hello everyone and welcome to the channel here's my in-depth review for the s25 ultra while I do think it's a great phone but the release date should be FB 2024 not 2025 so let's talk when you put the spec sheeet of the s25 ultra next to the s24 ultra you will realize that all we got is a better design and materials better Ultra wide camera and better chipset while anything else is exactly the same when I look at other flagships released this year like the OnePlus 13 for example which is $400 Cheaper by the way it offers a 6,000 mAh battery versus 5,000 insanely faster wired and wireless charging speeds higher display brightness better pwm dimming and better IP rating that's why I think the release date should be FB 2024 so for me if I want a new Samsung phone I will definitely go for the s24 ultra instead it will save me some money give me most of the hardware used in the newer model and a better Spen but let's take a closer look at the differences and I will start with the design and build the quality and that's where most of the improvements take place unlike other parts of the hardware right on the bat it looks and feels better than the s24 ultra thanks to the curved Corners that don't dig in my hand as much and I think it looks better unlike the boxy design of last year's model plus it's 14 G lighter with thinner bizzel that gives extra screen realis state from 6.8 to 6.9 in all these factors combined make a noticeable difference when you hold both side by side Additionally the flat metal rail makes it a bit more elegant the s24 ultra might feel thinner at first because of the curved sides but on paper the s25 ultra is 0.4 mm thinner which is nice I think the camera module design is the only thing that got worse the smaller rings of the s24 ultra would have looked much better as the two smaller sensors on the side now look much smaller next to to those massive rings and they don't share the same design either so the overall look is not as symmetrical as the previous model one last thing to point out in this area is the speaker placement same as all Samsung phones and lately pixel phones the bottom firing speaker should definitely be on the right side to avoid being covered when I naturally rotate the phone anticlockwise to use it in landscape orientation which is something I hope Samsung and Google would listen to moving to the build quality as expected from Samsung phones it's topnotch I had zero complains in this area with the s24 ultra and this year the s25 ultra takes it to the next level it has the newer gorilla glass armor too front and back grade five titanium frame versus grade 2 in the previous model and the buttons are premium solid and tactile overall the improvements in the design and build quality match my expectations it's lighter thinner has a Slimmer bzel and better materials in contrast the lack of ip69 rating the less symmetrical camera module design and the bom firing speaker place M are my only complaints so I think it deserves 8.5 out of 10 moving to the display as expected from Samsung the s25 ultra delivers an amazing quality but unfortunately it's the same exact panel of the s24 ultra in every way no peak brightness Improvement no pwm dimming Improvement and Samsung didn't mention any Improvement to the touch responsiveness with wet hands either which is something the pixel 9 Pro and the OnePlus 13 do support and you can see how worse is the 25 Ultra in dealing with my wet fingers in this comparison and same as last year we have the anti-reflective glass which improves visibility quite a lot but the problem is once I use a glass screen protector it immediately kills this feature and it looks as reflective as any other phone I know Samsung offers an anti-reflective film as an alternative but it doesn't provide any drop protection so to protect your $ 1299 phone you have to trade off this amazing feature back to the brightness here's a side-by-side comparison with the s24 Ultra and the other flagships I have with no screen protector on Samsung phones to take advantage out of the anti-reflective feature While others do have glass screen protectors applied except for the OnePlus 13 in this scenario the Samsung's unreflective glass didn't allow it to win the 9 Pro xl's higher brightness but it was about the same as all other phones even the OnePlus 13 that claims to go up to 4500 nits was dimmer than the 9 Pro xl's 3,000 nits which is unexpected in the second scenario I added glass screen protectors on Samsung phones in this case they became slightly worse I also kept moving the camera to show you all different angles to make sure you clearly see the difference but I realized that while filming this video the pixel didn't have a SIM card inside so I thought it could be the reason why it was able to push the brightness higher than others so I tried again comparing the s25 ultra and the 9 Pro XL with the screen protectors applied and a SIM card inside each phone still the 9 Pro XL is the best one last thing worth mentioning is the new Pro scaler as per Samsung this feature enhances the display resolution using Ai and I can clearly see the difference in this video the texture is more detailed and the colors are more Vivid which I like overall the s25 ultra has a great