Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra Review: A Galaxy of AI

Samsung Galaxy S25 collection was unveiled final month as the most recent flagship telephone from the corporate. It was one of many first main telephone launches in India after the OnePlus 13, and everybody, together with me, was desperate to see what Samsung needed to supply. Because it seems, the South Korean large caught to the ‘why repair it if it is not damaged’ ideology, and did not actually carry any main adjustments to the telephones. Aside from the standard incremental {hardware} upgrades, the one change was the brand new design of the Galaxy S25 Extremely and the brand new Galaxy AI options.

Nonetheless, after utilizing the top-of-the-line Galaxy S25 Extremely for a few weeks, I imagine that it might nonetheless be one of the best all-round flagship Android smartphone of the yr, or not less than a high contender. The telephone begins at Rs. 1,29,999 for the 256GB choice. In the meantime, the 512GB and 1TB variants are priced at Rs. 1,41,999 and Rs. 1,65,999. All variants get 12GB of RAM and can be found in a bunch of color choices.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Extremely Design: Slimmer and flatter

• Dimensions – 162.8 x 77.6 x 8.2mm
• Weight – 218g IP
• Score – IP68

One of many first stuff you’ll discover concerning the new Galaxy S25 Extremely is its flat body and rounded corners. It now contains a uniform design consistent with the remainder of the Galaxy S25 collection. The flat body and rounded corners additionally make the telephone extra comfy to carry. Whereas it not has a novel design, it additionally will not poke your palm inside 5 minutes of use.

No extra rounded sides

 

Samsung has used grade 5 titanium for the body, and also you get Gorilla Armor 2 safety on the again. The telephone is now barely slimmer and round 14 grams lighter than the Galaxy S24 Extremely. It continues to be IP68-rated for mud and water resistance. I imagine Samsung might’ve completed higher right here, as rivals are on the market providing higher ingress scores, together with OnePlus, which now presents an IP69 score on the OnePlus 13.

On the entrance, the Galaxy S25 Extremely continues to supply an anti-reflective coating, which I believe extra telephone producers ought to do. The entrance can be protected by Gorilla Armor 2. The bezels on the display screen are additionally barely slimmer.

The anti-reflective coating on the display screen means fewer reflections

 

On the again, the digital camera rings now function a distinct design, and look like floating. They’re considerably extra protruded than earlier than as nicely. The flash is in the identical location because the Galaxy S24 Extremely. Every part else on the again stays the identical as earlier than.

The digital camera rings on the Galaxy S25 Extremely are extra pronounced

 

The left body homes the Quantity keys and the Energy button, whereas the highest homes the speaker grille. You may discover the USB Kind-C port, second speaker, and SIM card tray on the backside. The underside left nook has the slot for the S Pen, which now lacks Bluetooth help (unhappy face). You’ll be able to not use the S Pen as a distant digital camera shutter or for any air gestures.

The opening for the SIM card tray is now on the other facet

 

The Galaxy S25 Extremely is obtainable in Titanium Silverblue, Titanium Grey, Titanium Black, and Titanium Whitesilver colors. Nonetheless, you may as well get the telephone in Titanium Jadegreen, Titanium Jetblack, and Titanium Pinkgold color choices if you are going to buy it on-line through the Samsung retailer. Our evaluate unit got here in Silverblue, which will get a touch of blue on the rear panel.

When it comes to design, the Galaxy S25 Extremely is premium throughout.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Extremely Show: Attractive as at all times

• Dimension and kind – 6.9-inch Dynamic LTPO AMOLED 2X, QHD+ decision
• Refresh charge – 120Hz
• Safety – Corning Gorilla Armor 2

The show on the Galaxy S25 Extremely will not be a serious improve from the predecessor, however that does not imply it is a unhealthy factor. It is nonetheless one of many best-looking panels on a smartphone, and it is now barely larger at 6.9 inches. The show helps HDR10+, as much as 120Hz adaptive refresh charge, and is protected by Gorilla Armor 2, which is claimed to be harder. In my few weeks of use, the display screen didn’t decide up any scratches. Samsung continues to supply a non-reflective coating on the show, which is nice when watching content material, nevertheless it additionally implies that the general brightness of the panel is affected. Whereas I did not have any points utilizing the telephone underneath direct daylight, it did seem much less shiny than, say, the Google Pixel 9.

