Samsung is using Corning’s new Gorilla Armor 2 glass on the S25 Ultra, which is said to have 29 percent better fracture resistance than the original Gorilla Armor on the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Interestingly, Samsung says it saw a 60 percent drop in screen repairs from the S24 over the Series S23which could mean that the S25 is even more robust.
The phones are powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, which debuted in phones like the Honor Magic 7 Pro and OnePlus 13. This will be the processor in everyone Samsung Galaxy S25 series phones worldwide, unlike previous years when Samsung opted for its own Exynos chips in some markets. Samsung claims that this chip offers a 37 percent CPU upgrade, a 30 percent graphics boost and a 40 percent improved neural processing unit compared to the S24 series.
Samsung and Qualcomm collaborated on optimizing the chip, and that close connection enabled new features like ProScaler. On the S25 Ultra and S25+, this feature can upscale images on the screen to match the screen resolution. Say you’re browsing Instagram and someone has uploaded a 1,080p image—it’ll be upscaled to QHD+.
The vapor chamber cooling system is larger on all three – a crucial component in preventing the phones from overheating during intense gaming sessions – with the chamber in the S25 Ultra getting a 40 percent increase in size. Samsung also says that sitting on top of the chip is a new “tailored thermal interface material” that leaves zero gaps for air, drawing heat from the processor directly to the vapor chamber cooling system to increase performance and reduce strain on the battery.
Probably the most disappointing part of the hardware story is the lack of support for Qi2 charging. This is the a new version of the Qi wireless charging standardwhich borrows many features from Apple’s MagSafe charging system. It embeds magnets into the phone, allowing users to magnetically attach the phone Qi2 charger for more efficient and faster wireless charging, in addition to the convenience of magnetic accessories to improve the phone. I expected to see several Qi2 Android phones in 2024, but that’s all we got was the Skyline from HMD. Now, in a move that will further confuse matters, the Galaxy S25 series is classified as “Qi2 ready.”
This is a new classification for phones that don’t want have the built-in magnets but will have official and third-party Qi2 cases with magnets inside, essentially bringing a similar if not the same magnetic experience as a proper Qi2 device. Android users who want the utility of MagSafe had rely on these cases until now, so it’s just a shame that Qi2 isn’t natively part of these brand new phones yet.
Camera specs are about the same as before, with the ultrawide being the exception on the Galaxy S25 Ultra—it now packs 50 megapixels instead of 12. Samsung says that this in turn increases the quality of macro photos. There are some more interesting changes to the image processing algorithm. Samsung’s new generation ProVisual Engine uses a “spatio-temporal filter” to distinguish between moving and stationary objects to ensure that photo subjects are not blurred when capturing an image in low light conditions. Dual-analysis noise removal analyzes each pixel for noise, looks at eight pixels around it, and removes the noise to clean up the image.