The S25 Ultra takes last year's winning formula and files off the rough edges: a faster chip, a genuinely upgraded ultrawide sensor, and a marginally slimmer body. If you were hoping for a dramatic redesign, this isn't it. If you wanted the existing formula tightened up, it delivers exactly that.

At £1,249 for the base 256GB model, it costs the same as the S24 Ultra did at launch — a rare instance of a flagship not getting more expensive year over year. This review has since been updated to reflect over a year of real-world use, software updates, and the substantial price drops that followed the Galaxy S26 Ultra's launch — details covered in the Software and Long-Term Updates section below.

Design and Build

The titanium frame carries over from the S24 Ultra, with Samsung shaving the bezels down slightly for a marginally larger screen-to-body ratio. At 218g it's a touch lighter than its predecessor — not enough to notice blind, but a welcome direction of travel. The new Gorilla Armor 2 glass on the front is genuinely better at resisting fingerprints and reflections than last year's panel. Internally, Samsung fitted a 40% larger vapor chamber than the S24 Ultra's to help manage the hotter, faster Snapdragon 8 Elite — a real hardware upgrade, even if, per the Performance section below, it hasn't been enough to fully solve sustained-load throttling. The hybrid stereo speakers carry over largely unchanged too: GSMArena's own lab testing found a "Very Good" loudness rating, matching the S24 Ultra's result almost exactly, with only subtle differences in low-end reproduction.

Four colours are available at launch — Titanium Black, Gray, Silverblue, and Whitesilver — all suitably restrained. IP68 remains the water and dust resistance standard.

Display

The 6.9-inch QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel is essentially unchanged in size and resolution from last year, and Samsung again markets a 2,600-nit peak. GSMArena's own lab measurements found real-world brightness well under that figure, though still perfectly usable — a little under 800 nits in manual mode and roughly 1,400 nits in adaptive mode, broadly in line with Tom's Guide's own separate measurement of 1,860 nits overall peak and 1,231 nits with auto brightness engaged. GSMArena also flagged something worth knowing if outdoor visibility matters to you specifically: the panel struck their reviewers as unusually quick to dim back down from its maximum brightness level, a real, if minor, real-world limitation the marketed figure alone doesn't convey. The 1–120Hz adaptive refresh rate remains seamless, and colour accuracy in Natural mode continues to be excellent — DXOMARK's own testing found genuine color-performance improvements over the S24 Ultra, including better off-angle color consistency. This is still one of the best screens on any phone, even if it isn't meaningfully different from the S24 Ultra's and the marketed brightness figure needs a grain of salt.

Performance

The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy is a genuine step up — Qualcomm's move to custom Oryon cores shows up clearly in day-to-day use, not just peak benchmark numbers. App launches, camera processing, and multitasking all feel instantaneous. Sustained performance under real load is a genuine, measured weakness worth knowing about, though, not a strength: GSMArena's own stress testing recorded a 41% CPU performance loss and a 50% GPU performance drop over extended use, and PhoneArena's dedicated 20-minute vapor-chamber test found the Wild Life Extreme score fall from roughly 6,200 to around 3,000 within the first three or four minutes — essentially halving. That's a genuinely worse result than the OnePlus 13, which uses the identical Snapdragon 8 Elite chip and sustains a score roughly 50% higher over the same test, pointing to either the vapor chamber or Samsung's own software thermal limits rather than the silicon itself. GSMArena's own verdict is candid that this leaves the S25 Ultra performing like most flagships under thermal stress, "yet somehow a little worse here" — even though, anecdotally, long gaming sessions don't produce visible stutter for most everyday use.

Camera System

The headline change is the ultrawide sensor, which jumps from 12MP without autofocus to 50MP with proper autofocus. That sounds like a spec-sheet bump, but it has a real practical effect: macro shots, previously a weak point, are now genuinely usable, and low-light ultrawide shots hold detail far better than the S24 Ultra's panel ever could.

