Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra Review | Geek Lifestyle

Samsung unveiled its S25 lineup in the Philippines last month, and soon after, we got to test out the Galaxy S25 Ultra to see if it’s a worthy top-of-the-line flagship.

Last year, we reviewed the S24 Ultra, and we found it to be an excellent flagship thanks to its great cameras, excellent display, and nifty S Pen. Now, we have the S25 Ultra in our hands, and it promises to deliver once again as a premium flagship device, complete with a couple of enhancements over last year’s model.

Even though the S25 Ultra looks almost identical to the S24 Ultra, it does come with some enhanced features under the hood, among them is the new Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy SoC. It’s also a bit smaller and thinner than the previous model, and it has an upgraded ultrawide camera. Plus, the latest Ultra model packs updated AI features that promise to make it an even smarter daily driver.

So, do the S25 Ultra’s enhancements make it a compelling upgrade for users looking to buy a new top-of-the-line smartphone? Here’s what we think in our review!

Geek-sthetic

First off, let’s take a look at the phone’s design. For this year’s model, Samsung has once again gone with the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach when it comes to the S25 Ultra. That’s because the latest Ultra model shares the same overall design as previous models, even going back to the S23 Ultra from 2023.

That’s not a bad thing though as the S25 Ultra is still an excellent smartphone in terms of design. Even though it’s quite a large phone, it’s easy to grip thanks to the flat edges. The design doesn’t just feel great though as the phone is made with a titanium frame, meaning it should be a tough phone that can survive daily wear and tear (and some accidental drops).

Looks-wise, the phone has a sleek back with a matte finish. This gives it a subtler design compared to other phones which have more “unique” finishes. If you ask us though, we’re big fans of the phone’s finish, especially as it’s not a fingerprint magnet, not to mention that it’s quite grippy so the phone won’t accidentally slip out of your hands.

Speaking of holding the phone, the S25 Ultra is 6g lighter than the S24 Ultra. This seems like an incredibly small change, but it is fairly noticeable if you have the phones side by side. The fact that it’s slightly lighter means it’s easier to bring everywhere, though it still feels quite solid, as we’d expect from a flagship.

Moving to the front, we have the phone’s large 6.9-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2x display which has a 120Hz refresh rate, and a 3120 x 1440 (Quad HD+). Samsung Galaxy S phones typically have some of the best phone screens out there, and the S25 Ultra continues this as its display is sharp and vibrant.

The phone’s screen is also protected by Corning Gorilla Armor 2 – an upgrade over the S24 Ultra’s Gorilla Armor 2. Samsung promises that this glass is the toughest one yet for a Galaxy S smartphone, so that’s a welcome improvement (though we didn’t exactly test how much damage it can withstand).

Binge-Watching Factor

While the display is great for everyday use, what about for binge-watching movies and shows? Well, the S25 Ultra is a great device for this as its AMOLED panel means it has a vibrant color output along with deep blacks. The large size, along with its HDR10+ support helps it be a worthy partner for watching movies and shows while on the go. It also gets plenty bright (at least in our eyes), so you should be able to watch movies/shows even when outdoors, though we recommend going with manual brightness instead of the Adaptive setting if you’re planning to do so.

Display quality is one thing, but what about audio? Thankfully, the S25 Ultra does not disappoint in this regard as the phone’s stereo speakers deliver great sound quality. Even at max volume, the speakers sound clear, not to mention that it gets quite loud and has decent bass extension. Of course, we recommend wearing headphones or using external speakers for the best binge-watching experience, but if you’re in a pinch, you should be able to enjoy the latest episode of your favorite show even if you’re just using the phone’s speakers.

Gaming Performance

Now we move on to gaming. The S25 Ultra is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, a 3nm SoC that should be an upgrade from the S24 Ultra’s 4nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. As such, we expected this phone to deliver even for demanding titles.

Before we dive into our gaming experience, it’s worth noting that when you first boot up a game, you’ll get a prompt asking you about your preferred game optimization setting and smoothness. While you can change these settings in the Game Booster anytime, it’s nice to have this pop up so you can select your preferred settings right from the get-go. For our tests, we used the Performance mode and the 120Hz display setting.

