Samsung raised the price on the Galaxy S24 Ultra this year, charging $1,299 for the phone after the Galaxy S23 Ultra had cost $1,199. That would seem to preclude a price hike for the Galaxy S25 Ultra, but the cost premium phones is on the rise. We’ll likely hear more about pricing plans toward the end of 2024.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Design and display

Having just switched to titanium for the frame of the Galaxy S24 Ultra, we don’t imagine Samsung would make a change for the S25 version. Likewise, Samsung has used the same basic design for recent Ultras, with the cameras stacked in vertical rows on the back of the phone and the lenses emerging slightly from the rear. We don’t think that’s going to change, either, but leaked CAD renders that are sure to start arriving in the coming months will tell the tale.

A Galaxy S25 rumor tips the display on Samsung’s entry-level model to increase in size, hitting 6.36 inches compared to 6.2 inches for the Galaxy S24. A similar rumor claims that the Galaxy S25 Ultra screen will approach 6.9 inches, a marginal increase over the 6.8-inch display on the S24 Ultra, but we’re not sure how much stock to put into that claim.

Recently, phone makers have been trying to one up each other by boosting the maximum brightness of their handsets’ displays. Indeed, Samsung has played this game, too, raising the peak brightness of the Galaxy S24 Ultra to 2,600 nits, after the Galaxy S23 Ultra clocked in at 1,750 nits. We wouldn’t be surprised to see the Galaxy S25 Ultra raise the stakes further.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Cameras

Cameras form the centerpiece feature of the Ultra model, as that’s the phone Samsung favors with a 200MP main sensor along with a 100MP Space Zoom feature. We’d expect some sort of upgrade to that setup next year, and early Galaxy S25 Ultra camera rumors suggest we may be on to something.

Specifically, a leaker claims that the wide-angle lens on the Galaxy S25 Ultra will get an unspecified upgrade while the ultrawide lens will jump from a 12MP sensor on the S24 Ultra to a 50MP one on the new phone. 

Furthermore, the telephoto lens on the S25 Ultra is expected to get “variable capabilities.” We’re not sure what that means exactly, but we’d guess it has something to do with the ability to change focal length while connecte to a single sensor. The end result would be smoother zooms particularly when shooting video.

If you’re wondering how much stock to put in that rumor, which surfaced before the Galaxy S24 lineup was released, know that the leaker did correctly predict the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s upgraded 50MP telephoto lens before that feature’s arrival.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Performance and battery

You’d expect the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra will run on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chipset, given the use of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in the Galaxy S24 Ultra. (Indeed, this year’s Ultra is the only S24 model to rely exclusive on Qualcomm silicon, as the standard Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus both use the Exynos 2400 system-on-chip in models released outside North America.) Qualcomm has already confirmed we’ll be seeing the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 in October, so the timeline lines up with an early 2025 relese for Samsung’s phone.

Early Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 benchmarks have already leaked out, and while you should never completely trust unvetted numbers like that, they do paint a rosy picture for the chipset’s performance. According to the leaked Geekbench results, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 matches the top score produced by an A18 Bionic-powered iPhone. (And yes, those A18 numbers are also leaked since that chip won’t come out until the fall at the earliest with the iPhone 16 release.) 

There’s talk that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will have a 4.3Ghz prime core, after the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 topped out at 3.4GHz. That’s a pretty big jump in power, and it will require Samsung and Qualcomm to figure out how to pack such a chipset into a mobile device without causing it to overheat.

There’s one potential wrinkle to the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s system-one-chip — one rumor suggests it won’t be provided by Qualcomm. Instead, the rumor posted by someone named @OreXda on X claims that Galaxy S phone will only use Exynos silicon in 2025. Before you take that rumor as gospel, though, realize that @OreXda immediately seemed to dismiss the report as “just a rumor I heard… not my source.”

As for battery life, we’re not sure how Samsung could squeeze in a bigger power pack than the 5,000 mAh cell in the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Since that device landed on our best phone battery life list with a 16-hour, 45-minute result on our battery test, we’re not exactly worried about Galaxy S25 Ultra battery life. We would like to see Samsung boost the Ultra’s wired charging speed to something faster than the current 45W.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Software

By the time the Galaxy S25 Ultra arries, Android 15 will already be out, as we’re currently at the second developer preview for that software release. We’d imagine the Galaxy S25 phones will get the same seven years of software support that the Galaxy S24 receives.

Another expectation of ours: the Galaxy S25 Ultra will add more Galaxy AI features similar to the ones that debuted with the S24 lineup. There’s no word on what those features will be or whether some will be earmarked as exclusives for the higher-end Ultra. With the Galaxy S24, the same Galaxy AI features were supported by all three models, so the entry-level S24 can pull off the same tasks as the premium Ultra.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Outlook

Though it may be early for you and I to be thinking about the Galaxy S25 Ultra, it’s a safe bet Samsung has already put a lot of thought into what goes into its next device. And we should find out more about those efforts throughout the year, as we get closer to the S25 Ultra’s 2025 launch date.

More from Tom’s Guide

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Xem chi tiết và đăng ký