We may earn compensation from reviewed products. Learn about our editorial policies.
Need-To-Knows
– Most of the main differences are found in Galaxy AI, including the new ‘Now Bar’ and ‘Brief’ tools
– S25 Ultra has a new 50MP Ultrawide lens as the only difference between the S24 Ultra’s camera set up
– S25 Ultra has the new Snapdragon 8 Elite chip compared
Samsung has held its annual event to start its release cycle for 2025 at Galaxy Unpacked, heralding the arrival of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra one year on from the S24 Ultra.
Whilst hardware upgrades were pretty minor, the main focus has been on making Galaxy AI a more personal, and ultimately useful, tool. I’ll be running through all the major differences between the Samsung S24 Ultra and S25 Ultra, as well as the other models, to help you decide which is right for you.
For more info, you can read Mark’s first impressions Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra review!
All the major Samsung S25 Ultra changes:
– New Large Language Model to make Galaxy AI more accurate and human-like
– New AI features like the ‘Now Bar’ as well as better generative photo editing
– Bespoke Snapdragon 8 Elite chip available on all S25 models
– 15% thinner than the S24 Ultra
– All AI features happen on-device
– Improved anti-glare coating on the display
– More efficient cooling
Read Mark’s Samsung S24 Ultra review for more context
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra hardware changes: incremental gains
Looking at the S24 Ultra and S25 Ultra side-by-side, you will notice that there is a small design change. Instead of the squared top and bottom of the frame and angular corners, the S25 Ultra now has a fully rounded design. In short, it now looks like the standard S25 model but larger.
Beyond that, it’s much the same. The build is still Titanium for the S25 Ultra which looks and feels really premium and the colour options are the same as the S24 Ultra. You wouldn’t notice it at a glance, but the S25 Ultra is also 15% thinner than the S24 Ultra and the display 0.1 inches larger.
There’s an improved anti-reflective glare coating on the display which retains the 1-120Hz refresh rate and max brightness of 2600 nits.
The battery remains the same too, with a 5000mAh capacity accompanied by 45W fast charging. Inside, there’s a choice of 256GB, 512GB and 1TB of storage.
Most notably from a hardware standpoint, the camera system now features a 50MP ultrawide camera, up from the 12MP on the S24 Ultra. All the other sensors are the same as last year; 200MP main, 10MP telephoto and 50MP telephoto. Optical zoom lengths remain at 2x, 3x, 5x and 10x.
See how far they’ve come – Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra review
All three models get a handy 12GB RAM. The other S25 models are pretty much exactly the same as last year.
There are a few changes here, they’re just very minor and not necessarily headline-grabbing. The meat is in the software, specifically AI.
Detailed comparison table
| Category | Galaxy S25 Ultra | Galaxy S24 Ultra |
|---|---|---|
| Colours | Titanium Silverblue, Titanium Black, Titanium Grey, Titanium Whitesilver, Titanium Jetblack, Titanium Jadegreen, Titanium Pinkgold | Titanium Grey, Titanium Black, Titanium Violet, Titanium Yellow, Titanium Blue, Titanium Green, Titanium Orange |
| Processor | Snapdragon 8 Elite | Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 |
| Display Size | 6.9″ | 6.8″ |
| Resolution | 3120 x 1440 (Quad HD+) | 3120 x 1440 (Quad HD+) |
| Display Technology | Dynamic AMOLED 2X | Dynamic AMOLED 2X |
| Refresh Rate | 120 Hz | 120 Hz |
| Rear Camera | 200 MP main + 50 MP telephoto + 50 MP ultrawide + 10 MP telephoto | 200 MP main + 50 MP telephoto + 12 MP ultrawide + 10 MP telephoto |
| Front Camera | 12 MP | 12 MP |
| Video Recording | UHD 8K @30fps | UHD 8K @30fps |
| Slow Motion | Up to 240fps @FHD, 120fps @UHD | Up to 240fps @FHD, 120fps @UHD |
| Storage Options | 256GB, 512GB, 1TB | 256GB, 512GB, 1TB |
| RAM | 12GB | 12GB |
| Battery Capacity | 5000 mAh | 5000 mAh |
| Video Playback Time | Up to 31 hours | Up to 30 hours |
| Weight | 218g | 232g |
| Dimensions (mm) | 162.8 x 77.6 x 8.2 | 162.3 x 79.0 x 8.6 |
| Bluetooth Version | Bluetooth 5.4 | Bluetooth 5.3 |
| Wi-Fi Support | Wi-Fi 7 | Wi-Fi 7 |
| Software Support | Security updates valid until 31 January 2032 | Security updates valid until 31 January 2031 |
| UWB (Ultra-Wideband) | Yes | Yes |
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra software changes: Galaxy AI gets personal
Samsung has introduced a new LLM for the S25 Ultra to power Galaxy AI. This has been done to try to personalise the AI features and make its interactions more human-like. That means all the new AI features are exclusive to the S25 Ultra series.
