Galaxy AI, the term that’s probably mentioned by Samsung more than the product name itself, has very much become the main highlight of Samsung’s new smartphone launch recently, and its understandable why Samsung wants to do it that way, because while the company can’t compete with the rest in certain hardware innovations, it wants to deliver software experiences that others can’t compete that’s exclusive on their devices, which redefines what a new smartphone really is today.
This is why I won’t blame you if you think the Galaxy S25 Ultra is a boring phone, no doubt there are notable hardware design changes such as a more boxy form, slimmer and lighter titanium body, a larger 6.9-inch screen with super slim bezels, complete with the signature camera rings on the back with a textured ring, what is it that makes the Galaxy S25 Ultra a compelling purchase?
I won’t totally discount Samsung for not introducing any new hardware features to the Galaxy S25 Ultra, it is still an extremely nice and premium device to hold and I really enjoyed viewing content on the larger display, which offers probably the best viewing angles on any flagship phones I have used this year all thanks to its anti-reflective glass, the loudspeakers also sound slightly louder and punchier than before, and with the phone’s lighter weight, it is a much better media consumption device to hold than the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Despite its slimmer body, the Galaxy S25 Ultra continues to house the S-Pen in its dedicated silo, though the S-Pen loses Bluetooth connectivity, which no longer lets you control your presentation slides and serve as a remote camera shutter, but you still get to call out Air Commands on the screen and the scribbling experience is similar as before, this is still a big advantage over the competition if you badly rely on an active stylus on a phone to note down ideas and draw sketches.
Powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, the Galaxy S25 Ultra has got the best performance among other competitors all thanks to the processor’s slightly higher clock speed, while it enjoys the very same power efficiency that the chip offers, Samsung has included a vapor chamber that’s 2x larger than the previous model for better heat dissipation.
Despite that, the Galaxy S25 Ultra can still get toasty if you are taking a lot of photos and videos in an event, it fortunately does better in gaming which I merely feel the back slightly getting warm when I’m doing games like Zenless Zone Zero and Asphalt 9. The Galaxy S25 Ultra also scored impressive graphics score in the 3DMark Wild Life Extreme benchmark with 6655 points, boasting at least 10% better scores than regular Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset powered phones
While the Galaxy S25 Ultra has got the bells and whistles that every new flagship needs, what Samsung really wants you to experience on this new hardware is the improved Galaxy AI, which now does on-device processing if you don’t want any data to be sent over to Samsung’s servers for a peace of mind in privacy, though throughout my testing, you’d be better leave that option off if you want the most accurate generative AI results.
One of the biggest improvements in the Galaxy AI suite of features is Photo Assist, which boasts better generative edits than before and I daresay it is better than any other smartphone’s AI image editing tools. For instance, I could have my hands cover half of my face and use the object eraser to remove my hands, it accurately regenerates the pattern on my shirt and gave me an impressively accurate bottom half of my face, though this result can vary depending on different faces that the AI model is trained on.
If the above example still doesn’t impress you, another thing I did is to remove crowd in a concert that I recently attended, as you can see in the comparison shot above, it accurately removes the crowd and regenerates the lead singer’s legs with no signs of artifacts, this wasn’t possible back when Galaxy AI was first introduced on Galaxy S24 Ultra, which shows how committed Samsung is in improving Galaxy AI.
Not everyone is a great artist and Samsung knows that, this is where the improved Drawing Assist app comes in, which now lets you generate an image based on written text, on top of being able to doodle and add a photo, I compared it with Image Playground on the iPhone 16 Pro and I’m more impressed with the variety of image styles that Drawing Assist offers.
There are still a whole lot of Galaxy AI features that I can’t fully cover in this review, as I don’t have the need for them, but one thing I’d be grateful that Samsung can improve is the Now Brief, which is very much a Samsung version of Google Now that gives you a brief of what you are up to and suggests things to do at every part of the day.
I’ve been using it for the past two weeks the only thing it does is to show my calendar events, weather at my current location and a Spotify playlist to tune into, it just doesn’t feel personal and intelligent to be considered an AI feature, let alone as capable as what Google Now used to be, I would appreciate if it could show me news articles I’ve missed, Spotify playlists that I usually listen to at that hour, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger messages I should look into.
Now Brief is still very much a work in progress as far as I see it, though I’d also assume that more time is required in order for more data to be fed to the feature, I’ll be sure to update my thoughts when I find it more useful in the future.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra continues to offer the most versatile camera system compared to the competition, it has a 200MP wide camera with OIS, a 10MP telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom and OIS, a 50MP periscope camera with 5x optical zoom and OIS, and an upgraded 50MP f/1.9 ultrawide camera that takes much better photos than before.
Compared to the Galaxy S24 Ultra, video capabilities on the Galaxy S25 Ultra has been greatly improved, the wide, ultrawide and periscope cameras support taking videos up to 8K 30 fps, while the wide and ultrawide cameras can take slow-mo 4K 120 fps videos, and finally, the Galaxy S25 Ultra supports taking LOG videos up to 8K 30 fps which allows you to post color grade your videos, these are significant upgrades if you intend to use it for video content creation and it is one thing that not many flagship phones can offer.
Galaxy S25 Ultra Main Camera Samples
Galaxy S25 Ultra Telephoto Camera Samples
Galaxy S25 Ultra Ultrawide Camera Samples
Image quality from the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s cameras is excellent as what you would expect from a Samsung flagship phone, photos from the main 200MP camera shows excellent detail and dynamic range, while having dedicated 3x and 5x telephoto cameras sure gives it some advantage for clearer shots when zoomed into their respective focal lengths compared to in-sensor zoom techniques, the most improved camera is obviously the ultrawide camera, which takes the cleanest ultrawide shots that I have ever seen.
In terms of battery life, I get around the same endurance as the Galaxy S24 Ultra, I can comfortably get 5 hours of screen on time and have 35% of battery left when I end my day, while you can argue that Samsung still isn’t willing to jump on the Silicon Carbon battery bandwagon just yet, the 5000mAh cell on the Galaxy S25 Ultra still beats the battery life on some other phones with larger battery capacities, which is all thanks to great software and power consumption optimizations, though on the other hand, I’m getting really bored of the usual 45W fast wired charging wattage.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra is once again, one of the very best flagship phones you can buy this year, it’s a nice, slimmer and lighter flagship device than before, packed with capable, fun and improved Galaxy AI features that can finally be useful in some cases, these things alone are compelling enough for people who have yet to upgrade to Galaxy AI capable phones to buy one, because all improved Galaxy AI features will most certainly come to the Galaxy S23 and S24 series over a software update, hence you are still in safe hands if you are still rocking a two year old Galaxy S23 Ultra, at least you still get a Bluetooth S-Pen that can wave like a wand, not unless you want a lighter Ultra phone and money is no object, the Galaxy S25 Ultra can be yours starting at RM5999.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra can be purchased on Shopee, Lazada and Samsung.com.