The telephone will get a barely larger 6.9-inch show

 

The Galaxy S25 Extremely presents a 120Hz refresh charge and two modes – Adaptive or Normal. You may as well select the color mode of the show between the Vivid and Pure choices. The telephone additionally enables you to alter the display screen decision (HD+, full-HD+, and QHD+) as per your liking. There’s Widevine L1 help as nicely, so you’ll be able to relaxation assured that each one Netflix and streaming content material will play in full-HD decision.

The telephone presents an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner, which works simply in addition to the final one. It is quick, has nearly a zero error charge, and is positioned in a very good place. It additionally works in case your finger is moist.

The ultrasonic fingerprint sensor is superb

 

General, a wonderful show, as at all times, and you will love watching content material or enjoying video games on the Galaxy S25 Extremely.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Extremely Software program: Extra AI

• OS – Android 15
• UI – One UI 7
• Software program help – 7 years

This yr’s Galaxy Unpacked occasion for the Galaxy S25 collection was largely about Galaxy AI. The telephones did not actually get many main updates, however the software program definitely did. The Galaxy S25 Extremely runs Android 15-based One UI 7 out of the field and comes with a bunch of latest AI options that make the telephone extra helpful. You’ll be able to learn all concerning the new Galaxy AI options right here.

Aside from new AI options, you get the basic One UI feel and appear, however with a number of enhancements. There is a cut up notification and Fast Toggles menu now, which works equally to iOS. You’ll be able to pull down the notifications drawer by swiping down from the left facet of the display screen, whereas the Fast Toggles present up once you swipe down from the appropriate. Nonetheless, you’ll be able to return to the earlier design if this is not to your liking.

The telephone will obtain 7 years of OS and safety updates

 

The telephone additionally comes pre-installed with Google apps and some from Microsoft, however there’s no bloatware. You may as well use the S-Pen included contained in the telephone to navigate and carry out varied capabilities. Nonetheless, the S-Pen not has a battery and subsequently does not help Bluetooth performance, which is a bit disappointing. The pen nonetheless helps scribbling, drawing,m and writing with handwriting recognition, however you’ll be able to not use it as a distant for the digital camera shutter or carry out Air gestures.

The S-Pen not helps Bluetooth and lacks a battery

 

Samsung DeX continues to be accessible on the Galaxy S25 Extremely and allows you to join your telephone to a monitor and use it as a desktop pc.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Extremely Efficiency: Flagship in all sense

• SoC – Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy
• RAM – 12GB LPDDR5X
• Storage – As much as 1TB UFS 4.0

This telephone goes to final you years, and you’ll not see any main slowdown in efficiency even 3-4 years down the road. Sure, it is that highly effective. The 3nm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy CPU might not ship the identical high-end AnTuTu scores as a few of the different flagships which might be centered on all-out efficiency (such because the OnePlus 13, iQOO 13, and Realme GT 7 Professional), however every part is tremendous clean and quick on the telephone. There is not any lag in any respect.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy SoC makes positive every part is operating clean

 

I ran our typical set of artificial benchmarks to see how the telephone carried out, and beneath are the outcomes. Do observe that each one of those assessments have been completed with the decision set to QHD+.

Benchmark	Samsung Galaxy S25 Extremely	iPhone 16 Professional Max	Vivo X200 Professional	Google Pixel 9 Professional XL
Geekbench 6 Single	3,053	3,203	1,577	1,944
Geekbench 6 Multi	9,832	7,846	6,496	4,667
AnTuTu v10	21,23,303	15,87,059	20,80,659	10,67,971
PCMark Work 3.0	19,266	N/A	16,804	12,922
GFXB T-rex	120fps	59fps	120fps	120fps
GFXB Manhattan 3.1	115fps	59.7fps	120fps	105fps
GFXB Automotive Chase	94fps	59.4fps	99fps	55fps
3DM Slingshot Excessive OpenGL	Did not run	N/A	Maxed Out	Did not run
3DM Slingshot	Did not run	N/A	Maxed Out	Did not run
3DM Wild Life	Maxed Out	8,942	Maxed Out	8,902
3DM Wild Life Limitless	23,683	N/A	19,834	9,294

The Galaxy S25 Extremely simply outperforms telephones such because the iPhone 16 Professional Max, Google’s Pixel 9 Professional XL, and even the Vivo X200 Professional.