The main difference with the S25 Ultra is the ‘Now Bar’. The Now Bar is a summary of all of the important things happening on your phone and is accessible from the lock screen. For example, if you have an active timer, a Google Maps journey in progress, and a sports game you’re following, the Now Bar will summarise all of these in a glanceable format.
More from Samsung – Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 review
The Now Bar is also present at all times when using the S25 Ultra. You swipe left from the top right of the screen to open a range of shortcuts to AI tools like Circle To Search and generative drawing capabilities. This means you can access Galaxy AI without opening any new apps because it is integrated device-wide.
Accompanying this is the ‘Now Brief’, another totally new feature for the S25 series. You can think of the Now Brief as an AI-curated snapshot of the information you need to know at certain points of your day.
In the morning, the Now Brief will automatically greet you as the first thing you see when you look at your phone. It will summarise the weather, your recommended time to leave for work depending on traffic, the news and any other bits of relevant information.
Check out Google’s AI – Google Pixel 9 Pro XL review
This evolves throughout the day in different briefs.
Some of the S24 Ultra’s AI capabilities are the same as the S25 Ultra, such as Circle To Search and Generative Erase for photos. The S25 Ultra takes it a few steps further with improved AI photo editing software and a new generative fill capability that transforms your drawings into photo-realistic parts of your image.
There are a few more photo/video-related AI editing bits new to the S25 Ultra. In portrait mode, you can turn photos of yourself into different stylised versions and you can now colour-grade LOG video using AI.
The biggest behind-the-scenes difference between the S24 Ultra and S25 Ultra is that all of this AI stuff happens on-device rather than through the cloud.
Beyond the AI, the S25 Ultra runs on One UI 7 compared to One UI 6 on the S24 Ultra.
And those are all the major software differences between the Samsung S24 Ultra and S25 Ultra.
What about the S25+ and S25 models?
There’s not a lot to say here. The non-Ultra S25 smartphones are virtually the same as their S24 predecessors.
The camera systems, displays, build and batteries are all the same as the 2024 S24+ and S24 phones. The only differences are the Galaxy AI capabilities listed above, the new Snapdragon 8 Elite chip and 12GB RAM which is up from 8GB.
Everything else is unchanged.
What else was announced at Galaxy Unpacked 2025?
In the middle of writing this post, I was smugly typing that Unpacked 2025 only saw the release of the S25 series of phones. I was kind of right. There were no announcements about a new Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra or Galaxy Buds.
But, as I was watching the live stream Samsung dropped the bomb that they were also releasing a Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge.
There isn’t a huge amount of known intel at the moment but it is a slimmer version of the S25 with two fewer camera lenses. This wasn’t a huge surprise as there have been rumours that the big boys at Apple and Samsung were going for smaller phones this year and it looks to be true.
Apple’s latest – iPhone 16 review
It’s an exciting development with Samsung first to the table once again. Will Apple follow suit? Let me know below!
Before you go
