Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra Release Date & Expectations Price
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is set to be Samsung’s next big flagship hitting the shelves in early 2025. As a successor to one of the best Android phones currently available, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra will have the tough job to recapture the magic by surgically implementing improvements and upgrades.
Right now, even though it is still early days for the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, we’ve got a grasp on a few key things about the phone. And for the stuff we’re not certain about, we can take some educated guesses by looking at past trends.
We expect that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra will feature a strong and premium titanium build, as well as double-down on Corning’s glare-free glass at the front. Design-wise, it will likely reiterate the mostly flat design of its predecessor, with a built-in S Pen, and IP68 water- and dust-resistance.
The display might stick to 6.8 inches and will almost certainly keep rocking a Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel with a super-smooth 1-120Hz screen refresh rate. Hopefully, Samsung will bump up the maximum brightness even more for better visibility outdoors.
When it comes to performance, it’s almost a given that we’ll find Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip powering the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. There’s always a chance this chip might only be in US units, leaving room for an Exynos version elsewhere in the world, but to be honest, that’s pretty unlikely.
Battery-wise, we hope to get better battery life out of the Galaxy S25 Ultra, but we are not holding our breath for a much larger battery due to space restraints. We’d definitely welcome faster wired charging, but we might see the return of 45W charging support once again.
We expect the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra to cost as much as the current model does. As a refresher, the Galaxy S24 Ultra starts at $1,300 for the 256GB version and goes up to $1,660 for the 1TB option.
Now, let’s delve deeper into all the expectations surrounding the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. You can also take a look at all the available information about the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S25.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra release date
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra should be unveiled in January or February 2025. As we’ve seen in the past, it’s sort of a tradition for Samsung to unveil its flagship series at the start of the year, with the company steadily shifting its device announcements earlier and earlier.
Samsung usually launches its new smartphones around two weeks after their announcement. Depending on when the phone is unveiled, the release date can very well trickle into the month of February.
Device lineup
Announcement
Market release
Galaxy S25 Ultra
January 2025*
January/February 2025*
Galaxy S24 Ultra
January 17, 2024
January 31, 2024
Galaxy S23 Ultra
February 1, 2023
February 17, 2023
* – probable dates
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra price
With the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, Samsung could go one or two ways: either make it pricier or leave the price tag unchanged. Seeing how the current Galaxy Ultra model scored a $100 price increase this year, we find it a bit difficult to believe that Samsung will go for another price increase for a second year in a row.
If previous Galaxy launches are anything to go by, there could be multiple ways to save on the upcoming Galaxy S25 Ultra. How? Either by trading-in a device or pre-ordering the phone. US carriers typically also offer very decent deals and bonuses on new Samsung flagships
Phone model
256GB of storage
512GB of storage
1TB of storage
Galaxy S25 Ultra
$1299.99*
$1419.99*
$1659.99*
Galaxy S24 Ultra
$1299.99
$1419.99
$1659.99
Galaxy S23 Ultra
$1199.99
$1299.99
$1619.99
* – anticipated prices
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra camera
According to well-known and reliable tipster Revegnus, Samsung might put a 1-inch 200MP ISOCELL image sensor on the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra’s main camera. In the world of cameras, the bigger the sensor, the better, so we are quite excited.
Equipped with 0.8µm pixels, dual-pixel autofocus, and in-sensor crop zoom, this new ISOCELL sensor could potentially seriously improve the imaging quality and sharpness of the flagship, especially in non-ideal lighting conditions.
We believe, and rumors back it up, that Samsung will stick with pretty much the same camera setup as the previous model. Just to jog your memory, here’s the camera setup from the last one, laid out in the table below.
When it comes to the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, it’s safe to say that AI will have an even bigger part to play in mobile photography and videography. This year, Samsung went all in on artificial intelligence and machine learning to step up its photography game with its top-notch camera-phone.
And as if that weren’t enough, we can also expect the usual software tweaks and image-processing algorithm upgrades that come around every year. Thanks to those, we saw better low-light image quality, seriously upgraded image stabilization for shake-free shots and videos, improved portraits, and some slick upscaling that gives us 100X Space Zoom, even without the 10X periscope camera.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra storage
The Galaxy S25 Ultra could be the first phone to feature Samsung‘s UFS 4.04-lane storage chip, which could theoretically support nearly 8GB/sec, a nearly double the 4GB/s of the UFS 4.0 standard that’s currently used on many phones.
According to a Samsung roadmap, the faster storage is expected to be available in 2025. So, there’s a chance that the next Samsung flagship could tap into this speedier storage. In our opinion, that would definitely amp up the device’s performance, and it could also be a big boost for Samsung’s on-device Galaxy AI.
Otherwise, we don’t expect any major shifts in the storage tiers that the Galaxy S25 Ultra will come in. We expect 256GB of storage in the base version, with 512GB and 1TB versions also available.
We don’t expect major changes, but as usual, there will surely be some changes. The Galaxy S25 Ultra will stay in the same general ballpark as far as overall size is considered, but the frontal and side design could change.
According to a leak from late March 2024, Samsung is allegedly considering four potential designs for the Galaxy S25 Ultra. While mostly similar, the prototype variants differ in terms of bezel thickness and frame curvature.
