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

Samsung has finally launched the Galaxy S25 Ultra today and as you may know, it isn’t very different from last year’s S24 Ultra. It does feature a few minor upgrades hardware-wise, but Samsung has spent most time refining the software experience on One UI 7. Therefore, the major upgrades are mostly on the software side. Now, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is already getting One UI 7 with all major AI features, which leaves only a few differences between the phones. Let’s compare them on paper to find out if it’s worth upgrading to a Galaxy S25 Ultra vs the Galaxy S24 Ultra.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra vs Galaxy S24 Ultra: Specifications

Before we move on to the detailed comparison between the two devices, here’s an overview of specifications of the Galaxy S25 Ultra and the Galaxy S24 Ultra.

Galaxy S25 Ultra vs S24 Ultra: Build and Design

The Galaxy S24 Ultra transitioned to a flat display from the S23 Ultra’s curved design and had a boxy design with sharp edges. The S25 Ultra brings some refinement to the overall design. While the edges still remain flat and sharp, the phone is slightly curved on the edges. This should make it a tad bit easier to hold and slide into pockets, on paper.

The next noticeable change is in the back design, specifically the camera modules. The S25 Ultra has this black accent across the perimeter of the lenses, whereas the S24 Ultra’s camera lenses are encased in rings that match the color of the phone. That said, the S25 Ultra is a bit thinner at 8.2 mm (vs 8.6 mm on the S24 Ultra). The frame of both the devices is made of Titanium but the S25 Ultra uses the latest Corning Gorilla Armor 2 glass.

The S25 Ultra body is 1.4 mm narrower, but the bezels have been reduced by 0.7 mm. The display measures slightly larger diagonally, i.e., 6.86 inches (vs 6.79 inches), which is probably what led to slimmer bezels and more screen real estate. The S25 Ultra does weigh 14 grams lighter, but overall, these minor design changes shouldn’t be the go-to reason to upgrade to it.

Display and Cameras

The display of the Galaxy S25 Ultra is identical to the S24 Ultra. Meaning, you get the same Dynamic LTPO AMOLED 2X 120Hz display with 2600 nits of peak brightness. The resolution is still 1440 x 3120 pixels on both devices, and both are HDR10+ screens.

As for the cameras, the primary, secondary, and tertiary snappers on the S25 Ultra are the same 200 MP f/1.7, 10 MP f/2.4 telephoto with 3x optical zoom, and 50 MP f/3.4 periscope with 5x zoom. The difference lies in the Ultrawide. The Galaxy S25 Ultra sports a 50 MP f/2.0 snapper whereas the S24 Ultra comes with a 12 MP f/2.2 snapper. The front camera on both devices is a 12 MP unit, so no upgrade there.

It should be interesting to see if Samsung manages to optimize the camera experience further. Since the S24 Ultra’s release, there have been complaints of slow shutter speeds and inconsistencies, and if Samsung does optimize the S25 Ultra cameras, there should be no reason to not do the same for the S24 Ultra cameras considering the hardware is almost the same.

Galaxy S25 Ultra vs Galaxy S24 Ultra: Hardware

Here comes the major differentiating factor, the performance. The S25 Ultra features Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Elite, which is a 3 nm SoC based on 2nd Gen Oryon cores. The 8 Elite is almost 40% faster than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in multicore and is up to 44% more power efficient. The Adreno 830 GPU is also 40% faster, and there are improvements to the NPU and other things as well.

The bottom line is, that the S25 Ultra is much faster and power efficient than the 8 Gen 3, but the latter is no slouch either. Considering other areas where Samsung hasn’t upgraded anything, it’s not a great upgrade still if you’re upgrading just for the performance gains. They are significant, sure, but still not worth upgrading to the S25 Ultra from an S24 Ultra.

The storage and RAM in all variants remain the same. The base S25 Ultra variant has 256 GB of UFS 4.0 storage, whereas there are 512 GB and 1 TB. Samsung clearly wants you to pick the higher variant. Mind you, the giant isn’t using the latest in UFS tech.

There’s little data on whether UFS 4.1 delivers higher speeds, with only iQOO claiming around 50% faster transfer speeds on the iQOO 13.

Battery, Software, and Connectivity

As you may have guessed by the theme of this comparison, the S25 Ultra has the same capacity battery as the S24 Ultra. It charges at the same 45W wired, 25W wirelessly, and 4.5W reverse wireless. The phone does get support for the latest Qi2 charging standard, and that’s about where the differences end.

Is it surprising there are no upgrades to charging speeds? No. However, Samsung is expected to start using the Silicon-carbon battery tech that many Chinese smartphone makers are using. Hence, you could expect a higher-capacity battery with faster charging on the S26 Ultra.

Software-wise, there’s the latest and greatest One UI 7. It’s got lots of improvements and is one of the best Android 15-based updates so far. We’ve highlighted all the new One UI 7 features but some of the notable ones are Galaxy AI writing tools (link), revamped user interface, Now Bar, and Now Brief. These features will also make their way to the S24 Ultra. Besides, Samsung promises 7 years of major updates to both the S24 Ultra and S25 Ultra.

Connectivity-wise, there’s Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, UWB, USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, and NFC. The fingerprint reader is the same old reliable Ultrasonic one, and you get all the basic sensors. No differences here as well.

Galaxy S25 Ultra vs Galaxy S24 Ultra: Colors and Price

The S25 Ultra did get a price bump, as rumors suggested. The base variant still costs $1,299. You can get the S24 Ultra started at for around $900 or sometimes even lower. For what the S25 Ultra brings to the table and the vastly decreased price of its predecessor, it’s not a significant upgrade over the S24 Ultra. Hence, we suggest you stick to the latter if you own one.

Available colors include Titanium Black, Titanium Gray, Titanium Silver Blue, and Titanium White Silver. You can pre-order the Galaxy S25 Ultra starting today and the phone should start shipping in the first week of February.

What are your thoughts on the Galaxy S25 Ultra? Do you think it’s worth upgrading from the S24 Ultra to the same? Let us know in the comments.