As expected, the S25 Ultra ran popular MOBAs and FPS titles like League of Legends: Wild Rift and Call of Duty Mobile with ease, even at max settings. In fact, you can get away with Balanced or even Battery Saver mode when playing these games to conserve your phone’s battery levels while still enjoying a smooth experience.

You’ll want to use Performance mode for more demanding titles though. In this mode, you can run games like Genshin Impact at the High graphics preset while enjoying sharp visuals and a smooth frame rate. While playing games like this for hours can make the phone feel warm, it never came to a point where it became uncomfortably hot for us.

When it comes to performance, the S25 Ultra won’t disappoint for gaming, with the only devices that can exceed it performance-wise being dedicated gaming smartphones. As such, the latest Galaxy S flagship should still be a good match for avid mobile gamers.

Geek Photoshoot Capabilities

More than anything, Samsung Galaxy S phones are thought of as having the best cameras in the Android flagship space, so this aspect of the phone was what we were keen to test out the most. For the latest Ultra model, Samsung went with a 200MP main + 50MP ultrawide + 10MP 3x telephoto + 50MP 5x telephoto quadruple rear camera setup, along with a 12MP front camera. The camera setup is mostly similar to last year’s S24 Ultra, though this year’s model has a 50MP camera instead of a 12MP shooter – an upgrade on paper.

Along with the camera specs, the Galaxy S25 Ultra promises improved image processing thanks to its enhanced AI ProVisual Engine. Does it actually deliver? Well, we found that the latest Ultra device, for the most part, delivers proper flagship results when it comes to photography.

First, the shots above were taken with the phone’s 200MP main camera. As expected, these daytime and indoor photos are impressive as they retain plenty of detail. Even when you crop them a bit, quality won’t drop considerably.

Note that shots taken with the main camera have colors that are a bit more vibrant than what we consider “natural.” That’s not to say that the shots look artificial, it’s just that sometimes, you get photos with punchier, more vivid colors. This is especially the case when taking outdoor shots.

At night, the 200MP main camera works well as photos in low light still retain plenty of detail and are decently sharp when not cropped. When taking low-light photos, auto mode shots (like the ones above) look quite good, though you also have a Night Mode option. This mode sharpens up photos, though we’re not the biggest fans of the slightly artificial look they produce (more on that below), so we mostly stuck to auto mode as that still offered great results.

For the 50MP ultrawide, both daytime and nighttime images have plenty of detail with good colors to boot. Generally, Samsung ultrawide photos exhibit a more pronounced fisheye effect on the corners, though with the new ultrawide, this seems to have been improved while still retaining a wide field of view. As for image quality though, the results are still comparable to the previous-gen 12MP ultrawide, though we still consider this an upgrade thanks to the lessened distortion.

Now we move on to the two telephoto cameras. First, here’s a look at S25 Ultra sample photos taken from 1x zoom all the way to 100x zoom. Note that the 3x zoom uses the 10MP telephoto while 5x and above uses the 50MP shooter.

As you can see in the samples above, the S25 Ultra has impressive zoom capabilities, with shots taken at 10x zoom still looking great. At 30x, you see a loss in quality, though these are still surprisingly usable. As for 100x zoom, the photos that we took aren’t particularly detailed, especially when compared to the more aggressive AI enhancements that other flagships have.

Above are more samples of the 10MP 3x telephoto zoom in daytime. Results are quite good as there’s plenty of detail here even if you crop them a bit.

More impressive for us are the photos taken with the 50MP 5x telephoto camera. In fact, we even prefer these shots compared to the 3x zoom photos as they have slightly more natural colors while still retaining a good amount of detail.

Low-light shots were also quite impressive, both at 3x and 5x zoom. Note that all images above were taken with the phone’s Night Mode which works well for the telephoto cameras, but turns out fairly artificial-looking shots with the main camera (at least, when it comes to colors).

Finally, we have the S25 Ultra’s front camera. Selfies taken with this shooter are great as the processing for faces looks quite natural while the backgrounds also look great. It can struggle in less optimal lighting conditions such as when shooting against the light, but it’s overall a capable flagship-level selfie shooter.

