When it comes to the performance of the best phones, one of the least talked-about specs is the storage speed. According to a new rumor, Samsung could leverage the latest UFS 4.1 speeds for the upcoming Galaxy S25 Ultra, which would offer a considerable performance bump compared to the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
The UFS 4.1 leak comes from a tipster named Sawyer Galox on X. While Galox isn't the most renowned leaker yet, the leak makes sense from a logical perspective. Most Galaxy S24 models featured UFS 4.0, so it would only make sense for Samsung to upgrade to the newer standard with the S25. The X post only specifies that the Galaxy S25 Ultra will get faster speeds, so we'll have to wait until closer to the launch to determine if the other S25 models will see the upgrade or if it's locked to the most expensive phone.
As Samsung pushes more on-device AI capabilities to its phones, faster specs are needed across the board. That means the phones will need better RAM, quicker processors, and, of course, faster storage. As more leaks emerge, we'll start to see a more detailed picture of how Samsung plans to accommodate the extra performance needs, but UFS 4.1 seems like a good step.
The speed offered by UFS 4.1 is reported to be incremental over UFS 4.0, though we'll have to wait until something is officially announced before we know for sure. We know UFS 5.0 is coming in 2027, so we expect 4.1 to serve as more of a stopgap than a game-changing speed upgrade. For perspective, UFS 4.0 offers write speeds of up to 4200MB per second compared to UFS 3.1's 1,200MB per second.
It's also worth noting that there were rumors that the Galaxy S24 would get UFS 4.1, but that didn't happen.
AI will be the primary beneficiary of the speed increase, as general day-to-day tasks that require the SSD are already performed incredibly quickly. For AI purposes, though, the faster read and write speeds will allow the data needed by the algorithms to be pulled more quickly, allowing quicker responses and generation. Services like real-time language translation, for example, could see benefits from the extra speed.
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