If there’s one thing we need in the 2025, it’s a personal butler. Hopefully, without the classism. Adulting has so many demands that I can’t help but feel entitled to an outsourcing service to do a bit of my planning, Googling, note-taking and even worrying about whether it’s going to rain when I have to catch my flight! The new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra does this, and more. Yes, I still have to ask — hello, emotional labour! But beyond a point, I can switch off from the task knowing well that my new-age Jeeves will do it for me. Is it always on point though, or does it fumble a couple of times just like us mere mortals? Well, read on to find out!
Aesthetics
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra looks premium and well-built. In a sea of both serious (Grey, Black, Whitesilver) and fun colours (Jadegreen and Pinkgold), I’ve got what looks like the middle ground—Titanium Silverblue. The corners are pleasantly rounded, and in hand, the device feels amazing. Not too heavy at 218 grams, despite the massive 6.9-inch display, the device has shed almost 15 grams compared to its predecessor.
Multimedia
I cued up Black Warrant on Netflix, a thriller based on the eponymous non-fiction book Black Warrant: Confessions of a Tihar Jailer by Sunil Gupta and journalist Sunetra Choudhury. The mini-series set in 1980s Tihar Jail looks foreboding, with twists and turns you don’t see coming. Because of the smartphone’s unique 19.5:9 aspect ratio, there’s a fair bit of empty space on both sides of the display when I’m watching anything on Netflix. Thankfully when I zoom in, I notice that not much of the peripheral action or visual details are cut off as a result, making my viewing experience a lot more immersive.
The dialogues sound crisp, and the music score haunting even at the 50 per cent mark. While listening to songs on YouTube, the only aspect I missed was a punchier bass. But to be honest, none of us are going to be blasting songs without personal earphones anytime soon.
Productivity
The S-Pen is nicely tucked in at the bottom left corner, and a gentle push makes it pop out. Samsung has removed a bunch of features from the S-Pen this year, claiming that not many users accessed these functions. However, there are still enough functionalities it complements. I revisited the ‘Drawing Assist’ feature that Samsung had debuted last year. This time, I chose a couple of portraits I’d snapped on the camera and tried rendering them in different styles such as 3D cartoon, comic, watercolour or sketch. When it successfully detects a face, it automatically offers these options. However, with some portraits taken from the side, it didn’t auto-detect the face and rendered some hilariously inaccurate results, such as turning the subject’s dress into a wallpaper or a sofa, eliminating the person in the frame entirely.
I had better luck with other functionalities such as Live Translate, which is now integrated into Google Meet as well. I could also choose certain contacts and pick a specific language that I’ll need to be live translated when I’m on a voice call with them. Great lil’ functionality if you work in a global workplace.
My favourite feature has been the Gemini integration on the smartphone. A long press of the Power button makes Gemini spring up as my modern-day Jevees. I asked it to find the cheapest flight tickets from Chennai to Maldives in the second half of February, and it promptly gave me about 4-5 options that offered the best combination of the cheapest price and shortest duration possible on a particular date. Funnily enough, when I asked Gemini to tell me about the camera setup on the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, it added the rider that it’s giving me this information “based on speculation as the device hasn’t been launched yet”.
Camera
The main camera array on the Galaxy Ultra series has always been a highlight, and this one’s no different. The primary camera setup consists of a 200 MP main sensor, a 50 MP ultra-wide lens, a 10 MP telephoto lens, which offers a 3x optical zoom, and another 50 MP telephoto lens. The photography is typically Samsung — rich, saturated colours, great photos in daylight and impressive compensation for low-light images. I happened to attend a standup comedy show, and some of the snaps taken at 10x turned out to be fairly sharp. Of course, a lot of it is helped by computational photography, but who really minds as long as the final result looks accurate and sharp? The 12 MP front camera remains the same as last year and delivers some sharp selfies and portraits. There’s a new zoom slider added in the camera app, which kicks in when I’m taking videos. In Pro mode, there’s also an advanced exposure monitor that highlights the underexposed and overexposed areas of a shot I’m about to take.
Tech Specs
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra runs on the Snapdragon Gen 8 Elite for Galaxy, and the unit I reviewed has 12 GB RAM and 256 GB storage. Performance on the Ultra series has been stellar and continues to be on the S25 Ultra. No amount of multitasking makes a dent in what’s consistently a smooth, snappy user experience.
Gaming is also great fun on the supersized display, with granular control over the display quality of each game installed on the device. The smartphone runs on One UI 7, which brings in Apple-like changes such as a split screen pull-down for notifications and settings. There’s also a ‘Now Brief’ widget that lets me quickly glance at the weather, my calendar and health information in one go.
The smartphone has the same 5,000 mAh battery as its predecessor. So no big upgrade there. However, the good news is the smartphone still keeps you company for more than a day.
Verdict
Certain aspects of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra have been easy to love. The design is great, it’s surprisingly lightweight, Bixby has been bid goodbye, and Gemini is integrated instead, the battery life is long, and no task is daunting for the flagship. Is it without fault, though? Not really. A couple of AI-based features, such as Drawing Assist and Sketch to Image, remain a mixed bag. Videos in low light can sometimes be too noisy, even at reasonable amounts of zoom. And overall, the device hasn’t seen any major design or hardware overhauls compared to the S24 Ultra from last year. Despite these gripes, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is hands-down one of the most powerful premium smartphones in 2025 (yes, I know, we’re still early in the year)! The only gripe might be the price tag!
Snapshot
₹1,29,999 (12 GB + 256 GB)
₹1,41,999 (12 GB + 512 GB)
₹1,65,999 (12 GB + 1 TB)
Pros: Snappy, bright display, feels light enough for its size, deeper AI integration across apps
Cons: Some AI features still feel like a party trick without deeper functionality, some gen AI features not very accurate, hefty price tag
