Samsung S25 Galaxy Ultra – smarter, better, faster

It’s not easy being one of the world’s biggest smartphone makers. Every year, Samsung launches a new Galaxy phone, and each new model has to have enough compelling new kick-ass specs to warrant a stampede of consumers begging to upgrade from last year’s model.

That’s a tough task, made tougher by the steady evolution of hardware. Not so long ago, you’d buy a new smartphone because its camera, CPU, storage and data speeds represented a massive step up from the previous year’s model. The trouble is that hardware has evolved to the point where huge leaps have been replaced with much smaller, incremental gains, which, from a marketing perspective, are a much harder sell.

That said, software, particularly AI and Samsung’s new One UI 7 interface, are the key selling points this time around. They bring a bunch of clever (and, dare I say it, super useful) features to the table. And the hardware? There’s a few kick-ass bits tucked away there too.

So, what does Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra have to offer? First and foremost, its AI is next-level and can work across multiple apps. Clever AI computational image processing also delivers excellent photos and videos, while the Snapdragon 8 Elite CPU offers super-quick performance and stellar battery life.

There are also a few notable omissions. The bundled S Pen isn’t Bluetooth, and the Ultra’s chassis lacks integrated magnets, so using the new Qi2 charging gear requires a compatible magnetised case.

From a design perspective, the Galaxy Ultra is superficially similar to another fruity phone thanks to its titanium frame, which is straight with sharp edges. It feels sturdy and solid, plus its super-thin bezels make for a slightly larger screen than the S24 Ultra at 6.9 inches. Spinning the Ultra around reveals five camera rings on its back rather than an unsightly camera bulge.

The colour options range from Titanium Black to Titanium Gray, Silver Blue and White. The review unit was finished in Titanium Gray, which gave it an understated yet luxurious look, hinting at all the premium goodies baked in. Its Titanium frame is sandwiched by Corning Gorilla Armor 2, which Samsung says will provide better drop protection and improved scratch resistance. (My advice is to buy a case regardless).

Samsung has removed Bluetooth from the S Pen, saying it was barely used. From an engineering perspective, this also frees up ultra-scarce internal space, which is then able to be used for other nifty features. In practice, S25 Ultra users will notice little difference in the stylus except that they can no longer perform air gestures, such as using the S Pen as a remote camera shutter button.

Frustratingly, as the new faster and more efficient Qi2 wireless charging standard launches, Samsung also decided not to add the required magnets to the Ultra’s chassis. This isn’t quite as dire as you’d think, as you can add a Qi2-compatible case that incorporates the required magnets to take advantage of the predicted avalanche of Qi2 accessories.

Without wanting to exaggerate, the Ultra’s 6.9-inch display is stunning. Cranking out an impressive 1,859 – 61 Nits, it’s super bright. Being an AMOLED beastie, it covers 128% of the sRGB gamut, so colours pop. As you’d expect, contrast levels are superb, too.

As impressive as the display is, the real standout is the AI. Google Gemini is deeply baked into the Ultra and offers agent-like intelligence that uses multiple Samsung, Google and an expanding selection of third-party apps. I asked Gemini to give me a list of craft beer venues in Wellington and to drop the list into Samsung Notes. It felt effortless but gave me access to information using a simple voice command. Another nifty AI addition is One UI 7’s ability to look at the content on the Ultra’s screen to give you contextually relevant information. This offers a wildly easy way of translating signs and menus or crafting a sly .GIF from a YouTube clip. The Circle to Search feature unleashed on the previous year’s Galaxy range has also been beefed up. It’ll recognise email addresses, phone numbers and URLs on your screen, and even handier, Galaxy AI can identify music, which I found to be a super handy way of getting the names of random earworms I’d hear in my travels.

The other feature I liked during my all too brief time with the Ultra was the Now Brief and Now Bar, which gave me a quick summary of any info the Ultra thought was useful as I started and ended my day. Initially, it only supplied the latest weather, but it soon began displaying calendar appointments and news. This is because Now Brief learns about you via what Samsung calls the “Personal Data Engine”. While the Now Brief became increasingly useful, I’d like to have been able to give it more time to shine as it has the potential to be hugely useful. The Now Bar is a pill-shaped widget on the lock screen that gives timely information, such as reminders and directions. It appears limited to Google and Samsung apps, but here’s hoping future updates will expand its reach to third-party apps.

If that wasn’t enough, there’s also the call transcript feature. This transcribes speech audio in a call after you hang up, and AI summaries are also possible if the call is particularly long-winded, making it ideal for dial-in work meetings.

Perhaps the most useful AI feature was the least expected. I found that with the Ultra, I could search for images in the photo library using voice commands. The level of detail I could add to search parameters was quite impressive, which would handily allow anyone with a large collection of photos on their phone to quickly locate a very specific image, saving tonnes of time and frustrating scrolling.

Speaking of photos, the Ultra’s camera hardware is largely similar to the already excellent camera of the S24. That said, its ultrawide sensor has been bumped up to 50MP.  Ultrawide shooter aside, you’re still looking at the same 200MP main sensor, 50MP 5x telephoto, 10MP 3x telephoto and 12MP snapper found on the Ultra S24.

As you’d expect from a Galaxy Ultra phone, the camera proved extremely capable. Wide, zoomed, and night photos were all sharp, balanced, and perfectly exposed with excellent and engaging colouration. The only area I found wanting was Macro mode, where a few photos came out blurred.

Samsung’s camera app packs a tonne of camera modes, and a super intuitive user interface.  The AI edit mode is there will remove objects AND their shadows from photos. Equally useful (and even more fun) is Sketch to Image, which allowed me to use the S Pen to draw pictures onto photos and have AI make my sketched mess into a photo-realistic rendering. Putting hats on my greyhound or having a UFO land on my street was wildly easy (and a lot of fun, too).

The Ultra also supports 10-bit HDR video. Video footage can also be shot in LOG format for video pros who want to colour-grade captured footage in post-production. The combination of electronic and mechanical image stabilisation gave recorded video a slick, professional, steady-cam look.

Last but not least is the Audio Eraser feature, with which the Ultra uses AI to discriminate and erase specific sounds within recorded audio. These sounds could be voices, music, or even wind. As gimmicky as this may sound, it’s likely to prove a godsend for anyone using the Ultra to shoot YouTube or podcast content.

Under its hood, the Ultra is powered by the muscular, super energy-efficient and overclocked Snapdragon 8 Elite and 12GB of RAM. With over a dozen apps running (several of which were extremely resource-intensive), the Ultra didn’t even begin to sweat. Everything ran smoothly with no lags or stutters. This was also the case with gaming. Firing up Genshin Impact, a title that has effortlessly brought many a phone to a stuttering frame-dropping crawl, there were solid frame rates and the Ultra ran cool. This was also borne out in benchmarking. The Ultra pulled ahead of the iPhone 16 Pro Max in several categories, as was the case with 3D Mark.

The Snapdragon delivered in the performance department, and the Ultra ran for just over a whopping 16 hours in a looped video test. Tweaking One UI’s many settings allowed me to drop screen refresh rates down to 60Hz, which added just shy of an hour and a half to battery life. It also comes with seven years of software and security updates, adding a solid degree of future-proofing.

The Ultra might be more of an iterative than revolutionary update, but Samsung has clearly put a huge amount of thought and effort into refining it. The net result is a phone with useful rather than gimmicky AI smarts, a gorgeous display, great cameras, solid performance, and battery life. In short, Samsung has hit the sweet spot, and the Ultra is the Android smartphone to beat for 2025.

https://www.samsung.com/nz/smartphones/galaxy-s25-ultra/buy/