Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra review

Competition

The Galaxy S25 Ultra, being Samsung's ultimate offering for this flagship cycle, is competing with some already available top-shelf rivals from Apple and Google, but also a few properly great cameraphones from... less obvious to a Westerner, but still well-established brands out of China. In that sense, the Galaxy's direct rivals depend a lot on perspective.

Regardless of where you are in the world though, if you're eyeing the S25 Ultra, it's a safe bet that you also have the S24 Ultra in the same store - at a significantly lower price too. The generational advancements may be several, but none is truly groundbreaking, and last year's model has a more capable S Pen - in a way, the S24 Ultra is giving you more for less, and we do enjoy a bargain.

An iPhone is rarely a bargain, but the 16 Pro Max is about as obvious a competitor as the S25 Ultra can have. Apple's current greatest will get you better battery life and potentially a better display (but how much better, really), but other than that, it's mostly esoteric reasons that will sway you one way or the other - OS and ecosystem, camera 'look', social norms.

It's a little bit more of the same, but not quite to that extent against a Pixel 9 Pro XL. Samsung's key partner on the software side of things has a hardware vehicle for those features too, and the Google phone is also a cameraphone with its own specific character and a loyal following to go with it. Pixels don't typically rank high in objective metrics and it's a similar story with this one, so the Galaxy is better in a lot of measurable ways, though the 9 Pro XL does have one of the brightest displays in the business, for what that's worth (not a lot?).

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra • Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max • Google Pixel 9 Pro XL

Venturing out of that triumvirate, a world of possibilities opens up to you, though availability may not be universal. Since there's no real stylus alternative anyway, it's the cameras that can make a difference, and a bunch of Ultras will be giving you generally better results. But the Xiaomi 15 Ultra isn't official yet and neither are the Oppo Find X8 Ultra or the vivo X200 Ultra, with the last two additionally not getting global releases at all, by the looks of it.

So in that context, perhaps it would make sense to wait for the next Xiaomi Ultra and/or explore the next best things - the current Xiaomi Ultra or the vivo and Oppo Pros. Both the vivo X200 Pro and the Oppo Find X8 Pro have nicer low-light results, and possibly better, more expressive, daytime shots. The Xiaomi, too, sort of falls in that boat. All of them have better zoom action in one way or another, too. The Galaxy does win for selfies though, we'll give it that - we don't seem to be enjoying the Chinese efforts too much (well, there's the vivo X100 Ultra but that one's China-only). We wish Samsung would start making exciting cameras again, yes.

Oppo Find X8 Pro • vivo X200 Pro • Xiaomi 14 Ultra

Verdict

The ultimate (non-bendy) Galaxy traditionally has some big shoes to fill, and the S25 Ultra feels kind of loose in its pair. It's certainly anything but a bad phone - quite the competent one, in fact. It manages to extract pretty great endurance (out of a small-ish battery), has a very good display (in most ways), charges reasonably fast (in the right context), has an improved build (but missing some extra sealing), and remains the only truly viable option on the market if you want a stylus (even though the stylus itself is a downgrade this year).

While we're okay with all those notes above, the fact that we have to make excuses for the Galaxy Ultra isn't good for optics. It's supposed to be the no-compromise have-it-all best option on the market - and Samsung goes out and takes away the S Pen's connectivity, puts off fitting a newer and bigger battery, and is staying behind the curve in ingress protection and what not. Also, it's not the greatest cameraphone you can get.

Ultimately, the Galaxy S25 Ultra remains the go-to choice for a feature-packed Android handset that delivers stylus support and all-around goodness. But what happened to all-around greatness?

Pros

• The ever-evolving design looks nice and premium; handling is improved.
• S Pen still provides a productivity boost.
• Solid battery life, given the display size and battery capacity.
• Very pleasing and fluid One UI experience.
• Very good camera output in general - better than Apple and Google's efforts in many ways.

Cons

• 'Basic' IP68 rating - other Androids get IP69, iPhones can go deeper.
• S Pen has been stripped of connectivity and thus features (we're lamenting the lack of remote shutter capability).
• Small capacity battery, not the latest tech, slow-ish charging.
• Display is missing colors and Dolby Vision.
• The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy might be a little worse under continued load than regular Elites.
• Photo experience in low light is suboptimal - in both behavior and end results.