display in terms of quality and colors but it lacks all the flagship features we've seen from OnePlus and Google which is not what I expected from Samsung the usually come first in features but things changed this year now let's talk about the performance and here I will CL fighted into three subcategories normal usage benchmarks and heavy usage in normal usage the Snapdragon 8 Elite is faster than the agen 3 of the s24 ultra in opening apps and playing games but overall I didn't feel a big difference in daily usage that makes me say it's worth the upgrade in contrast I see a notable Improvement in the benchmark scores in Gig bench 6 there's a 39% Improvement in the multi-core and 32% in the single core in 3D Mark wildlife extreme there's a 30% Improvement in the overall score with higher average FPS but comparing it to the OnePlus 13 that uses the same chipset the s25 ultra was better in the multi-core score in Gig bench 6 but worse in the single core in 3D Mark the OnePlus 13 was better in the overall score and fps to translate these numbers into actual usage let's talk about the results I received in my heavy workload test in onl I stressed the phones by running four heavy tasks at the same time for 30 minutes it includes a Microsoft teams meeting with the screen sharing enabled along with a 2160p video on YouTube in picture and picture view Google Maps navigation in the background and play Asphalt unite all at the same time on cellular data I tested the s25 ultra twice the first time was against the s24 ultra and the 16 Pro Max both Samsung phones couldn't finish the 30 minutes last year's model gave a thermal warning after just 10 minutes and 13 seconds while the s25 ultra was able bble to reach 24 minutes this is a 2.4 times longer plus it consumed 26% less battery while I see a massive improvement over last year's model but both couldn't beat the 16 Pro Max that was able to finish the Whole 30 minutes with a brighter display better screen sharing performance less battery consumption and heat to know more you will find the video link in the description the second test was between the s25 ultra and the OnePlus 13 which uses the same chip the OnePlus did better in everything it was able to to finish the 30 minutes test while the s25 ultra gave a thermal warning after 16 minutes the OnePlus display was brighter the game FPS was higher and it consumed less battery percentage either way most people use their phones normally and if this is you the s25 ultra and last year's model will get you covered without a problem but if you are a hardcore user who pushes your phone to the Limit I recommend the 16 Pro Max or the OnePlus 13 over the s25 ultra in this area moving to the battery that's another area where the s25 Ultra lags behind the competition by a good margin again I will take the OnePlus 13 as a reference as it uses the same Snapdragon 8 Elite chip I got the s25 ultra on the first of FB since then I used it as my daily driver and here is my battery performance at the 13th day my phone is always in light theme with the Adaptive brightness activated and a mix between Wi-Fi and cellular data as you may know Samsung phones calculate the battery consumption in 24 hours intervals so in the first 24 hours I 3 hours and 56 minutes of a screen on time and 12 hours and 38 minutes of a standby time with 35% battery remaining in the next 24 hours the battery dropped to 10% after just 1 hour and 34 minutes of screen on time and 2 hours and 22 minutes of a standby time so that means I got a total of 5 hours and 30 minutes of screen on time and 15 hours of a standby time on a single charge in contrast the OnePlus 13 under the same conditions give me a whooping 8 hours and 52 minutes of screen on time and 1 day and 11 hours of standby time with the same 10% battery remaining at the end of the day and I used both pretty much the same way yes the OnePlus 13 has a 6,000 mAh battery versus only 5,000 in the s25 ultra but again I only paid $900 for this phone versus $1,300 for Samsung's flagship even my pixel 9 Pro XL when I first reviewed gave me 7 hours and 45 minutes of screen on time with 5% battery remaining and the phone was off the charger for 20 hours I expected a lot more from the s25 ultra and I gave it enough time to learn my usage patterns yet the results are unacceptable for such a high price point not to mention that Samsung didn't improve the charging speeds it's the same 45 wats wired and 15 watts wireless which makes me wonder why Chinese phones support up to 100 wats charging speeds for much less of a cost either way I was able to charge the s25 ultra from 9% to 100 in 1 hour and 13 minutes using Samsung's fast charger which is not bad so overall the s25 ultra is a big failure when it comes to battery life and I hope to see it improving with software updates plus they didn't bother to improve the capacity or the charging speed now let's talk about the camera starting with the main lens in morning photos they look almost identical with a bit more contrast on the s25 ultra side in some cases other than this the colors wide balance and details are about the same even the lens flares are identical so if you on the s24 ultra you are not missing a lot here switching to night photos the s25 