While we are closing towards the launch of the Galaxy Z Flip 6 and the Galaxy Z Fold 6, my sights are set a little further in the future.
I am looking forward to see if Samsung can reduce the screen crease on its foldable phones and make them thinner and lighter, but I am more excited about the Galaxy S25 series. Or, more specifically, the Galaxy S25 Ultra.
I have been using the Galaxy S23 Ultra since its launch, and aside from the fact that buying a new phone every year is a bad financial decision, there are a few reasons why I'm glad I didn't upgrade to the Galaxy S24 Ultra but may end up getting an Galaxy S25 Ultra next year.
Galaxy S23 Ultra got most Galaxy AI features with One UI 6.1 update
Some of the Galaxy S24 series' most exciting features are powered by Galaxy AI. But you don't need a Galaxy S24 to use them. Features like generative wallpapers, webpage summarization, grammar improvements, and tone suggestions, which I was excited about, were released for the Galaxy S23 Ultra.
I have also found more accurate image clipping and other AI-based image editing features helpful, and I am glad Samsung didn't keep Galaxy AI exclusive to just the Galaxy S24 series, unlike what Apple decided for its Galaxy AI competitor.
Galaxy S25 Ultra expected to bring a more significant hardware upgrade
While the Galaxy S24 Ultra brought some hardware improvements, those weren’t enough to warrant an upgrade from the Galaxy S23 Ultra.
For example, the S24 Ultra's 50x 5x zoom camera has some benefits, but it is not an outright winner compared to the S23 Ultra's 10MP 10x telephoto camera.
As per several reports, the Galaxy S25 Ultra will come with 200MP primary, two 50MP zoom, and 50MP ultrawide cameras. The improvements in image and video quality should, therefore, be more noticeable next year.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, which features Qualcomm’s custom Oryon CPU cores, the Adreno 830 GPU, and a 3nm fabrication process, should be considerably faster than the Galaxy S23 Ultra's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.
This faster chip, along with some AI shenanigans, could also bring improvements in battery life. The Galaxy S25 Ultra may even get support for 65W fast charging.
Naturally, some of the best Galaxy S24 features will be available on next year's model as well. Those include a brighter screen with fantastic glare-free Gorilla Glass Armor protection. All in all, the Galaxy S25 Ultra is looking like it will be a worthwhile upgrade over my current phone.
Galaxy S25 could have a brand-new design language
One thing that I don’t like about my Galaxy S23 Ultra is its sharp corners. Even with a case, those corners dig into my palms if I use the phone for a long time.
The Galaxy S24 Ultra suffers similarly. Thankfully, some reports claim that Samsung will rectify the issue by using rounded corners on the Galaxy S25 Ultra.
If it weren't for its less powerful zooming capabilities, I would have preferred buying a Galaxy S23+ because of its rounded corners and slightly smaller footprint. So, fingers crossed rounded corners really are coming to the Ultra model next year.
