The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is the company’s all-singing, all-dancing flagship smartphone – but how does it compare to the more compact Galaxy S25?
Some differences between the two flagship phones are obvious; the Galaxy S25 Ultra packs a super-sized 6.9-inch screen while the Galaxy S25 goes in the opposite direction with its compact 6.2-inch alternative, and the S25 Ultra features more versatile camera hardware too.
But a spec sheet doesn’t tell the whole story. After using both the Samsung Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Ultra extensively, I’ve found there are many subtle differences that could influence your choice. Let’s take a closer look.
Price
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is the more expensive of the two, with a £1249/$1299 RRP for the 256GB model.
The Galaxy S25, meanwhile, starts at a much more affordable £799/$799 for 256GB.
However, as the phones are nearly a year old, you can often find both at a significant discount.
Design
Samsung has finally brought the Ultra into line with the rest of the Galaxy S family with the S25 Ultra.
Gone are the sharp, note‑like corners and curved sides of previous Ultras. In their place you get flat edges, rounded corners and those textured camera rings that make it look far more like its S25 and S25 Plus siblings – and, frankly, more like everything else at the top end of the market.
In the hand, that’s a good thing. The S25 Ultra feels nicer to hold than the S24 Ultra, with better grip on the flat sides and a body that’s slightly shorter, slimmer and narrower despite the screen inching up to 6.9 inches. It still feels like a big phone, but it’s a slightly more manageable big phone.
You get IP68 protection and Corning’s new Gorilla Armour 2 on the screen, which is said to survive drops from head height onto concrete. I didn’t try that, but a week of use left it scratch‑free.
The regular Galaxy S25, by contrast, is very much a case of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.
At first glance, it looks basically identical to the S24, but that’s not really a criticism. The 6.2‑inch form factor is pretty compact by modern standards, and it feels like a breath of fresh air if you’re tired of everything being a massive slab.
The flat edges and flat front and back return, now on a slightly lighter and slimmer chassis – it’s 5g down compared to the S24, and the frame is slightly thinner too. It’s also IP68‑rated, though you don’t get the Ultra’s newer glass protection tech.
Screen
The S25 Ultra’s screen doesn’t try to reinvent anything because it doesn’t really need to. You’re getting a Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel with QHD+ resolution, LTPO-enabled 120Hz refresh rate and a 2600nit peak brightness that matches the S24 Ultra.
What has changed is how it’s wrapped. The bezels are extremely slim – slim enough to give the iPhone 17 Pro Max a run for its money – and that pushes the size out to 6.9 inches without blowing up the overall footprint.
The result is a screen that looks and feels almost all‑display from the front. The anti‑reflective coating does a solid job of killing reflections indoors and outside – it’s genuinely one of the best glossy panels I’ve used for glare reduction, and it makes a big difference when you’re watching a video or gaming in bright light.
As you’d expect, colours are vivid, sharpness is excellent, and there’s really nothing to complain about in day‑to‑day use.
The Galaxy S25 sticks with a 6.2‑inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display, Full HD+ resolution, and a smooth 1–120Hz refresh rate. As with the Ultra model, it’s basically the same as the S24, right down to the 2600‑nit peak brightness. But, in day-to-day use, there’s very little to complain about.
The smaller size means pixel density is still high, so it looks sharp even if it’s technically the lowest resolution in the S25 range. Brightness is comfortably good enough to cut through sunny days, and HDR content looks punchy. You still get rich, saturated colours from the AMOLED panel, and I never felt short‑changed moving between the S25 and bigger, higher‑spec screens.
You do miss out on the Ultra’s Gorilla Armor layer – the S25 sticks to Gorilla Glass Victus 2 – and the bezels haven’t had the same dramatic trim. But as a compact flagship screen, it’s a lovely panel with very few obvious compromises.
Cameras
Camera hardware is where these two phones feel furthest apart.
The S25 Ultra keeps broadly the same setup as the S24 Ultra on paper: a 200MP main camera, a 10MP 3x telephoto, a 50MP 5x periscope and a 12MP front camera. The one notable change is the ultrawide, which jumps from 12MP to 50MP.
In everyday use, the results are familiar. The 200MP main still leans into Samsung’s signature, over‑vibrant style – especially on greens and blues – but it’s very detailed, handles dynamic range well and copes impressively in low light. Night shots can actually show more than you see with your eyes, which can look a touch artificial, but I’d still take that over dark, muddy photos.
The biggest improvement comes from the 50MP 5x telephoto and Samsung’s image processing. Zooming up to around 30x now gives you more detail, better contrast and far less of that smeared, oil‑painting look you used to see at higher zooms. It’s genuinely usable in that range and it continues to perform well in low light if you keep it in the 5–10x window.
There is still an awkward gap between 3x and 4.9x where the older 10MP 3x lens is doing the work, and you do notice a drop in quality there if the light isn’t perfect, though 3x remains a nice portrait focal length.
The new 50MP ultrawide is a quieter upgrade. In good daylight, the difference versus last year isn’t enormous; you still get colourful, detailed shots with minimal edge distortion and none of the heavy fisheye warping cheaper ultrawides suffer from. In low light, however, the quad‑pixel binning helps a lot – it’s just far more capable when the sun goes down.
The Galaxy S25 is more conservative with its camera offering. You get the same triple array as the S24 and even the S23 before it: a 50MP main, 12MP ultrawide and 10MP 3x telephoto, plus a 12MP selfie camera. There are no new sensors here, and you can feel that when you compare it to the very latest rivals.
