Phones
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra to outshine 2024 iPhone, Pixel in slimness, weight
Samsung seems to be making the Galaxy S25 Ultra its most wonderful flagship. The smartphone is said to get major design refinements. A new leak suggests that it would beat all the premium rivals in terms of slimness and weight.
Ice Universe claims Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra will be the “thinnest and lightest of all Ultra flagships.” The source noted that it will be thinner and lighter than the recently released Pixel 9 Pro XL and the upcoming iPhone 16 Pro Max.
Google’s Pixel 9 Pro XL weighs 221 grams while the iPhone’s weight could be 225 grams. That said, the Galaxy S25 Ultra will weigh less than 221 grams. The company could use improved Titanium material to reduce the flagship’s weight further.
The iPhone 16 Pro Max could be 8.3mm thick, 0.2mm less than the Pixel 9 Pro XL. Going by the tipster’s revelation, the Galaxy S25 Ultra could be thinner than 8.3mm. The iPhone hasn’t yet launched, but set to go official on September 9th.
The S25 Ultra will be the thinnest and lightest of all Ultra flagship phones to be released soon, including iPhone 16 Pro Max and Pixel 9 Pro XL.
— ICE UNIVERSE (@UniverseIce) August 28, 2024
Making smartphones thinner and lighter is considered a pretty big challenge. Adjustment and modification of internal components is a major concern. Still, Samsung isn’t giving up on its Ultra flagships, making the next thinner and lighter than others.
Another significant design change is rumored in the frame appearance. Unlike the S24 Ultra, the next flagship could come with slightly reduced corners. The S Pen will indeed be employed in the smartphone alongside its dedicated silo.
The S25 Ultra is said to get upgraded ultrawide and Telephoto sensors. Both will be new cameras with 50-megapixel resolution, which will join the 200-megapixel primary and 50-megapixel periscope with 5x optical zoom.
It will be powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 processor from Qualcomm. The chip is getting a new Oryon CPU that will offer a major upgrade in performance. It will be interesting to see if it manages to outperform Apple’s new flagship SoC.
Samsung is unlikely to use Exynos 2500 in the Galaxy S25 series. Qualcomm has increased the prices of the Snapdragon 8 Elite due to upgrades. However, MediaTek could help Samsung keep on evolving flagships as Snapdragon price soars.
Recently, it was reported that the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 could be pricier than the Snapdragon 8 Elite. Samsung Foundry is in trouble and there’s no hope for Exynos 2600 to be used in 2026’s Galaxy S26 flagship smartphones.
Chipset price makes a great impact on smartphone pricing. Samsung managed to freeze pricing by utilizing Exynos in previous flagships. However, the game has changed as consumers don’t want Exynos and Snapdragon continues to be pricier.
Korean media (via Jukanlosreve) believes that MediaTek could help Samsung flagships keep on evolving further amid pricier Snapdragon. If Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 is to be exclusively used in the S26 series, we may not see any display and camera upgrades.
Chinese phone makers aggressively utilize the Dimensity chips, that decently rival the latest Snapdragon chipset. Exynos is uncertain but MediaTek is doing a pretty good job with its flagship Dimensity chips.
In the case of no Exynos, opting for Dimensity in the Galaxy S series is a better alternative. MediaTek’s prices are way too lesser than Qualcomm’s. Meanwhile, flagship Dimensity chips offer better performance than Samsung’s Exynos.
Samsung skipped upgrading the display and zoom camera on the S25 Ultra, as far as the rumors are concerned. It could be forced to replace the same pursuit on the Galaxy S26 series otherwise, the price freeze would be unavoidable.
Global Samsung Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, and S25 Ultra surfaced on the FCC database. Earlier, we’ve seen the appearance of the US variants of the S25 series. The listing reveals the model number, connectivity specs, and some more info.
FCC listed Global Samsung Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, and S25 Ultra as model numbers SM-S931B, SM-S936B, and SM-S938B, respectively. The variants will be launched outside the US such as Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.
The input solidifies that the vanilla S25 won’t feature UWB tech. The fast and secure connectivity feature will be limited to the Galaxy S25 Plus and S25 Ultra. The US variants listing revealed the UWB configuration on the upcoming flagships.
Supporting documents suggest that the S25 and S25+ were tested with the EP-TA800 charging adaptor and EP-DN980 cable. Support for Bluetooth 5.4, Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n/a/ac/ax/be), GNSS, DP, and NFC are also mentioned.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra is also listed with S Pen support. It will be the only model in the lineup that will be supporting stylus input. As far as the charging speed is concerned, the S25 Plus and S25 Ultra will bring 45W fast charging support.
The flagship will also feature Bluetooth 5.4, Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n/a/ac/ax/be), GNSS, UWB, DP, and NFC connectivity. The supported 5G bands include n1/2/3/5/7/8/12/20/25/26/28/38/40/41/66/77/78.
Galaxy S25 Ultra Release Date
Samsung hasn’t yet officially announced the release date for the Galaxy S25 series. South Korea is currently facing political tension as the President has recently imposed Martial Law (Emergency) and lifted it shortly after.
Korean media previously reported that the Galaxy Unpacked may be held in late January next year. If things continue to go as planned, we can expect the S25 series to be unveiled on January 22, while release could happen in early February.
Samsung has just tested Exynos 2500 chipset on the Galaxy S25 Plus. Samsung’s unannounced SM-S936B was spotted on Geekbench 6. However, the retail model could be equipped with Snapdragon 8 Elite globally.
As spotted by Jukanlosreve, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus running Exynos 2500 scored up to 2358 and 8211 points in single-core and multi-core tests. The model number refers to the European variant of the Galaxy S25 Plus smartphone.
In early November, the chipset was spotted on the same handset with similar Geekbench scores. That time, the Exynos 2500 reached 2,359 points and 8,141 points in Geekbench 6’s single-core and multi-core CPU tests.
The current Exynos 2500 benchmark scores are far from its rivals. The Snapdragon 8 Elite manages to reach up to 3127 and 9509, while Dimensity 9400 reaches 2711 and 8632 points in single and multi-core tests, respectively.
It is said that the Exynos 2500 may not power the Galaxy S25 series. The Korean tech giant has reportedly commenced mass production. The next year’s Galaxy Z Flip 7 could be equipped with a 3nm-based Exynos 2500 processor.
Geekbench reveals that the Exynos 2500 features a 10-core CPU, with the prime CPU core clocked at 3.3GHz, two high-performance cores at 2.75GHz, and three at 2.36GHz. The platform has two power-efficient CPU cores, running at 1.8GHz.
Samsung’s in-house chip is speculated to get Xclipse 950 GPU based on AMD’s RDNA architecture. It could also be supported by Vulkan 1.3, additional dynamic state, device profiles, dynamic rendering, and improved sync API.
The Foundry division is currently facing yield issues with the 3nm process. Industry observers estimate that the yield rate is extremely low (around 20%). Given the yield concerns, Exynos 2500 is unlikely in the Galaxy S25 series next year.