Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra vs S25 Ultra: What’s Different?

Over the years, the Samsung Galaxy S-series has cemented itself as the crème de la crème of the smartphone industry as a whole. Most would often argue that this lineup not only put the Korean smartphone giant on the map, but also singlehandedly established the Android ecosystem as a viable mainstream competitor to iOS.

However, times have changed and other smartphone manufacturers have definitely invested heavily into surpassing the top dog. Now here’s a question we’d all like answered: What has Samsung done to its top-shelf model, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, to stay ahead of the competition?

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra’s Advantages

• Smaller bezels leading to 0.1-inch larger display
• Improved 50-megapixel ultrawide camera
• Higher-grade titanium used in frame
• Slightly lighter

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra’s Advantages

• More comprehensive S Pen feature set

Design

The first Samsung S-Ultra device, the Galaxy S20 Ultra, was released back in 2020. It sported a massive camera bump for its time – indicative of the industry-leading camera hardware onboard. The succeeding S21 Ultra then pivoted to a sleeker design until Samsung finally settled on its ideal flagship silhouette with the following S22 Ultra.

Since then, the aesthetic changes between the Galaxy S22 Ultra and 2024’s Galaxy S24 Ultra have been marginal at best. The company has so successfully implemented a “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” approach to the point that the untrained eye won’t be able to tell the difference.

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That isn’t the narrative with this Galaxy S25 Ultra. While the general camera sensor placement remains the same, the encasements have drastically increased in size; similar to what was done on the Galaxy Z Fold6. The signature boxy shape up front has also been substituted with rounded corners. The bezels around the screen have also been trimmed off – lending a slight bump in screen-to-body ratio.

The front and rear glass will be protected by the next-generation Corning Gorilla Armor 2, which promises around a one-third increase to durability. The frame, meanwhile, will be receiving an upgrade to higher-grade titanium (2 to 5). This could be an attributing factor to its decreased weight of 219g from the previous 233g, even while maintaining its IP68 dust/water resistance.

Display

Thanks to the aforementioned bezel reduction, the general display size for the Galaxy S25 Ultra is upped by a tenth-of-an-inch, leading to a total of 6.9 inches. It will still use the company’s famed LTPO AMOLED 2X panels with a 120Hz refresh rate to keep scrolling buttery-smooth, as well as HDR10+ support. Outdoor use should still be easy thanks to a peak brightness of 2600 nits.

Samsung has always brought its A-game when it comes to revolutionary display technology and this should be no different.

Chipset

Par for the course is the flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite under this 2025 flagship’s hood. This is engineered with an all-new 3nm manufacturing process, promising more efficient energy consumption (and, as a result, improved battery life) without compromising on performance. It is paired with a beefed-up Adreno 830 to meet the power user’s graphical needs.

As a top-shelf Samsung device, the equipped “Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy” chipset will boast slightly higher clock speeds and more focused optimization as compared to other similarly-equipped devices on the market.

Memory and Storage

Configurations appear to be directly carried over from last year: either 12 or 16GB of RAM, mated with 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of speedy UFS 4.0 storage.

Cameras

The most impactful change here is the upgrade from a 12-megapixel to a 50-megapixel ultrawide sensor. This should bring increased resolution to these wide shots, elevating them from novelty status to standing on equal footing with the main shooter.

Other than that, the 50-megapixel primary, 10-megapixel telephoto, 200-megapixel wide, and 12-megapixel selfie sensors remain identical to the previous model. If we are to see any changes between shots outputted by the Galaxy S24 Ultra and S25 Ultra with these lenses, then it will likely boil down to iterative processing differences between their chipsets.

Battery and Charging

Despite a trend of growing battery sizes within the smartphone space, Samsung keeps its Galaxy S25 Ultra packed with the same 5000 mAh rated for up to 45W of wired charging. A leap from Qi to Qi2 wireless charging technology boosts wattage from 15 to 25W, which may be good news for those who prefer this method of topping up their devices.

Connectivity and Other Features

The Galaxy S25 Ultra will expectedly run the latest Android 15 out of the box, with the OneUI skin on top. A favorable and beloved decision by Samsung applies to both the Galaxy S24 and S25 Ultra: these will both receive SEVEN Android version updates, which is only matched by Google in the bid for longest update cycle among Android manufacturers.

Price

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra will be priced at PHP 84,990, PHP 93,990, and PHP 110,990 for the 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB models respectively.

Considering these changes, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra seems to be the largest upgrade within the lineup in the past years, from a purely visual point of view. While the previous-generation Galaxy S24 Ultra is still a powerful contender in any space, the improvements brought about by construction material changes, display bezel reduction, and an all-new ultrawide system will surely be noticeable depending on your use case.