Summary

  • Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra only includes 12GB of RAM, unlike other Android flagships with 16GB.
  • A Galaxy S25 Ultra variant with 16GB of RAM exists but is limited to certain markets.
  • The higher RAM variant may not enhance daily performance but could improve heavy AI task handling in the future.

Samsung’s newest Ultra flagship, the Galaxy S25 Ultra, packs almost all the features you could ask for in a high-end Android phone. While modest, Samsung has also made the right hardware upgrades, including switching to Qualcomm’s newest Snapdragon 8 Elite chip for better performance. Surprisingly, Samsung’s $1,300 flagship Galaxy only ships with 12GB of RAM, 4GB less than the Pixel 9 Pro and other flagship Android phones. As it turns out, the S25 Ultra is available with 16GB of RAM, but you can’t get your hands on it.

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra on a desk showing the rear of the phone


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Samsung offers the Galaxy S25 Ultra in 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB storage configurations. All of them ship with the same 12GB of RAM. In Taiwan, South Korea, China, and Hong Kong, the 1TB Galaxy S25 Ultra ships with 16GB RAM. Strangely, Samsung is not selling this variant of its newest Galaxy in other markets, including the US.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra listing on Samsung Korea with 16GB RAM

Google bumped the RAM to 16GB on the Pixel 9 Pro lineup last year. Out of this, it reserves 2.6GB RAM exclusively for AI use, ensuring smooth Gemini interaction at all times. The OnePlus 13 also packs 16GB of RAM as standard. There’s even the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro, which you can get with a whopping 24GB RAM in the US.

Admittedly, the extra 4GB RAM on the S25 Ultra’s 1TB variant is unlikely to improve performance in daily use. However, it should allow the phone to run heavy AI-related tasks smoothly, especially in the future, as the LLMs and AI models powering new Galaxy AI features become more complex and heavy.

The 16GB RAM Galaxy S25 Ultra variant should launch in more markets

Samsung’s choice to stick with 12GB of RAM as standard on the Galaxy S25 Ultra is puzzling. What’s more surprising is it was among the first companies to introduce a phone with 16GB of RAM — the Galaxy S20 Ultra with 512GB storage shipped with 16GB RAM in 2020. Considering an S25 Ultra SKU packing 16GB RAM exists, there’s no reason why Samsung did not launch it in the US.

For the average user, the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s 12GB of RAM should be more than sufficient. However, when most other Android manufacturers are equipping their flagship phones with 16GB of RAM — and considering a 16GB S25 Ultra variant already exists — it’s hard to justify why Samsung hasn’t made it available in more markets.