ultra has less noise when compared to its a predecessor which is noticeable when you look at the sky along with more accurate colors and darker Shadows which makes the overall look more true to life and cleaner moving to the ultra wide which got a big upgrade now it has a 50 megap resolution instead of 12 and that's where I started to see big differences even at 12 map on both when you look at the corners you will see a lot more details plus it has better colors contrast and a wider field of view when compared to the s24 ultra switching to the 50 map resolution the Gap becomes even bigger and what I like more is the image processing the s25 ultra photos have better colors and exposure in general so Samsung did well with the ultra wide this year in night photos the same story repeats itself you get better details a lot less noise and better colors and contrast while the ultra wide of the s24 ultra shows its weaknesses easily at night but switching to 50 megap mode on the s25 ultra introduces two issues at night that I didn't see in morning photos first it impacts its HDR performance so it couldn't handle the illuminated signs as good as the s24 ultra plus the photos are blurry and I'm 100% sure that the focus was right before snapping these shots this could be a software issue that Samsung needs to address in future software updates but overall the ultra wide is much better in all scenarios except for this one not to mention that mcro photos improved in the level of detail as a result of the newer sensor which makes sense but it introduces more blur at the edges when I get too close to the subject so you need to keep that in mind next we have the 3x and the 5x telephoto cameras it shares the same exact lenses with the s24 ultra but this year's model produces notably better photos in terms of colors contrast and details at all Zoom levels Samsung stepped up the game when it comes to the processing and I hope to see the same with the s24 ultra with future software updates to match the s25 ultra as far as both use the same sensors so hopefully oneu i7 will do the trick moving to night photos I see the same Trend the s25 ultra has better image processing so you get better colors contrast details and HDR in a challenging situations so the images look more true to life the differences become even more obvious the higher the zoom level which you can clearly see in these 30X zoomed photos that show how much better is the s25 ultra over its predecessor the last camera to compare is the selfie and honestly I never liked Samsung's front camera it always has this green tint and the poor HDR performance and this year is no exception but the s25 ultra images are slightly more detailed in contrast night selfies are noticeably better than last year's model in the level of detail the s24 ultra photos are softer and washed out in comparison Samsung also mentioned that the s25 ultra takes better portrait photos with more accurate skin skin tones and details and I agree 100% with this statement the s25 ultra portraits look more cinematic thanks to the more natural bouquet and the skin tones are a lot better with more details and the night portraits are no exception they look more natural with better details and skin tones unlike the washed out look of the s24 ultra so to sum up the photos comparison you will get much better Ultra wide with the exception to the 50 megapix mode at night that produces blurry and blown out photos all other lenses and and the camera modes have better image processing especially at night which improves the details colors and noise reduction along with better portraits so what about the videos I found the ultra wide and the main camera videos of the s25 ultra are generally brighter and more vibrant which I like more but the video stabilization is about the same and I couldn't spot any major difference between the two in contrast the 5x telephoto of the s24 ultra is brighter and more vibrant so they switch places with the telephoto lens more moving to the front camera the only difference I see is in the colors with the s25 ultra being less saturated so it depends on your personal taste which one you like more both have the same HDR performance which is not great and the video stabilization is also the same no difference moving toight videos the s25 ultra is generally better in handling the lights and Noise with more consistent exposure and less lens of flares with the ultra wide being the most improved while all other lenses are very close but slightly better moving to the front camera the s25 ultra is better in handling the noise but both are not great at night the image becomes very soft with harsh lighting and the video stabilization performance is about the same beside this Samsung added the ability to shoot log videos using all rear cameras up to 88k 30 using the ultra wide Main and 5x telephoto lenses and up to 4K 60 using the 3x telephoto which is great for those who want to shoot more professional videos with wider dynamic range and the extra flexibility to color grade the videos in their own way or use the built-in Video Editor to do the same additionally there is a new enhanced Zoom slider to smoothly zoom in and out while recording videos which I like and as expected we got