Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: New features, price, specs, and release date predictions

• Possible announcement date: The Galaxy S25 Ultra will most likely be announced in the month of January or February 2025. Announcing its flagship lineup for the year in January/February has slowly become a tradition of Samsung as the company gradually pulls back its device announcements earlier and earlier. 

• Possible market release window: 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. 

• Price expectations: With the 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. 

• There could still be ways to save: If previous Galaxy launches are anything to go by, there could be multiple ways to save on the upcoming Galaxy S25 Ultra, 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. 

• No changes: We currently don't expect any changes in the well-established and recognizable brand that is the Galaxy S Ultra flagship. Frankly, we'd be surprised if Samsung goes for a rebranding of its best phones anytime soon. 
  
  
• Three models still: Aside from the top-of-the-line Galaxy S25 Ultra, we will also get two more compact and affordable models, the Galaxy S25 Plus and the Galaxy S25. 

Galaxy S25 Ultra camera

• Further push into AI: With the Galaxy S25 Ultra, it will be the general expectation that AI and ML will play an even greater role in mobile photography and videography. This year, Samsung employed a ton of artificial intelligence and machine-learning improvements in order to further push its photography game with its most advanced cameraphone.

• Image processing enhancements: That's on top of the usual software and image-processing algorithm upgrades that we normally get each year. Thanks to those, we got improved low-light image quality, much improved image stabilization that ensures motion blur-free photos and videos, better portraits, and upscaling hat delivers 100X Space Zoom despite the lack of a 10X periscope camera. 

• Possible speed improvement: 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 would use the much faster storage.

• What this means for Galaxy AI: Surely, this would greatly improve the perceived performance of the device, but it could also be a particularly great improvement to Samsung's on-device Galaxy AI.
  
  
• Likely the same storage: 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. 

• 256 GB
• 512 GB
• 1TB

Galaxy S25 Ultra design

• Design refinements: We don't expect major changes, but as usual, there will surely be some changes. The Galaxy S25 Ultra will likely stay in the same general ballpark as far as overall size is considered, but the frontal and side design could change.
  
  
• A fully flat display: Just like its predecessor, the Galaxy S25 Ultra will most certainly feature a flat display.

• Four designs allegedly being considered: According to a tip revealed by PandaFlash in 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 Galaxy S24 Ultra model and boast a slightly curved frame.  

Image Cred

PandaFlash

• Titanium's here to stay: One thing is (mostly) for certain, though––we don't see Samsung getting rid of the titanium frame. It was one of the major novelties of the Galaxy S24 Ultra, so we imagine it will stick for multiple future generations as well. 
  
  
• Staples to remain on board: Of course, other staples like the built-in S Pen and IP68 water and dust resistance will certainly remain part of the Galaxy S25 Ultra specs sheet.

Galaxy S25 Ultra display

• More brightness: Display brightness is the new megapixel war, with almost all manufacturers one-upping each other in terms of maximum display brightness. With no signs of stopping, we can only assume Samsung could outfit the Galaxy S25 Ultra with an even brighter display than its predecessor. 

Galaxy S25 Ultra battery

• One UI 7 on board: 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 it's probable they will deepen the software's reliance on generative AI and machine-learning. 
  
  
• Galaxy AI vol.2: 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.

• Long software support: 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. 
  
  

• The age of three nanometers: 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.

• Codename "Tongzi": 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. As per tipster Digital Chat Station, the two performance 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. 
  
  
• Leaked performance metrics: 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's 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 iteration. 
  
  

• You should wait for the Galaxy S25 Ultra if you are using an older phone and have held off on upgrading to the Galaxy S23 Ultra or the Galaxy S24 Ultra. While it's 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 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.