The phone could either go the iPhone way and fully adopt a flat frame like the Galaxy S24/Galaxy S24 Plus, or remain similar to the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra model and boast a slightly curved frame.
However, just like its predecessor, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra will most certainly feature a flat display.
One other thing we are pretty sure about is that Samsung isn’t ditching the titanium frame. It was a major highlight of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, so we expect it to stick around for several future generations, too.
Naturally, you can count on other staples like the built-in S Pen and IP68 water and dust resistance sticking around in the Galaxy S25 Ultra specs sheet.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra display
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is expected to come along with a 6.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display, which will be similar to its predecessors. The resolution of this OLED display will probably remain at 1440 by 3080 pixels, delivering a very decent sharpness of over 500ppi, which means that you won’t be able to distinguish between individual pixels.
The display will also surely be super-smooth thanks to LTPO 3.0, allowing it to switch between 1 and 120Hz on demand.
One of the best new features of the Galaxy S24 Ultra was the exclusive Gorilla Glass Armor, which mostly eliminated glares and as a result greatly boosted the outdoor legibility of the screen. A superb feature we sincerely hope makes a comeback.
Display brightness is the new megapixel war with manufacturers constantly trying to outshine each other in terms of maximum brightness. With this trend showing no signs of slowing down, it’s reasonable to expect Samsung to equip the Galaxy S25 Ultra with an even brighter display than its predecessor.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra battery
A recent report suggests that the Galaxy S25 Ultra will retain the same battery size and charging speed as its predecessor. Mainly due to space constraints, we expect Samsung to put a 5,000mAh battery inside the Galaxy S25 Ultra.
Yet, if the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 proves to be efficient enough, we might still see an improvement in battery life. Additionally, a new rumor suggests that Samsung might introduce a feature called Battery AI. This feature is said to provide an additional 5% to 10% of runtime to the phone.
We hope Galaxy S25 Ultra features faster charging than the 45W wired one of its predecessors. While neither the Galaxy S24 Ultra nor the Galaxy S23 Ultra charged slowly (both top ip in roughly an hour or so), there’s always room for improvement.
Hopefully Samsung will consider adding faster wireless charging to the Galaxy S25 Ultra, too. Currently, the top Samsung flagship phone charges at up to 15W with an official charger.
We don’t expect to see a charger in the Galaxy S25 Ultra box, and neither should you.
Galaxy S25 Ultra features and software
By the time Galaxy S25 Ultra arrives, we should have witnessed the arrival of both Android 15 and the derived from it One UI 7. We might even see One UI 7.1 on the upcoming flagship phone. Details about either of these are scarce, but they should deepen the software’s reliance on generative AI and machine-learning.
The Galaxy AI that debuted with the Galaxy S24 series is certainly coming back with the Galaxy S25 series, and the Galaxy S25 Ultra will undoubtedly be the best way to experience Samsung’s upcoming potential improvements to generative on-device and cloud-based artificial intelligence.
Galaxy AI is one of our favorite new features of this year’s Galaxy lineup, with almost unlimited potential for upgrades. We hope Galaxy AI not only sticks, but also trickles down to other Galaxy phones.
Thanks to Samsung’s new seven-year software support policy, we certainly know that the upcoming phone will be supported for seven years at least. This means the Galaxy S25 Ultra could be supported until 2032. This includes both major Android updates as well as security patches.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra hardware and specs
As mentioned earlier, we are mostly certain the Galaxy S25 Ultra will come with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip, which will be built by TSMC and will be announced later this year. We expect this one to be Qualcomm’s first 3nm chip, matching the Apple A17 Pro in this coveted metric.
Currently rolling under the “Tongzi” moniker, this chip will swap ARM’s Cortex cores for Qualcomm’s new CPU cores. As per the rumors and leaks, we might not see any efficiency cores on the chip, which will instead consist of two performance Phoenix CPU cores and six medium-performance CPU cores.
The two performance cores on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 might be clocked as high as 4GHz. That would be a serious upgrade over the 3.3GHz of the Cortex-X4 of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.
Additionally, a leaked GeekBench 6 benchmarking test claims that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 has achieved 2845 points in GeekBench’s single-core test and 10628 points in the multi-core one. That is much better than the 7249 score of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and the 7281 result that the A17 Pro chip of the iPhone 15 Pro Max has scored. This means the upcoming phone could be noticeably faster than its previous version.
While Samsung typically equips its flagships with either Snapdragon or Exynos chips depending on the region, such a split has never occurred with its Ultra models. So, we think an Exynos-powered Galaxy S25 Ultra is just a mirage.
Should you wait for the Galaxy S25 Ultra?
You should wait for the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra if you are using an older phone and have held off on upgrading to the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra or the Galaxy S24 Ultra. While it is too early, the potentially significantly improved performance is worth waiting for if you can wait until early 2025 to upgrade your device.
You should not wait for the Galaxy S25 Ultra if you use a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra or a Galaxy S24 Ultra. Even if you use an older device, be it a non-Galaxy Android or an iPhone, nobody can make you upgrade if you’re satisfied with your current device, and you don’t intend to upgrade in early 2025.
