If the latest rumors hold any weight, the Samsung Galaxy S25 series could be revealed in mid-January 2025. Similar to last year, we’re expecting to see a lineup consisting of the Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, and Galaxy S25 Ultra. It’s that last model – the S25 Ultra – that will turn the most heads. The current generation Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is one of the best phones around, and maybe the most powerful phone on the market, so having an update right around the corner is very exciting indeed.
Though we’re generally expecting to see iterative improvements across the S25 lineup, the biggest changes and upgrades seem to be concentrated on the S25 Ultra. We’re talking camera improvements, design changes, and potentially even a new name (though we’ll keep calling it the Ultra in this article).
The list of rumored upgrades is such that some Galaxy S24 Ultra owners may be tempted to upgrade, but it’s more likely that prospective customers who still use older Galaxy models, or indeed other phones, will be left deciding between buying the expensive S25 Ultra or nabbing an S24 Ultra for a discount from a third-party retailer once the S25 Ultra supplants it at the Samsung store.
We’re still light on official information for the S25 series, but here are my thoughts on how the S25 Ultra could be even more Ultra than the Ultra it replaces.
| Header Cell – Column 0 | Samsung Galaxy S25 rumored specs | Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra specs |
|---|---|---|
| Display: | 6.9-inch AMOLED | 6.8-inch AMOLED |
| Resolution: | 1440 x 3120 pixels | 1440 x 3120 pixels |
| Refresh rate: | 120Hz | 120Hz |
| Chipset: | Snapdragon 8 Elite | Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 |
| Rear cameras: | 200MP wide, 50MP ultrawide, 10MP telephoto (3x zoom) 50MP telephoto (5x zoom) | 200MP wide, 12MP ultrawide, 10MP telephoto (3x zoom), 50MP telephoto (5x zoom) |
| Front camera: | 12MP | 12MP |
| RAM: | 12GB / 16GB | 12GB |
| Storage: | 256GB, 512GB, 1TB | 256GB, 512GB, 1TB |
| Battery: | 5,000mAh | 5,000mAh |
Samsung S25 Ultra vs Samsung S24 Ultra: rumored upgrades, design changes, and how the new generation can improve
As mentioned, we’re not expecting to see a full-scale reinvention of Samsung’s highest end slab phone with the S25 Ultra, but we are hoping to see some decent upgrades based on the latest Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra rumors. Starting with design, the S25 Ultra could swap the sharp corners found on the S24 Ultra for a rounded design in line with its rivals, the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL and iPhone 16 Pro Max.
This newly rounded frame could reportedly house a slightly enlarged 6.9-inch display, a slight bump up from the 6.8-inch display found on the S24 Ultra enabled by slimmed-down bezels. The displays are likely to be technologically and visually identical otherwise, as they’ll reportedly use the same M13 OLED panel technology – no biggie considering just how brilliant the S24 Ultra’s display looks.
We’re also expecting to see some new black detail around the rear camera rings on the S25 Ultra, the same as the rest of the S25 lineup. Otherwise, the two phones should look broadly similar, with the same camera layout, titanium frame, and port and button placement. We’ve heard of some fresh new colors coming with the S25 Ultra though, with some quirky names like Silverblue and Whitesilver. Perhaps we’ll see a switch-up from the block colors of the S24 Ultra, which I’ve always thought clash with the titanium rails.
Underneath that titanium housing, we’re expecting the S25 Ultra to boast some performance boosts compared to its predecessor.
The S25 Ultra – and, indeed, the entire S25 lineup – is tipped to launch with the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, an absolute unit of a chipset that promises major processing, graphics, and efficiency gains over the current generation Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. The version of that chipset found in the S24 series is a customized Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy variant, but it’s still unlikely to match the potentially impressive improvement in load times, UI speed, and gaming performance coming with the S25 Ultra.
Additionally, higher-end models of the S25 Ultra could come equipped with 16GB of RAM, compared to the flat 12GB found on all variants of the S24 Ultra. It’s suggested that the cheapest version of the S25 Ultra will still come with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, while the 512GB and 1TB specs get the full 16GB. And as this is the S25 Ultra we’re talking about the term ‘cheapest’ is very much relative – we’re expecting the S25 to at least match the S24 Ultra for price, which would work out to a starting price of $1,299 / £1,249 / AU$2,199 – though some tipsters suggest a price hike could be on the way.
The Galaxy S24 Ultra is a heavy hitter in the mobile photography world with its quad-camera system, and thanks to a barrage of rumors, we expect the S25 Ultra to continue this pattern. The S25 is tipped to have a 200MP main camera, 50MP ultrawide camera, 50MP periscope camera with 5x zoom, and 10MP telephoto camera with 3x zoom.
It’s the ultrawide camera that sees the biggest upgrade here, from 12MP to 50MP, while the other cameras seem broadly identical to the S24’s system. That might not count as a reason to upgrade on its own, as the S24 Ultra is already one of the best camera phones as is. We’ll almost certainly see some new software processing either built into the S25 Ultra specifically or with the launch of the One UI 7 Android wrapper.
Speaking of, we expect both phones to gain access to One UI 7 when it launches. Samsung has been very quiet about the release of its latest Android wrapper, but it’d be reasonable to suggest the new OS will launch alongside the S25 series in mid-January 2025. It’s possible that more RAM in the pricier versions of the S25 Ultra would allow the phone to take advantage of new artificial intelligence-powered tools in the Galaxy AI suite, though it’s hard to predict what these features could look like.
After all that, though, we might not even get an S25 Ultra at all – one tipster has posited the possibility of the new phone launching as the S25 Note. There’s not much to go on with this, but it’d certainly be welcome for fans of the Note series, which was last seen in 2020 with the Galaxy S20 Note.
Note or not, we shouldn’t have to wait too long for official announcements about the S25 Ultra and its smaller siblings. If these rumors hold weight, there won’t be masses separating the two most recent top-end Galaxy phones. Yet advancements in performance, ergonomics, and photography could be enough to make the high price tag worthwhile.
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jamie.richards@futurenet.com (Jamie Richards)
