Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra vs Galaxy S24 Ultra camera shootout

Now that the Galaxy S25 Ultra is official, we can show you this quick camera comparison we made versus its predecessor.

Specs improvements, like the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip and all its AI prowess are nice, but when you get down to it - people care most about the camera improvements.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra brings a new 50MP sensor and brighter f/1.9 lens for its ultrawide camera - a big improvement over the 12MP f/2.2 unit of the S24 Ultra. The rest of the setup sounds identical - 200MP 1x, 50MP 5x, 12MP selfie. Let's dig in.

We also expect some differences in processing due to the new chipset. But looking at the main camera samples, we can hardly see a difference in color rendering and tones. In one of the images, the older phone did a better job with sharpening, but that's about it.

Main camera: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra • Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

The midrange zoom cameras also look very similar, though there's a discernible difference in noise - the newer model shows less of it.

3x: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra • Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

Looking at the telephoto zoom cameras we notice a bit more fine detail from the Galaxy S24 Ultra images. It comes at the expense of slightly higher noise in the textured surfaces. There's more noise in the background of the Galaxy S25 Ultra images, though.

5x: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra • Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

The Galaxy S25 Ultra has clearly superior 10x results but we'll give the 30x to the Galaxy S24 Ultra in this preliminary round.

10x: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra • Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

30x: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra • Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

Here's the big one — the 50MP ultrawide of the Galaxy S25 Ultra vs the 12MP one on the Galaxy S24 Ultra (note that both output 12MP final images). We don't know the sensor size difference at this point (hopefully we will by review time) but we'd expect the new imager to at least match the 1/2.55-inch unit of the Galaxy S24 Ultra.

We suspect the new camera has a larger sensor because there's a smaller depth of field in its images - less of the background and foreground is in focus on the Galaxy S25 Ultra vs the Galaxy S24 Ultra's shot, which is almost entirely in focus.

The new camera has less noise but a more processed look in these samples and indeed the older unit appears to have retained a smidge more detail. We'll make sure to examine those closely when we get to the full review.

Ultrawide: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra • Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

Ultrawide macro: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra • Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

Despite the identical-sounding selfie hardware, the Galaxy S25 Ultra brings more detailed images with less noise.

Selfies: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra • Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

And here's a quick video comparison - 4K from the main camera.

Keep in mind that these are only preliminary results from a rushed at-the-event camera session. It's also questionable if the Galaxy S25 Ultra unit at the event is up to the same quality you'll get in-store when the phone hits the shelves.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

But with that disclaimer out of the way, the Galaxy S24 Ultra seems to hold its own against its replacement. And even if we expected the new 50MP ultrawide to wipe the floor with its predecessor. It didn't. Oh well, we'll do a more thorough test in our review once we get a review unit Galaxy S25 Ultra.