The small Galaxy S25 surprised me, but not enough to ditch my S24 Ultra for good

Since I got my Nexus 6 in 2015, I’ve loved big phones, always choosing the larger version of whatever I buy. After moving back to Samsung in 2019, I’ve owned the Galaxy S10 Plus and every Ultra phone in the S series until the S24 Ultra. I had planned to do the same with the Galaxy S25 series but decided that not enough had changed to warrant the upgrade. I also wanted to try something small and comfortable. So when I got to spend some time with the smallest Galaxy S25, I jumped at the opportunity. Can this pocket-sized phone win me over from the “phablets” I’ve used for over a decade?

The Galaxy S25’s battery isn’t as good as my S24 Ultra, but that shouldn’t surprise me: The 4,000mAh cell obviously can’t last as long as the 5,000mAh battery in my S24 Ultra. What surprised me was that I could (mostly) live with the difference. With my normal usage, watching YouTube, listening to music, sending messages in Telegram and Slack, managing my calendar, and arranging a billion tasks in Tick Tick, I’d finish my day with about 15% left. That is worse than my S24 Ultra, which finishes the same day with at least 30%, but it is manageable. The phone makes it until bedtime without needing to be plugged in, and that’s all I need.

That’s a normal day where I work from home and only use Wi-Fi, but on busier days, the S25 gives me battery anxiety. Last week, I had to make a few 45-minute round trips to a hospital to visit someone, using GPS for navigation and spotty mobile data when I arrived. On those days, the Galaxy S25 would be drained by 4 PM, while my S24 Ultra made it to bedtime with about 10-15% to spare. Use the cameras for any more than a quick snap, and that will drain the battery, too.

So, while I can live with the S25’s battery life, battery anxiety is a non-negligible factor, and for the duration of my use, I’ve kept a wireless Qi2 battery pack and case in my car or backpack, just in case I need them.

Charging is a sticky subject, too. The small S25 only charges at 25W, unlike the Galaxy A56, S25 Plus, or S25 Ultra, which can charge at 45W. With the smaller battery size, 25W isn’t awful, but I’d like it to be a little faster when I have to give the phone a quick top-up after using GPS or the cameras.

The cameras on the Galaxy S25 are quite different from the ones I’m used to on my S24 Ultra. My Ultra has a 200MP main camera, 10MP 3x telephoto, 50MP 5x periscope telephoto, and a 12MP ultrawide. The S25 has the same 3x telephoto and ultrawide (minus the macro mode), but steps the main camera down to 50MP and entirely lacks a periscope telephoto system.

I knew what to expect from the S25’s 3x and ultrawide, but the 50MP primary lens was a mystery to me, and I was pleasantly surprised. Shutter lag is still an issue, as it is for all Samsung phones, but it’s considerably better than the 200MP sensor on my S24 Ultra, which has always disappointed me compared to the older 108MP sensor from previous Ultra phones.

The 50MP main camera on the S25 matches my S24 Ultra for sharpness and low-light performance. If I looked hard enough, there would probably be differences, but why bother if the photos I’m getting make me happy?

The real issue is zoom. The 3x telephoto camera on the S25 might be the same as the one on my S24 Ultra, but the Ultra has an extra 5x periscope lens that makes all the difference. That dinky 10MP 3x lens is bad no matter which phone you use it on, but the S25 has nothing else to negate its use. On my S24 Ultra, I seldom use that lens, preferring a 2x crop of the primary sensor instead and then jumping to the 5x zoom for anything more than that. As you can see in the photo above, the 3x camera struggles even in direct sunlight. I don’t know why I’d use it when the S25’s 50MP main lens is high-resolution enough that a 2X crop looks much better than whatever I’d get from the 3x lens.

At this point, Samsung should ditch this 3x lens from all its phones and use the 5x camera instead as a default zoom. If the company really wants to keep the 5x periscope as a differentiator for the Ultra model, it could at least upgrade the sensor behind the 3x lens so it becomes usable. The current 10MP sensor is largely unchanged from the S21 Ultra, which was released four years ago and shows its age!

The rest of this phone is practically perfect for my needs. 2,600 nits is more than bright enough outdoors, and I don’t miss the anti-reflective coating because I always use a screen protector. The adaptive refresh rate keeps things smooth, and 1080p is more than sharp enough at this screen size. Wrap that display up with even bezels and a design that I think looks gorgeous in Coral Red, and I think this is one of the best-looking phones around right now, even if it does look the same as the S23 and S24 that came before it. Plus, the S25 finally got 12GB of RAM instead of the 8GB the base model phones used to get with the previous S series, so the phone can handle all of the tasks I throw at my S24 Ultra.

What makes this phone a winner for me is the way it feels. It’s smaller than an iPhone 16 Pro and weighs only 162g. Unlike my S24 Ultra, which weighs 232g, the S25 doesn’t fatigue my hand during use, and I hardly notice it when it’s in my pocket. That’s been the big revelation for me during my time with the Galaxy S25 — I want a phone that is easy to use one-handed when I’m walking about, something that isn’t so unwieldy that it gets dropped onto my wife’s face when I’m showing her memes in bed.

Ask me this a few days ago, and the Galaxy S25 would’ve been my pick. The ergonomics of the smaller phone convinced me I could look past the lesser battery life and lack of a good telephoto camera. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my five years on the job, it’s that when you’re writing a piece like this, you should return to the other phone for a few days. I’ve owned my S24 Ultra for over a year, so I felt I knew everything about it without needing to go back to it for a bit. But using my S24 Ultra again for a few days has been invaluable for my perception of the two phones. It helped me eliminate any false positivity for the S25 that comes from it being shiny and new, and it let me reevaluate how much I appreciate the larger battery and luxuries like the S Pen.

Force to choose between these two phones, I’d take my S24 Ultra. Everything I prefer about the Galaxy S25 still holds true — it’s far more comfortable to carry in my pocket and to use in almost any situation. There have been a few instances where I’ve wanted a larger screen, though. And battery life anxiety is a big problem for me. Even though the Galaxy S25 got me through most days, it felt like I’d gone back a decade to when I was using a Nexus 6 as my primary phone. The S24 Ultra is more dependable on unexpected heavy-use days, and I’d rather compromise comfort for battery life than vice versa.

So, I’m keeping my S24 Ultra. One UI 7 is fantastic; I only miss Now Brief from the S25, which I can live without. Another factor I should consider is that Samsung has made the S25 Ultra significantly lighter than my S24 Ultra, making it far easier to use when combined with the more rounded corners. That could make the S25 Ultra the perfect blend of these two phones.

When the Galaxy S26 series is released next year, I’ll have a tough decision. Maybe Samsung will finally switch to silicon-carbon batteries, and the smallest S26 will last ages on a charge. Or, most likely, I’ll get the Galaxy S26 Plus as a middle ground. Either way, I’ve learned something from my time with the Galaxy S25: This is an underrated phone, not just by customers but by Samsung, who should put more effort into improving it.