The 200MP main sensor and 50MP 5× periscope telephoto carry over unchanged, and remain excellent — pixel-level detail in daylight, strong dynamic range, and a periscope zoom that few rivals can match for reach without a noticeable quality drop. Video tops out at 8K/30fps on the main sensor, with 4K/120fps also available. The one genuine, worth-knowing weak spot is how it stacks up against this generation's best Chinese rivals specifically: GSMArena's own comparison found the Oppo Find X8 Pro and vivo X200 Pro both produce more expressive daytime shots, stronger low-light results, and better zoom performance across the board. It's a real, disclosed gap rather than a close call, even though the S25 Ultra's selfie camera specifically remains a genuine strength — GSMArena rates it ahead of most Chinese Ultra-tier rivals in that one respect. The secondary 10MP 3x telephoto also remains a genuinely useful middle-ground option most rivals skip entirely, filling the gap between the main sensor and the 5x periscope for portraits and mid-range zoom shots where the periscope's minimum focus distance would otherwise be a limitation.

Battery Life

The 5,000mAh cell is identical in capacity to the S24 Ultra, but the more efficient chip translates into a genuine, measured improvement — GSMArena's own testing recorded an Active Use Score of 14:49h, a solid result even if it trails the very best in the category (the OnePlus 15, for comparison, managed 23:07h in the same test using a larger cell). No charger ships in the box; GSMArena's own testing found the bundled 3A cable paired with a 45W charger peaks at 39W, and a full charge from flat takes around 59 minutes. Samsung still hasn't matched the 65-100W wired speeds offered by Chinese rivals, though real-world users report the battery comfortably lasting a full day of typical use.

S Pen

The S Pen is still built in and still free, which alone sets the Ultra apart from every other mainstream flagship. But this generation quietly drops Bluetooth connectivity from the stylus itself — no more remote-shutter button presses or air-gesture navigation. Writing and sketching performance is unaffected and remains excellent, but power users who relied on the wireless features will notice the loss.

What the S Pen does gain is deeper Galaxy AI integration through Samsung Notes: handwriting converts to typed text instantly, and the Notes Assist tools can auto-format, summarize, correct spelling, and translate anything you've written, provided it falls within Samsung's specified 200–4,000 character working range. Screen-off memos, Air Command shortcuts for drawing assist and AI Select, and hover-to-magnify all carry over unchanged from previous generations. It's a genuine, real trade — losing the physical remote-control functions in exchange for software-side AI features that arguably see more actual daily use for most owners, even if it's not a trade every S Pen power user asked for.

Software and Long-Term Updates

This review is being updated well over a year after the S25 Ultra's release, and the software side has genuinely held up. Samsung delivered the One UI 8 (Android 16) update ahead of schedule and, per Android Central's own year-later retrospective, without the rollout problems that plagued One UI 7 — a real, measurable reliability improvement generation over generation. SamMobile's early hands-on found One UI 8 itself a fairly minor update on the S25 Ultra, mostly under-the-hood Android changes rather than new features, but the update cadence is the actual story: One UI 8.5 was already rolling out in beta by spring 2026 and reached stable release not long after, keeping the phone current with Samsung's newest software polish rather than leaving it behind. Samsung's seven-year OS and security update commitment remains on track, and Android Central's own verdict a year in is blunt and positive: the S25 Ultra is "still a champ," and for most people the case for jumping to the S26 Ultra "won't be worth the upgrade."

Pricing has also shifted meaningfully since launch, which matters for anyone considering the phone today rather than at release. Forbes reported the S25 Ultra hit as low as $849 during Black Friday 2025, and multiple outlets confirm steep further cuts once the Galaxy S26 Ultra launched in February 2026 — Sammy Fans found the 512GB model discounted from roughly $1,420 to $1,165 on Amazon, and in India the price dropped from its ₹1,29,999 launch figure to around ₹1,08,878, a genuine ₹21,121 reduction. At those discounted prices, with software support still current and camera hardware that remains competitive, it's a considerably stronger value proposition than it was at launch.

Verdict

Frequently Asked Questions

How it compares: S25 Ultra vs S26 Ultra

Samsung

Galaxy S25 Ultra

From £1,249

91

Samsung

Galaxy S26 Ultra

From £1,299

92

vs

6.9" QHD+ 120Hz AMOLED

Display

6.9" QHD+ 120Hz AMOLED

200MP f/1.7 OIS

Main cam

200MP f/1.7 OIS

Snapdragon 8 Elite

Chip

Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

5,000mAh · 45W

Battery

5,000mAh · 60W

From £1,249

Price

From £1,299

Full Galaxy S25 Ultra review

Full Galaxy S26 Ultra review