The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is essentially brand new at this point, and there’s no denying that it’s one of the best smartphones you can buy.
But it has a few weaknesses that can be improved upon with the next generation in a year’s time. Here are some of the things we want to see with the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra when rumors begin to pick up ahead of its expected 2025 release date.
A fresh design
It’s not that the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is an ugly phone by any means (though its chunky 6.8-inch frame certainly makes it an acquired taste).
It’s just that the line has barely changed its aesthetics since 2021’s Galaxy S21 Ultra. That, in turn, wasn’t a million miles away from the first member of the Ultra line, the S20, but we’ll give it a pass as the camera block was quite a lot less neat.
True, there’s only so different phones can look year after year, and Samsung has been busy pioneering a whole new form factor with the Galaxy Z Fold lineup in the meantime. But it would be nice if the company could shake things up a little bit in 2025.
A boost in RAM
RAM is an area where Samsung has bizarrely taken a step backward in recent years. Both the S20 Ultra and S21 Ultra could be configured with a massive 16GB RAM on board, but this was taken away in 2022 with the S22 Ultra, and it hasn’t returned in the two intervening years.
No, there’s not a lot out there to justify 16GB RAM in a phone at the moment (and there was even less in 2020!) but it doesn’t hurt to be future-proofed when you’re paying a small fortune for a smartphone. And on that note…
A more competitive price
Foldables aside, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is amongst the most expensive smartphones you can buy, starting at a massive $1,299.99. And that rises to an even more massive $1,659 if you want 1TB of storage instead of the 256GB the cheapest version ships with (Samsung hasn’t supported expandable storage in its flagships since the Galaxy S20 family).
Realistically, we appreciate a price cut isn’t on the cards, but we do hope it will at least remain static. Its current price makes it hard to justify over better-value offerings from the likes of OnePlus and Google, and even the $999 Galaxy S24 Plus, which shares many of the same specs makes it look a touch overpriced.
More S Pen tricks
Bundling the S Pen with the S22 Ultra was a masterstroke, making the top-end Galaxy S a Galaxy Note in all but name. Being able to pop the S Pen out to doodle and note take is a brilliant USP that many consumers wouldn't want to live without.
It’s even better with the S24 Ultra, where you can combine the S Pen with the ‘Circle to Search’ function to quickly look up individual items or text from an image with a little help from AI.
We’d love to see more innovations like this with the S Pen, to make it more of a must-have accessory with staying power after the initial novelty wears off.
Improved ranged photography
The most controversial design decision for the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra was dropping the 10x optical zoom with a 5x one.
True, this 5x one had a far higher megapixel count (50 instead of 10) and this allowed for a very solid 10x optical quality crop, but it’s not quite the same thing. It also meant Samsung lost a valuable selling point: a 10x optical zoom was unusual, a 5x one is less so.
We’d like to see the 10x zoom returning, but with an improved sensor and more megapixels. One rumor suggests we might get a variable optical zoom sensor that can switch between zoom lengths for more flexibility, which could free up space for the 10x sensor to return. Fingers crossed.