Gaming on the telephone is extraordinarily enjoyable, particularly due to the big show with slim bezels. The telephone options the Adreno 830 GPU, and it does an incredible job of delivering a excessive body charge and clean gaming. The machine additionally does not get scorching whereas gaming or utilizing the digital camera repeatedly, due to the vapour chamber. I performed prolonged classes of BGMI and Genshin Impression and the Galaxy S25 Extremely solely received heat after about half an hour, however by no means scorching sufficient to make issues uncomfortable.

BGMI ran in any respect the best accessible settings with none points

 

The Galaxy S25 Extremely contains a hybrid stereo speaker setup that is generally discovered on most telephones. The audio system sound nice and get fairly loud. There’s additionally a little bit of bass with no cracking at increased volumes. It is a stable pair of audio system. The earphone and microphone high quality throughout calls was additionally fairly good. I additionally did not face any community points, together with when utilizing Wi-Fi. The telephone presents Wi-Fi 7 help, Bluetooth 5.4, and NFC.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Extremely Cameras: Stable cameras with some upgrades

• Primary rear – 200-megapixel, f/1.7, PDAF, OIS
• Ultrawide – 50-megapixel, f/1.9, PDAF, 120 diploma FoV
• Telephoto 3x – 10-megapixel, f/2.4, PDAF
• Telephoto 5x – 50-megapixel, f/3.4, PDAF, OIS
• Selfie – 12-megapixel, f/2.2

The digital camera setup on the Galaxy S25 Extremely is essentially the identical because the Galaxy S24 Extremely, which was the identical because the Galaxy S23 Extremely, and so forth. Nonetheless, there’s now a brand new 50-megapixel ultrawide digital camera. The selfie digital camera can be the identical because the predecessor. The digital camera app has been redesigned in One UI 7, with the completely different digital camera modes now positioned beneath the shutter button.

The telephone will get a brand new 50-megapixel ultrawide sensor

 

Photograph high quality from the principle digital camera is superb in daylight circumstances. There’s loads of element within the photos, and you will find the white stability to be on level in most conditions. The dynamic vary is superb as nicely,l and hues are very true to life with little to no over-saturation. Images look like higher than the earlier Galaxy S24 collection, and this may very well be due to the brand new ISP within the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset. Samsung additionally claims that they’ve made some adjustments to the post-processing algorithms.

Daylight images shot utilizing the 200-megapixel primary rear digital camera (Faucet to increase)

 

The telephoto cameras produce good outcomes when there’s loads of mild, however I discovered the 5x to do higher with close-up pictures. However, each the 3x and 5x cameras ship good images with correct colors and nice dynamic vary.

3x Telephoto (Prime 2), 5x Telephoto (Backside 2) (Faucet to increase)

Portrait images with the cameras additionally prove nice, with good edge detection and never an excessive amount of bokeh. 

You may as well shoot images at 10x, 30x, and all the way in which as much as 100x. The noise ranges improve as you go increased up the zoom vary. Whereas the 10x and 30x are considerably usable, the 100x is not. In the meantime, Samsung nonetheless does the AI enhancement once you zoom in on the Moon.

Prime to backside: 2 x 10x pictures, 2 x 30x pictures, 2 x 100x pictures (Faucet to increase)

 

The brand new ultrawide digital camera can be fairly good in daylight circumstances, and the color matches the photographs from the principle sensor. The images have good publicity,a large dynamic vary, and there is nearly no edge warping.

Ultrawide pictures: Prime – Daylight x 2, Backside – Lowlight x 2 (Faucet to increase)

 

Selfies are nice, and there is nothing to complain about right here. You get detailed images with superb dynamic vary, nearly pure pores and skin tones, and good white stability. The digital camera does help autofocus, which helps ship sharper photos in all lighting circumstances.

In low mild circumstances, the principle digital camera continues to take good images, however you may discover some noise in case you zoom in. The colors are good, although, and the exposures are well-maintained. The devoted Evening mode does make issues somewhat higher, however the distinction is principally within the sharpness.

