Welcome to Capsule Considers, where we try out and review the latest products on the market and offer our honest, unbiased opinions, free from any obligation or expectation because if you’re parting with your hard-earned money based on any of our recommendations, we’re gonna make sure it’s damn well worth it. Here’s Kelly Bertrand’s Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra review – can a phone really be that good?!
I’ll warn you now – if you’ve found your way onto this page expecting a hard-hitting, technology-focussed review of a very fancy smartphone that delves into specs and chips and RAM, you’ll be sorely disappointed.
Sitting in a fancy Auckland PR office as the benefits of this fancy new phone, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, I’m at the back of a room that’s otherwise crowded with tech journalist asking exactly those types of questions. Myself and the one other ‘lifestyle’ journo, my friend Nina, are looking on perplexed, waiting for our turn to ask what colours it comes in, what the camera is like and when does the catering for this shindig come?
(Seven, really bloody good and in 15 minutes, if you were wondering.)
It’s a hard ask to try and convince a life-long Apple user to break away from the beloved fruits of Steve Jobs to embrace a different operating system, and as everyone knows, it’s Samsung’s biggest consumer hurdle when it comes to their smartphones.
Which really must suck for them because, after using my Galaxy S25 Ultra for two months, I can honestly attest, here and now, Samsung phones are wildly better.
So here’s my honest review about the Galaxy S25 Ultra, where I’ve used it the most and why you’d make the change to buy one:
The phone: Ok, let’s chat about the actual phone. It’s a gorgeous design, a bit more square and less round than an iPhone, which I, a type A Virgo who loves a good straight line, loves. It has a little S Pen that pops out of the bottom for all your writing needs, has five (five?!) cameras on the back, and it’s quite thin, but not too thin like you’d freak out it would snap or break after a few too many shandies at the pub.
It’s a 6.9 inch screen that is so clear I was sometimes convinced I’d fall into it (perhaps after the aforementioned too many shandies) but my God, the clarity is insane.
My observations? It’s bloody fast. It processes information and commands wildly quickly (that’ll be because of all the fancy tech) and, crucially for this day and age, the battery. THE BATTERY. It actually LASTS. I managed to get three days – THREE – out of one charge. What is this, a bloody Nokia 3315 with a fancy screen!?
The best features you’d actually use:
CAMERA: It’s one of my most important considerations when buying a smartphone – how good is the camera? Oh my God, this camera… Mario Testino, here I come. The five lenses really come through for all your shooting needs. A prime example? I took the Galaxy S25 Ultra to my hen’s party and asked all the gals to take photos throughout the night, and I’ve never witnessed a group of 14 millennial women lose their shit over something that wasn’t a baby, a bottle of Champagne or a Taylor Swift concert announcement. The photos are sharp and gorgeous, the depth just right and the clarity amazing. The zoom on the thing borders on creepy – if you’re a concert-goer but you’re in the cheap seats up the back, this little baby will make it look like you’re side of stage. The photo editing capabilities are also wild, with AI powering the seamless removal of rogue people in the background of your pics, and you can even edit different parts of sound in your videos – ie, if you’re filming a gorgeous sunrise over a beach with the sound of beautiful native birds chirping, but your partner ruins the moment by chatting to you about last night’s cricket score, you can actually just get rid of that, but keep everything else. It also allows you to auto frame your shots – keeping the subject of your video clear as it moves – and it even allows you to pan steadily like a pro.
Me living my best pre-Synthony life, as captured by my Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
AI: You can’t have a new phone without wild AI capabilities, and the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is like having a personal assistant AND an IT department in your pocket with its Gemini AI. Here’s some stuff you can do:
Live Transcribe provides real-time translations and transcription so you’re never short on understanding meetings or travel scenarios.
There’s multi-app task management where Gemini can perform complex requests across different apps – eg, ‘Find a restaurant nearby that serves fried chicken and show me where it is’.
The AI can automate tasks based on your habits (like turning on Do Not Disturb when you walk into your office).
The health app is COMPREHENSIVE with everything you can possibly need to live your best healthy life (and it links fabulously with Samsung’s watches and rings).
At the end of the day, this phone is my new bestie – the one everyone wants to hang out with and froths over, and it’s genuinely made my life better and easier.
It’s worth making the change!
Transparency: While we have an ongoing partnership with Samsung, this review is completely independent and has not been signed off, viewed or edited by Samsung prior to publication and remains editorially independent, and our honest opinion.