The main camera still does good work. It delivers detailed, nicely exposed shots that tend to look “right” without much effort from you, in both daylight and low light.
HDR is handled well and, much like the Ultra, you get a fairly punchy Samsung look out of the box. The ultrawide lacks autofocus, which is a shame, but it’s fine for landscapes and big group shots, though you lose some of the detail and better colour handling the main sensor provides, especially at night.
The 3x telephoto is at its best at – unsurprisingly – 3x, where it gets you closer without a big hit to quality. The in‑sensor 2x crop from the main camera is also decent. Push out to 10x and 30x and things fall apart if you’re after a truly nice photo, though there are still practical uses like reading a sign across an airport.
Performance
Both phones are built around Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, but they’re pitched a little differently.
In the S25 Ultra, that custom Snapdragon 8 Elite is paired with up to 16GB of RAM and it’s one of the most capable phones around right now. Benchmarks show it outpacing the iPhone 16 Pro Max in CPU and GPU tests and edging ahead of other Snapdragon 8 Elite handsets like the OnePlus 13, as well as MediaTek‑equipped rivals such as the Oppo Find X8 Pro.
In practice, it feels as quick as you’d expect. Apps snap open, there’s virtually no shutter lag in the camera and games load fast. High‑end titles like Call of Duty Mobile and One Punch Man World look and run great, though the Ultra can get warm if you play for long sessions.
The Galaxy S25 also benefits from Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, and the performance jump from older chips is one of the few clear reasons to move from a previous small Galaxy.
Day‑to‑day, it feels very slick. Apps and UI animations are smooth, it stays responsive and even with higher CPU clocks, I didn’t run into any worrying overheating. It can get warm, but we’re talking “noticeably warm” rather than uncomfortably hot, and it never throttled in a way that ruined the experience.
Software and AI
Both phones shipped with Android 15 and One UI 7, though both have been updated to Android 15 with One UI 8 since launch.
On the Ultra, Samsung has clearly decided AI is the story. One UI has been redesigned with new icons, animations and interface tweaks, and the company claims Galaxy AI is baked directly into the system.
In theory, that allows the phone to chain together actions across multiple apps – grabbing your football team’s fixtures and dropping them into your calendar, for example – but in practice, it still feels half‑baked.
The more interesting part to me is the visual refresh and UX upgrades. Split notification and control panels, redesigned notifications and an updated multitasking view do make One UI feel fresher. Because those are also heading to older Galaxys, though, they’re not specific reasons to buy the S25 Ultra.
The Galaxy S25 gets the same software story: Android 16, One UI with Galaxy AI smarts, seven years of updates and a reasonably heavy Samsung layer with its own apps for almost everything. There’s a bit of bloat in having Samsung, Google and Microsoft apps installed side by side, but you can choose your defaults and mostly ignore the rest.
Battery life
The Galaxy S25 Ultra sticks with a 5000mAh battery, and this is one area where it no longer leads the pack. In testing, it comfortably lasted a day, usually ending with around 20–30% left after 3–4 hours of screen‑on time across 16 hours or so. It’s not the best you’ll find, but for most people, that’s absolutely fine.
Samsung has also squeezed more out of its 45W charging, with the S25 Ultra now hitting 70% in 30 minutes and 100% in roughly 62 minutes. As usual, there’s no charger in the box.
On the wireless side, it was the first phone to support Qi 2.1, but that doesn’t translate into faster speeds: you’re still capped at 15W, and unlike the Pixel 10, you’ll need a magnetic case to really take advantage of Qi 2 accessories, as there are no built‑in magnets.
The Galaxy S25 uses a 4000mAh cell, the same capacity as the S24, with Samsung clearly leaning on the more efficient Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy for battery gains. In practice, it fared well; I regularly finished days with over 30% remaining, sometimes more, and while it isn’t a two‑day phone, it should comfortably handle a full day and evening for most people.
Charging is more modest: 25W and 15W wireless. You’re not getting 50% in 15 minutes or anything remotely close, but for people who charge overnight, it’s perfectly adequate. Rapid top‑ups are slower than on some Chinese rivals, but broadly in line with what Apple and Google are doing.
Final thoughts
The Galaxy S25 Ultra is Samsung’s full‑fat flagship. The redesign makes it nicer to hold and finally brings the Ultra into visual line with the rest of the range, even if it has lost some of its old, slightly brutal personality.
The screen is still a highlight thanks to its slim bezels and anti‑reflective coating, and the camera system remains one of the most versatile around, with improved zoom quality and a stronger ultrawide. Performance is equally top‑tier, and the seven‑year update promise is genuinely impressive.
The Galaxy S25 plays a different role, however. It doesn’t try to wow you with big new numbers or radical hardware changes. Instead, it’s one of the nicest compact Android flagships available.
The small form factor is a joy to use if you’ve missed genuinely one‑handed phones, the display is excellent for its size, performance is properly flagship‑grade, and the camera delivers consistent, easy results even if it no longer leads the class.
If you want the best Samsung has to offer in one device, and you don’t mind the size or price, the Galaxy S25 Ultra is the one to go for.
If you want a smaller, more pocketable Android phone that still feels properly high‑end and you’re happy to trade some camera ambition and battery stamina for comfort and size, the Galaxy S25 is arguably the sweeter, more enjoyable choice.
