Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is the phone that admits the Note branding is gone for good and leans hard into “AI phone” marketing. Underneath the buzzwords, it’s a titanium-frame Snapdragon 8 Elite flagship with a 200MP camera and the S-Pen. It is very good. It is also $1,299.

Design

Titanium frame (Grade 2), Gorilla Armor glass front that’s 4x more scratch-resistant and noticeably less reflective than last year’s glass. The flat slab aesthetic continues — sharper corners than the S24 Ultra’s micro-curved screen, which polarizes. Weight is 218g. IP68. The S-Pen is integrated in the bottom-right corner, unchanged in capability.

Performance

Snapdragon 8 Elite (3nm) — a big leap in efficiency and single-core. Paired with 12GB RAM (16GB on 1TB SKU) and UFS 4.0 storage. Geekbench 6: 3,200 single, 10,500 multi. Sustained performance is better than the S24 Ultra thanks to a larger vapor chamber — Genshin Impact at max settings holds 60fps for 30 minutes before throttling to ~50. The phone gets warm but not hot.

Display

6.9-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X, 3120×1440, 1-120Hz adaptive, 2,600 nits peak HDR. Anti-reflective Gorilla Armor makes it the most readable phone screen in direct sun. Color accuracy is excellent (ΔE < 1 in Natural mode). PWM dimming at 240Hz down to 10% brightness — flicker-sensitive users may notice; everyone else won’t.

Camera

200MP main (f/1.7, OIS), 50MP 5x periscope tele (f/3.4, OIS), 10MP 3x tele (f/2.4), 50MP ultrawide (f/1.9). The new 50MP 5x is the meaningful upgrade — sharper, brighter, faster focus than the S24U’s 50MP 5x. 8K/30 video from the main sensor. The “ProVisual Engine” AI pipeline does heavy noise reduction — sometimes too heavy, smoothing texture in low light. Astrophotography and Expert RAW give you the raw tools if you want them.

Galaxy AI

Now baked across the OS: circle-to-search, live translation in calls, generative photo editing, summarization in Samsung Notes and browser. Most features require a Samsung account and ship free “until end of 2026” — Samsung is keeping the paid-tier option open. Some of it is genuinely useful (translation, summarization); some is party-trick fluff.

What’s wrong

• $1,299 base. Android flagships are not a bargain anymore.
• The flat-slab corners dig into palms. Cases mandatory.
• Charging caps at 45W — fine, but Chinese competitors hit 100W+.
• One UI 7 is heavy, preloaded with bloat (Facebook, etc.), and pushes Samsung services relentlessly.
• S-Pen functionality has barely evolved in 5 years.
• 7 years of OS updates promised — impressive, but batteries don’t last 7 years.

The verdict

The S25 Ultra is the best Android phone you can buy if you want the kitchen-sink flagship. The camera is excellent, the screen is the best in class, and the AI features range from useful to gimmicky. If you want a cleaner Android experience, the Pixel 10 Pro is more thoughtful. If you want the most, the S25 Ultra is the most.