Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra review: Addictive, delightful and disappointing
With next level AI and photo features, it could be the most talked about phone of 2025 – and its already dividing some of the biggest reviewers on the planet. REVIEW
Samsung’s new flagship Galaxy S25 Ultra continues the AI revolution in phones, but other things have impressed me more with this somewhat addictive device.
It is lighter, thinner, more comfortable to hold, definitely super quick, tougher, and has some great improvements in photo and video performance.
Smaller bezels has given it a slightly bigger display while in our testing it has definitely run cooler, even when setting up, thanks to enlarged vapour chamber which should keep gamers happy. It’s battery life is also exceptional.
On the AI side, I’ve found it to be a little hit and miss, though the promise of seven years of software upgrades means there will be improvements to come.
And Samsung has definitely retained its lead in the generative AI race, ahead of Apple, which was late to the party with Apple Intelligence.
The S25 Ultra can do some very clever – and useful things – ranging from generating realistic drawings of your favourite people, pets and things to generating transcripts of important meetings or phone calls.
The integration of Google Gemini has been a masterstroke for the tech giant.
Indeed, Samsung seems to have picked up the best of what is on offer by Android and Apple to create a phone that has pretty much everything you could want.
For example, you can start watching a YouTube video and ask for a summary, ask questions about the video and even get a transcript.
You can also hold down the magic side button to launch Google Gemini, tap one a photo you’ve just taken, ask what type of dog it is and it will give you a pretty decent, and most of the time, accurate answer.
You can also use the same functionality when travelling (as long as you have internet connection), to get a rundown on an attraction you’ve just photographed.
Of course, you can do that now with other phones using applications like Gemini or Chat GPT, but the integration with Samsung and other apps is what makes it more powerful.
The below promotional video from Samsung explains some of the things the phone can do using its own Bixby voice command and Google, along with supported apps like Samsung Notes.
For example you can search for meeting details and add them to Google Calendar and set a reminder without having to switch from application to application.
As in with anything AI, it always pays to double check the information. For example, if you have a plane to catch, setting a reminder based on the normal travel time advised by Gemini, might not be the smartest move.
In photo gallery, you can create a story by asking for photos of sunrises or sunsets, or your dog.
In my testing it was hit and miss, sometimes finding very average photos or being unable to process my request when I asked for favourited photos of a particular thing.
You can also do things like long press the home button at the bottom of your phone, click on the music icon and start singing and it will find you the song – even if you are a terrible singer like me.
I sang a few lines from some of my brother’s biggest hits, including Shine, and it quickly opened up a YouTube link to the Newsboys’ songs.
With Circle to Search, which was launched in the S24 series, you can also now identify background music while watching a YouTube video and look up text or images within the video for extra information.
You can also save a GIF while watching a video.
There are a number of ways to access AI features, including using the Edge Panel which now has AI Assist up the top.
One of the big changes touted during the launch was Now Brief to give key information in the morning and evening – such as weather, your schedule, birthday reminders and even how well you slept.
Despite setting it up to include everything, including news headlines, so far I have only seen weather and calendar items. Samsung Health data hasn’t flowed through, while the requested YouTube shorts only appeared once.
Other reviewers have reported similar mixed results, including some pretty random news headlines. The Evening Brief, which is meant to include rediscovering photos you took during the day, has also been underwhelming so far.
On the camera hardware side, there definitely hasn’t been as big an upgrade this year as in previous years.
There’s a new 50MP ultra wide camera which promises great macro photography power but in our testing, again it has been a little hit and miss.
Some extreme close-ups of flowers, for example, have been great, others a little grainy.
The phone also promises better night photography and videos and in that area it certainly delivers.
Our testing found it a decent improvement on previous models and certainly closer to the top of the range iPhone.
I did a night shoot of photos and videos with the Samsung S25 Ultra and the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
Taking the photos and video, the display on the iPhone shows a much brighter image as you are taking it, pulling in a lot more light.
And the results are definitely better on the iPhone, though the margin is not as wide as it was last year.
Samsung has also introduced some new filter options for photos which I’ve really loved.
They let you easily pump up the colour or reduce the exposure to get the image that you want.
The Ultra also includes a 12MP front camera, a 10MP 3x optical zoom and 50MP 5x optical zoom camera.
You can still crank up the zoom to 10, 30 or even 100 times. Ten times looks great, even 30 times is not bad if you have plenty of light while 100 times is as expected, pretty grainy.
If you like shooting shots of the moon, the Samsung phone is still the hands down winner versus an iPhone.
Like Apple, Samsung has also introduced a way of editing audio in videos, Audio Eraser, which promises to isolate wind, music, a speaker, the crowd or general noise in your video and give you the opportunity to reduce or remove it.
I was shooting a sunset scene when a motorbike roared past.
Great, I thought, I will use the Audio Eraser to get rid of the engine noise, while hoping the sounds of the birds and insects would remain. The result though was underwhelming, reducing the noise 100 per cent left me with no sound at all.
It does do a good job, however, of removing unwanted objects from photos, though Apple’s is arguably better.
Like Apple’s Image Playground, you also create great drawings from photos you take in comic, 3D cartoon, watercolour and sketch.
I used a photo of a friend’s young child, who looks more like boy but is actually a girl, and it generated photos of a girl that were pretty realistic.
It did an even better job with adults with the mum loving the different styles.
If you have not talent as an artist, you use your finger or the S Pen to draw simple shapes to turn them into graphics or artwork, something that might be useful for small businesses for presentations or social media use.
So what’s the final verdict on the S25 Ultra?
If you look at YouTube you have a range of opinions which couldn’t be further apart.
WHAT MARQUES BROWNLEE FIRST SAID
Marques Brownlee, who has 20 million followers, and rated the S24 Ultra as the best phone last year, canned the S25 series in his first look.
“With this phone I can say there is absolutely nothing, nothing dramatically new about the S25s.’’
Fellow tech YouTuber, MrWhosetheBoss, described it as ‘addictively delightful’ and the closest thing to being an iPhone killer.
As he points out the phone is ‘blazing fast’, looks and works very much like an iPhone does, making the switch from Apple to Android a lot more appealing.
But he also points out, that when you look at the price of the S24 Ultra, and the fact that many of the software and AI upgrades will come to it, it’s a big price to pay for the very latest.
Samsung has promised it will offer previous purchasers AI improvements but not all, as some will only work with the faster Snapdragron 8 Elite for Galaxy processor.
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But if you have money to burn, or haven’t upgraded your phone for a few years, the S25 Ultra is definitely worth considering.
It’s not only powerful but fun to use and the AI features will no doubt get even better in time.
The Galaxy S25 series is available for pre-order now and will be in stores from February 14, starting at $1399 for the S25 to from $1699 for the S25+ or from $2149 for the flagship Galaxy S25 Ultra. Samsung and major telcos like Telstra and Optus are offering big deals for pre-orders.
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