Everyday Reliability

Given its good gaming performance and great photography capabilities, it should come as no surprise that the Galaxy S25 Ultra is also an excellent phone for daily use. Aside from being fast and responsive with pretty much every app that we used (even photo/video editing apps), the phone’s One UI 7 remains one of our favorite Android UIs. This is not only because of its good-looking design but also because its settings are laid out well, not to mention that it packs plenty of nifty features.

What’s also impressive is the battery life. Even though the phone’s 5,000mAh battery might not be the biggest at this point given that many flagships now pack upwards of 6,000mAh batteries, the phone still lasted for a good while on a single charge. The phone routinely had 30-40% remaining after a day, and even on days of heavier use, the phone should still get you through the day. If you do need to charge, the phone supports 45W wired fast charging – not the fastest in the flagship space, but still pretty good as it can reach 65% in just 30 minutes.

Another highlight of the S25 Ultra is the S Pen. As one of the few Android flagships to have a built-in stylus, this is a killer feature of the phone, and it remains a great tool for those who prefer taking down notes or drawing while on the go.

It is worth noting that the S Pen has fewer features now compared to the S24 Ultra. That’s because Samsung removed its remote shutter feature, meaning you won’t be able to use the S Pen as the camera’s shutter button. Samsung also got rid of Air gestures, though it still has Air command and Air view. It’s a shame that these were removed, though Samsung said that it was taken out because less than 1% of owners used them. For us, we were fine with the removal of Air gestures, but we did miss the remote shutter feature, even if we didn’t exactly use it often before.

Aside from the removal of some previous features, the S Pen still gives the Ultra an edge compared to other flagship phones, especially with its note-taking functionality and the Google Circle to Search feature which feels better to use when holding a stylus.

Speaking of Circle to Search, the Galaxy S25 Ultra also packs a bunch of enhanced AI features, along with returning ones like Google’s Gemini AI assistant. Other returning features include the live translate function for calls, though as with last year’s model, the use-case for this is still fairly niche at this point.

As for the new AI features, Samsung highlights the phone’s ability to identify music that’s playing. Useful, though this isn’t particularly new tech. Others include personalized news briefings such as Now Brief which is a bit more useful for users who want to be up-to-date on the latest events. Plus, there’s Audio Eraser which uses Galaxy AI to remove wind and other noises from video. This one for us might be the most useful.

Many of these AI features are nice to have, though if you ask us, these aren’t as big of a “killer app” as the S Pen or the S25 Ultra’s cameras.

Final Geek Lifestyle Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is an overall great phone as it once again features an eye-catching yet durable design, good performance, and mostly great cameras. While the S Pen does lose a bit of functionality, the phone still remains one of the only Android devices with a built-in stylus, making it still the premier option for users who take notes or draw often. Plus, the new along with returning Galaxy AI features are useful in some situations.

On its own, the S25 Ultra is a flagship option that’s worth considering for users looking for a new top-of-the-line device, at least those with deep pockets as this phone starts at PHP 84,990. While its improvements may not be enough to make it a massive upgrade over last year’s model (or maybe even the S23 Ultra for that matter), it’s still a good upgrade for users who have an older flagship and are willing to drop big bucks for a flagship with plenty of bells and whistles.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra specs:

• 6.9-inch (1440 x 3120) Dynamic LTPO AMOLED, 120Hz refresh rate with Corning Gorilla Armor 2
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor
• Adreno 830 GPU
• IP68 dust/water resistant
• 12/16GB RAM
• 256GB/512GB/1TB storage
• Rear cameras: 200MP main + 50MP ultrawide + 10MP 3x telephoto + 50MP 5x telephoto quadruple rear camera setup
• Front camera: 12MP
• 5G, LTE
• Under Display Fingerprint scanner, USB Type-C port
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6e/7, tri-band, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 5.4, A2DP, LE
• 5000mAh battery with 45W wired Fast charging, 15W wireless charging, 4.5W reverse wireless charging
• Android 15, One UI 7 (up to 7 major Android version updates)
• Prices:
  • 1TB – PHP 110,990
  • 512GB – PHP 93,990
  • 256GB – PHP 84,990