Galaxy S25 Ultra Review: Very Good, With Caveats
Our full Galaxy S25 Ultra review after two weeks of testing: measured performance, battery figures, and whether it is worth £1249.
Daniel Reyes
The verdict, briefly
The Galaxy S25 Ultra is Samsung's 2025 entry in a crowded smartphones market, and at £1249 it is competing against some of the strongest hardware we have tested. After a fortnight of daily use, the headline is straightforward: it delivers the best long telephoto on any phone.
The one-line answer: Buy it for the best long telephoto on any phone. Think twice if this would bother you daily: heavy at 232g.
In the hand
There is nothing experimental here, which is mostly to the Galaxy S25 Ultra's credit. The detail worth calling out is that Samsung dialled back the saturation this year and images look far more natural. Against the rest of the smartphones category it feels considered rather than novel.
What it can do
Our testing runs the same suite on every device so figures stay comparable across years. The figure worth quoting is Screen-on time: 7h 30m. That places it comfortably above average for its price bracket.
| Specification | Galaxy S25 Ultra |
|---|---|
| Display | 6.9in LTPO AMOLED, 120Hz |
| Chip | Snapdragon 8 Elite |
| RAM | 12GB |
| Battery | 5000mAh |
| Charging | 45W wired |
| Weight | 232g |
| Screen-on time | 7h 30m |
How we tested
Every figure quoted above comes from the same protocol, run on every unit in this category. This one spent fourteen days as the reviewer’s only phone, SIM included. Screen at a metered 200 nits, adaptive refresh left on, the same twelve apps installed on every handset, and a fixed 5G network in the same building.
| What we measure | How |
|---|---|
| Screen-on time | A scripted day — four hours of mixed browsing, an hour of video, thirty minutes of camera, the rest idle — repeated three times and averaged. |
| Sustained performance | Twenty minutes of continuous load, reporting the figure at the end rather than the peak in the first ninety seconds. |
| Charging | From 2% to 100% with the fastest charger the manufacturer sells, at 22°C ambient, timed to the minute. |
| Camera | The same eighteen scenes on every phone — backlit portrait, indoor low light, moving subject — shot in the default mode with no editing. |
| Thermals | Surface temperature at the hottest point after the sustained run, measured with a contact probe. |
We deliberately do not report synthetic benchmark totals quoted in isolation, and any figure supplied by the manufacturer.
The honest caveat: Battery results are specific to our routine. A heavy camera user will see materially less screen-on time than these numbers suggest.
The strengths
- The best long telephoto on any phone
- The S Pen remains unmatched for note-taking
- A flat display that suits stylus work
Taken together, those strengths make it a natural fit for people who write or draw on their phone, and long-range shooters.
Where it falls short
- Heavy at 232g
- Expensive
- More duplicated first-party apps than anyone needs
None of these are dealbreakers on their own. Whether they matter depends entirely on how you intend to use it, which is why the section below matters more than the score.
How it compares
The closest alternatives on price are Xiaomi 15 Ultra and iPhone 16 Pro. All three have been through the same tests, so the figures below are directly comparable rather than collected from different reviews.
| Model | Price | Our score | Standout | Weak point |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Galaxy S25 Ultra (this review) | £1249 | 4 / 5 | The best long telephoto on any phone | Heavy at 232g |
| Xiaomi 15 Ultra | £1299 | 4 / 5 | A one-inch main sensor with genuinely optical depth falloff | Heavy |
| iPhone 16 Pro | £1099 | 4 / 5 | The best sustained performance of any phone | Iterative to a fault |
Nothing at this price scored higher in our testing, which is the strongest argument for the Galaxy S25 Ultra.
Is it worth the money?
At £1249 the Galaxy S25 Ultra asks £330 more than the category average of £919, against an average score of 4.1 out of 5 across the smartphones we have tested. Its own 4 works out at roughly £312 per point. Paying above average for a below-average score only makes sense if people who write or draw on their phone, and long-range shooters describes you precisely.
If the budget is the binding constraint, the Galaxy A56 at £399 is the floor we would still recommend — below that the compromises stop being ones you can live with.
Living with it
Two weeks in, the figure that stopped mattering was display — 6.9in LTPO AMOLED, 120Hz is more than adequate and you forget about it by the third day. What kept surfacing instead was that heavy at 232g, which is easy to shrug off in a spec comparison and harder to ignore at 6pm on a Friday. On the other side, Samsung dialled back the saturation this year and images look far more natural turns out to be the sort of detail you only appreciate after living with the alternative.
Who this is for
Buy the Galaxy S25 Ultra if you are people who write or draw on their phone, and long-range shooters. Skip it if this is something you would notice every day: heavy at 232g.
Buy it if:
- People who write or draw on their phone, and long-range shooters
- You want the best long telephoto on any phone
- You value the S Pen remains unmatched for note-taking
Skip it if:
- You need heavy at 232g to be a solved problem
- The Xiaomi 15 Ultra at £1299 already covers what you need
- You upgraded within the last two years — the gap is not worth the outlay
Verdict
Buy it for the best long telephoto on any phone. Think twice if this would bother you daily: heavy at 232g.
Score: 4 / 5 · £1249 at the time of writing.
Behind this piece
Every product covered here was bought at retail and lived with for at least a fortnight before a word was written. Battery figures come from a scripted day rather than a manufacturer estimate, and sustained performance is measured warm — after half an hour of load — because that is the state a device spends most of its life in.
Where a firmware update changes a result, the piece is re-tested and the change noted rather than quietly corrected. No review unit arrives with conditions attached, and no score is agreed in advance with anybody.
Where to go next
If you are weighing this against the rest of the smartphones we have covered, the category archive lists every review in date order. The closest comparisons we have published are Galaxy S25 Ultra vs Galaxy A56: Is the Galaxy S25 Ultra Worth £850 More? and Galaxy S25 Ultra vs Nothing Phone 3: Is the Galaxy S25 Ultra Worth £670 More?.
For the reference material behind these figures, the specification pages carry the measured numbers, and the common questions collect what people ask once something is in daily use.
