Just one week ago, I sat in a basement bar hidden away in San Jose’s downtown area, discussing the newly-launched Galaxy S25 series with some of my fellow journalists. The conclusions we’d reached since Samsung’s unveiling all sounded pretty dire. You’d think we were watching a company implode in real time, not the launch of a successor generation to a lineup that outsold its own predecessor series throughout 2024. These three smartphones, it seemed, were not designed for us, or for you. They were built for anyone walking into a carrier store with a multi-year old device and some cash burning a hole in their pocket.
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Of course, we were being a little over the top. The Galaxy S25 series — or, at the very least, the Galaxy S25 Ultra I’ve been using for over a week now — is impressive, particularly when you look at all three phones within a bubble. Their specs sheets? Long. Their camera sensor count? Plentiful. Their displays? Buddy, you better believe they’re big. And with seven years of support, it begs the question: what could journalists and reviewers possibly find to complain about with this year’s particular lineup?
In about a week, I’ll publish my final review of the Galaxy S25 Ultra. Frankly, in my span as Phones Editor at Android Police, this is one of the most frustrating review periods I’ve found myself in yet. Comparing the S25 Ultra’s overall quality in a siloed space separate from Samsung’s own refusal to innovate in a market it dominates is, in my eyes, a difficult conversation. So, ahead of next week’s review, consider this a space for me to work out exactly where Samsung stands in this industry, before I really dig deep on its latest ultra-pricey phablet.
Samsung lost its identity, and its smartphones followed suit
Put aside what makes the Galaxy S25 Ultra objectively good. Practically every flagship smartphone is “objectively” good these days; it’s rare you see a Pixel Fold-esque letdown hit the market. Instead, ask yourself what makes this phone — or really, any Samsung phone — special.
From a hardware perspective, it’s a pretty short list these days. In the mid-2010s, Samsung finally figured out how to make its devices feel as premium as their specs sheets implied. In 2014, the Galaxy S5 felt like an ugly, Band-Aid-covered runner-up compared to HTC’s One M8. Just a year later, the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge stole the show with a premium look and feel, while HTC’s nearly-unchanged One M9 set the company on a slow-but-steady path towards a Google buyout.
These days, Samsung is pulling out moves from HTC’s abandoned drawer. The Galaxy S25 looks like the Galaxy S24, which looks like the Galaxy S23, and so on; really, you have to go back to the Galaxy S20 to find anything that looks out of place with today’s lineup. Unlike a decade ago, there’s no pressure in place to push Samsung to make any meaningful changes. Every smartphone is a big slab of glass and metal, and that’s all they’ll ever need to be.
I’m not sure this would be such a bad thing if Samsung had chosen a more captivating design — or even some captivating colors — but unfortunately, it didn’t. The Galaxy S25 series are three of the most generic pieces of hardware you will ever find. The smaller two models are simply following the look Samsung has assigned to all of its devices over the past two years. From the cheapest A-series to the Galaxy S24+, every phone has the same series of vertically-arranged lenses filling the upper-left corner of the back panel glass.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra actually did receive a visual overhaul this year, but I’d argue it came at the cost of the very thing that made it such a winning product: its identity.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra feels like a successor to this four-year-old phone
Let me ask you this: What do we expect from Samsung’s Ultra-branded smartphones? It’s a model name that first appeared with the Galaxy S20 series, though the Galaxy S10 5G was, in some ways, a precursor to what was coming. Samsung closed out its Note lineup with the Note 20, with its Ultra products destined to become, effectively, a replacement for something that no longer made sense as a standalone product. But increasingly, I’m not sure adopting the Note’s identity into the Galaxy S-series was particularly good for Samsung. Let me explain.
It’s probably been a few years since you looked at the Galaxy S21 Ultra, but it’s worth revisiting. Putting aside the curved display, this is the phone that feels like a direct precursor to what Samsung’s built four years later. Sure, the bump part of Samsung’s camera bump is gone, leaving behind a series of lenses protruding from the chassis, and the flat frame is more in line with modern-day Apple and Google than what Samsung was making in 2021. But the curved corners, the ultra-tall body, the 5,000mAh battery — they’re all here. Samsung even sold it in a Phantom Titanium colorway, for crying out loud.