some new AI features similar to the ones we have on Pixel phones like the audio eraser that can identify different sounds in your video and give you control over the volume of each one and based on my testing it works great and here's a quick sample [Music] the second feature is best face which is equivalent to pixel's best take but instead of combining individual shots like it does on the pixel Samsung utilizes the motion photos feature to capture multiple frames from my testing this one is a hit or miss and most of the time it doesn't work unlike the better and more consistent results you get from Google phone the magic eraser also got but updated even though it uses Google services but now it works better than the pixel first it's a lot smarter in selecting things more accurately and the results are as good not only this but it can generate human faces which is restricted on Pixel phones look at how it generated the missing part of my face this is just mindblowing lastly I spotted a lot of hidden features in the camera app like the new pre-record feature in single take videos that starts recording even before hitting the shutter key in addition to the to take still images which didn't exist before the ability to shoot HDR 10bit videos in old camera modes like the Dual recording portrait videos hyperlapse pro video and slow motion in addition to the ability to use old lenses to take slow-mo and hyperlapse videos which was limited to certain lenses before in Panorama you can adjust the exposure the ability to take 200 megapix raw images which was limited to 50 on the s24 ultra and lastly the ability to shoot 8K 30 videos using the Ultra wide which wasn't the case before so that's everything new in the camera and you are the judge do you think the s25 ultra improvements are enough to make you upgrade or the s24 ultra is still good enough for me I think the real improvements are the ultra wide lens and the ability to shoot videos in lock while anything else is more of a software upgrade which I believe Samsung can push to last year's model but they might leave things as is to make the s25 ultra a better buy over its predecessor which uses the same exact Hardware now let me cover some of the core areas starting with the modem I didn't face any issues with this phone but as I always say the signal is very strong where I live so I never experienced network issues with any of my phones so I recommend checking online to know other people experiences if your area is not well covered moving to the haptics I don't see any Improvement this year it feels exactly the same as the s24 ultra and based on my experience with other flagships I think Samsung is the worst in this area either from the Hardware or software perspective but what certainly improved is the speaker it sounds noticeably better than the s24 ultra and very close to the 16 Pro Max which is the best in this area so let's take a lesson we start loing [Music] as lost control is Paradise with our nasty man in the de of the night tear drops on the [Music] [Applause] FL now let's end this video by talking about the software most of the s25 ultra exclusive features are already mentioned in the relevant chapters but what's remaining here is the now brief which I found to be a useless feature at least for me but anyways it provides a summary to the most important events multiple times through the day with the ability to choose what to include in your now brief other than this all other features will probably make their way to older models with the release of one i7 like using Gemini as the default assistant in a set of pix including Gemini live in addition to the integration with Samsung apps so you can control things like Samsung nodes reminder clock Etc and the improved Circle to search that can identify songs playing in videos and more we also got 7 years of software and security updates same as the s24 ultra which is nice overall I think one ui7 is great I like the way it looks the animations and the features it offers but I don't think it's well optimized yet because of the underwhelming performance and battery life I got out of the s25 ultra plus Samsung delayed the official release multiple times which is an indication that they need some time to finalize things so these are all the points I wanted to cover and here is my final verdict Samsung used software to make its last year's Hardware feel more powerful they used the same display panel but they added the pro scaler that uses AI to enhance the details it has the same camera but with better image processing to make the photos look better and let's use the same battery as the newer chip will improve the performance and efficiency anyways and what about removing the battery from the spin to make it lighter and cut some cost then add extra AI features and ship it as a new phone so I think the s25 ultra is just an s upgrade and the s24 ultra is a much better deal if you are planning to upgrade or you better stick with it if you already own one so that's pretty much it for today that was my review for the s25 ultra please let me know in the comments what do you think but for now thanks so much for watching and see you in the next video

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