Our honest thoughts on the new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

Samsung's premium smartphone range has been a huge part of the Aussie smartphone landscape since as far back as the Galaxy SII – that I can remember – and while that isn't 23 years ago (Samsung skipped about 10 numbers when they went from the SII straight to the S20 in 2020) it's certainly been a long period of developing and launching outstanding products that are well received in Australia.

This year, it's the Galaxy S25 range and while there are three devices, the S25, S25+ and S25 Ultra, I've been testing the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra It's the biggest and best seller of the bunch and this year I think it's had the biggest "glow up" of the trio.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

Buy the Ultra on SamsungCheck out the S25 hereCheck out the S25+ here

At the entry-level, priced at $1399 the Samsung Galaxy S25 gets a stack of new software features, mainly AI-based, while maintaining its sleek, somewhat boxy design. Samsung Galaxy S25 takes the price up to $1699 with its bigger screen.

The good news is that when choosing between the three you are really doing so on basic features like screen size, overall size and in the case of the Ultra a step up in camera. Apart from that, almost all the 'S25' features carry across the range.

But at an RRP of $2149, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra really does take the biggest leap forward. Many years ago Samsung had this S range, and they also had a device called the Note – this had the biggest screen, Samsung's S-Pen stylus built in and had a loyal following. That range was merged with the S series Ultra device a few years ago, and finally, in 2025 they've shaken the last of the Note range design elements and made the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra look like part of the family.

It has familiar flat edges around the body, the corners of the screen are rounded off to again give it the same look as the rest, and the screen is fully flat, with no slightly tapered edges.

For me this is a huge win. The old design was slightly jarring, it had aged, so it's a big, big win to get a large-screen device like this into the range with this sleek look.

Topping it off, all three are the thinnest S series devices Samsung's ever made, they are all lighter, and the S24 Ultra has a slimmer bezel around the screen, a reduction of 15 per cent from the previous generation.

Snapping upgrades

On the Ultra there's an all-new 50MP ultrawide camera too.

The standard lens is still 200MP with a 50MP telephoto, but this new ultrawide makes those epic shots higher quality, plus gives you the option of some really stunning close-up macro shots.

I found the macro to be so good, I was always getting so close that the phone would cast a shadow on the subject – so check your angles!

For video lovers, there's something really special about how Samsung is using AI to make your videos sound better. That's right, sound better. Record a video walking along the beach, perhaps there's a party going on, it's a windy day, and the surf is crashing down alongside you, but you're recording a heartfelt birthday message to your best mate.

Listen back and it's full of all that 'other' noise. Now, with an audio eraser, you can have the phone analyse the audio, and it will separate the music from the party, waves, the wind and other background noise from your voice. But it doesn't get rid of it all, it gives you the chance to mix a new video track by adjusting the audio levels of each. So bring that wind all the way down, take the edge off the waves, keep a bit of the music vibe and you've got yourself an epic birthday wish video!

It just works. And that's the kind of AI that I think people will really start to love.

The picture is of course even better, with 10 Bit HDR as default, which basically means richer colours in your video.

AI for the better?

You're going to hear a lot about AI here, and in Samsung's marketing, this is AI you can use. Samsung call it Galaxy AI and that's their brand, but this year they've gone hard on a partnership with Google to embrace Google's Gemini AI. This means plenty of advantages across the system.

Unfortunately, my review device was an early sample and many of these Google and Samsung-integrated AI examples are not yet live. But I did see them demonstrated in real-time at a briefing before the launch, and I'm excited about some basic things, like asking the Gemini Assistant to perform multiple tasks in a single command.

The AI can separate those tasks from the one command and then perform those tasks across multiple apps, be they Samsung or Google apps.

In addition to that, Samsung has added a little swipe in menu bar – you swipe in from the right and using what they call 'AI Select' you can select anything from part of the screen to a word, or paragraph and Samsung's AI will work out what you want.

It might be the portion of a website telling you about an event, and Galaxy AI will suggest you add it to your calendar. It could just be an image you want to search for. Even music can be selected.

When you're on a call, you can now record that call! Press a button, and you and the other people on the call will hear a message saying this call is being recorded, and boom, it's done. Hang up and you've got an audio recording – plus, a real-time transcript is created, plus an AI summary in notes. It's a game changer for business meetings.

In the hope of bringing AI to the foreground of your daily use, Samsung also has the "Now Brief". This is meant to be a morning and evening summary. How you slept, what the weather is like, what's on for the day, key news. And it will evolve based on your usage and needs.

Again, I had the device for a very short period so couldn't say how personalised this will become but the promise is there for sure.

And, for those who follow live sports, book Ubers, flights and other things that use apps to track or monitor them the new Now Bar at the bottom of the Home Screen allows you to quickly flick through those current activities to get an update.

It's all done because the phone is learning about you. Not Google or Samsung, the phone. The phone is building a personal data engine, stored securely on the device to really build a profile of you that helps when you search or make AI requests. All encrypted on your phone used only to benefit these apps.

Avoiding cracked screen woes?

Get this – Samsung saw a 60 per cent reduction in screen damage repairs from the Galaxy S23 range to the Galaxy S24 range last year. They put that down to a stronger glass on the screen.

This year, on the Samsung Galaxy S25, that glass gets stronger still with Corning Gorilla Armour 2 – a fancy name for tougher glass.

Samsung expects to see an additional reduction in those repairs with this generation.

That's a win for the clumsy among us.

Power and performance

For the power nerds, all of this is powered by an all-new processor that's unique to this range. It's the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy and no other phone has it.

That's allowed Samsung to ensure it has the best performance in both CPU, GPU and Neural Engine for the AI performance. That Neural engine is 40 per cent faster, the CPU is up 37 per cent and graphics are up 30 per cent – they aren't mucking around.

I never found this device to lag, or be slow in response, this is Samsung's best yet, and you'll be hard-pressed to find something to complain about.

While the Ultra for me is just a bit too big, I'm more of a small hands, small phone kinda guy, this is nevertheless an impressive smartphone and if you're in that over $2,000 big-screen market – it has to be top of your list.

READ MORE: All the accessories you need for your new Samsung Galaxy S25 smartphone