My point being, the Galaxy S25 Ultra seems to be Samsung’s first Ultra phone in years that truly abandons the Note lineage, and in doing so, feels a lot like the real successor to the Galaxy S21 from four years ago. Sure, the S Pen is still here, but it’s less powerful than ever. Samsung is no longer in a race to deliver the ultimate specs sheet — the Galaxy S21 Ultra came in tiers with 16GB of RAM, but this AI-first smartphone does not. And the core design here, as boring as it may be, feels more like it’s trying to adopt the Galaxy S-series to a phablet for the first real time, rather than simply reusing the Note’s look and feel for another generation.
And yet, this leaves the Galaxy S25 Ultra feeling completely lacking in any sort of identity, stuck between two different worlds. It’s not just the design language, either — what do we want from this phone, exactly? What is it about the Ultra that makes Samsung’s fans want to spring for it over, say, the Galaxy S25+, or even a cheaper (but no less powerful) flagship from one of the company’s rivals?
Samsung’s S Pen changes on the Galaxy S25 Ultra are a mistake — here’s why
We expected more from Samsung’s newest flagship
With the Note identity finally dead, it’s time for Samsung to figure out what “Ultra” really means
Rather than leaning purely into my own pessimism about Samsung’s recent output, I’m choosing to be hopeful. This feels like a transition year for the Ultra brand, as the company works to determine a new path for its most expensive non-foldable flagship. Should it match the rest of the Galaxy S-series in design? How large is too large, exactly? Is this still a smartphone for enthusiasts and specs nerds, or is Samsung willing to position its Ultra lineup more specifically with the iPhone than the Note series ever was?
In a lot of ways, questions surrounding the Note lineage have already been answered by this phone. Specs do seem less important than ever, as Samsung skips out on 16GB of memory, IP69-certified water resistance, and all of those Air Command features “only” used by 1 percent of Ultra fans. The design is more in line with the other two — soon to be three — Galaxy S25 models offered this year, and the focus on reducing weight, thickness, and bezels matches Apple’s design trends with its Pro-branded iPhones to a tee.
The Galaxy S25 Edge actually complicates factors here, too. We don’t know much about this year’s fourth S25 model, aside from a focus on slimness and a reduction to just two camera lenses, but if it’s supposed to be an additional premium offering alongside the Galaxy S25 Ultra, is it so hard to imagine some fans opting for this newer, shinier model? Even without everything that makes the Ultra so, well, ultra, isn’t there something exciting about buying a more unique gadget?
Taking all of this at face value — without a single meaningful Galaxy S26 Ultra rumor to work off — it really feels like last year marked the end of some chapter in Samsung’s ecosystem. Yes, its Ultra lineup will continue to offer an S Pen, but considering the complete lack of focus on what Note fans fell in love with in the first place, would you be that surprised to see it die off, or become optional in the way the Galaxy Z Fold series supports its stylus? What does Samsung want this phone to be beyond the “best” one?
Until the brand figures it out, we’re back into Galaxy S21 Ultra territory — better than the other two, sure, but by how much? If Samsung has a mission moving forward, it’s not to revolutionize smartphone design trends, or build something so radically different from what’s come before that it shuts the entire tech community up for good. Samsung needs to figure out what it wants the Ultra lineup to be now that it’s left the Note legacy behind. More importantly, though, Samsung needs to figure out what makes its phones worth caring about. Because, as it stands, being “good” might not be good enough.
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Samsung Galaxy S25
Samsung’s Galaxy S25 keeps things small without sacrificing power. With a Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, 12GB of RAM, and all sorts of tools courtesy of Galaxy AI, this is everything you expect from a modern flagship squeezed into a relatively svelte chassis.
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Samsung Galaxy S25+
Samsung’s Galaxy S25+ finds just the right middle ground between its two siblings. With a 6.7-inch display, up to 512GB of storage, and 12GB of RAM, this smartphone includes practically everything you could ask for in the modern AI age, without driving up the price.
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Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra leaves the Note-like design behind for the very first time. With flat edges, curved corners, and a massive 6.9-inch display, this is a modern flagship through and through — and yes, that S Pen is still here too.