Lowlight pictures from the principle rear digital camera (Faucet to increase)

 

The images from the 3x and 5x telephoto cameras aren’t one of the best at night time, even with the Evening mode. There is a lack of focus, additional sharpening, and pictures have a whole lot of softening happening. Nonetheless, I did discover the cameras to supply good color output. Once more, the 5x sensor does a greater job someway, with barely extra element and higher dynamic vary.

The ultrawide digital camera delivers photos which have good colors and first rate particulars. The white stability and dynamic vary aren’t too unhealthy. I did discover them to be on the softer facet in comparison with the principle digital camera, although.

Video efficiency on the Galaxy S25 Extremely is admittedly good throughout all of the sensors when the lighting is nice. All cameras have the power to document at 4K 60fps, which is sweet. You may as well shoot at 8K 30fps on the principle, ultrawide, and 5x telephoto cameras. All cameras additionally help video stabilisation, however the principle and 5x cameras deal with the bumps one of the best. The colors, particulars, and dynamic vary are glorious from the principle digital camera. The telephoto cameras aren’t pretty much as good as the principle sensor, and so is the ultrawide. Nonetheless, movies from all cameras, shot in daylight circumstances, are very usable.

In low mild circumstances, the principle digital camera nonetheless does a very good job. The movies are detailed, the colors aren’t overdone, and the exposures are well-handled. There’s some noise within the shadows, although, however nothing unhealthy. The telephoto and ultrawide cameras additionally do a advantageous job in the dead of night, offered there’s good lighting.

Samsung has additionally launched LOG recording on the Galaxy S25 Extremely, and also you get improved 10-bit HDR video recording. There’s additionally an Audio Eraser function that is accessible within the Gallery app, which very a lot jogged my memory of the Audio Eraser that was introduced by Google with the Pixel 8 collection. In testing, the function did job of eradicating noise.

General, the Galaxy S25 Extremely has a very good digital camera setup, I would not name it one of the best available in the market, nevertheless it delivers constant efficiency throughout all of the sensors.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Extremely Battery: No upgrades right here

• Capability – 5,000mAh
• Charging – 45W wired, 25W wi-fi

Samsung went with the identical 5,000mAh battery that was discovered on the Galaxy S24 Extremely, nonetheless, that is probably not a nasty factor. The telephone nonetheless presents good battery life. In our HD video loop take a look at, the telephone lasted for 27 hours and 34 minutes with the brightness at 50 %, decision set to QHD+, and refresh charge set to Adaptive. I additionally ran the PCMark Work 3.0 Battery take a look at on the telephone. It delivered a runtime of 14 hours and 9 minutes earlier than the battery hit 20 %.

The telephone helps as much as 45W quick charging

 

As for charging, the telephone helps the identical 45W quick charging as earlier than. Utilizing a 30W charger, the telephone hit 52 % from 0 in half-hour. A full cost took about 1 hour and 10 minutes. Nonetheless, you should use a higher-wattage charger and scale back the cost time.

With day by day utilization, the Galaxy S25 Extremely would simply final me a day and a half and even longer. Below heavy utilization, I would nonetheless finish the day with 15 to twenty % battery. The telephone additionally helps 25W wi-fi charging with Qi 2.1 help.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Extremely Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Extremely is a very good all-rounder Android flagship that you should purchase in case you’re coming from a Galaxy S22 Extremely or an older iPhone. In case you’re somebody with an S23 or S24 Extremely, I would say you need to maintain on a bit longer. The telephone delivers glorious efficiency, presents a phenomenal show, a flexible set of cameras, a greater design, and a few usable AI options. It might undoubtedly be a contender for one of the best smartphone of the yr. And no, the brand new Galaxy AI options aren’t sufficient to justify an improve.

When it comes to alternate options, you could possibly have a look at the OnePlus 13 (Assessment), iQOO 13 (Assessment), the Vivo X200 Professional (Assessment), Oppo Discover X8 Professional (Assessment), or the Pixel 9 Professional XL (Assessment) from the Android steady. You may get higher efficiency and general worth from most of those telephones, besides the Google Pixel. The Vivo can be a greater digital camera telephone. All of those telephones are additionally cheaper. On the Apple facet, there’s the iPhone 16 Professional Max (Assessment), which is able to supply roughly the identical efficiency throughout the system and cameras. You could possibly additionally get your self a Galaxy S24 Extremely, which is able to now be cheaper.