The Galaxy S25 still hasn’t quite reached it’s official launch day (that’s later this week) and yet so many of us have had the device for an entire weekend already. On this quiet Monday, we thought we’d check-in and see how things are going so far.
For us at the DL, we have Tim well into testing his review unit of the Galaxy S25 Ultra and he should have thoughts for you before long in true review format. I’ve had the device in hand thanks to early pre-orders, so I’m essentially in the position of you. I spent a weekend with the device – my first Ultra in some time – and certainly have had time to process this massive device and whether or not I could see myself using it going forward.
In short, I’m not quite sure this is the phone for me. That’s not a surprising thing, though! You guys know how much I appreciate smaller phones and Google’s software, but I wanted to give the Ultra some time this year after not using one for several.
My biggest (personal) issue is that it’s just too damn big and sharp and squared off and not at all a phone that can be used with a single hand. It’s as if Samsung realized that flat-sided phones are cool, but they didn’t take Apple and Google’s ideas to make them also comfortable. Like, this phone is uncomfortable to hold because the glass-meeting-metal situation is rough. The Pixel 9 Pro and the iPhone (starting with the iPhone 15 Pro) brought out this tiny curve at the edges that keeps the flatness and dramatically improves comfort.
I’m not yet sold on battery life in early testing. I’m certainly aware that Samsung phones can take an extra amount of time to properly adjust to a user’s usage and so I’m not about to tell you where this is about to go. I’ll just say that over the weekend, I had a couple of nights where I plugged-in to make sure it made it until bed. I’m so used to my Pixel 9 Pro sitting at 40% as I drift off to sleep, yet this Galaxy S25 Ultra was in the 25% range hours before I went to bed.
One UI 7 has some nice UI changes and I think this is overall a pretty solid improvement in software from Samsung. You know how much I appreciate the return of the vertical app drawer, all of the customizations available in places like the lock screen, and the improved animations throughout. However, Samsung is doing some weird shit with notifications and how those stack now, plus I feel like I’ve had to dive deeper into settings more than usual to get things setup and running properly. Getting notifications to show on the lock screen, with content available for some apps, took me several days to get right. The new Quick Settings panel is quite awful when expanded, if I’m being brutally honest. I don’t know, guys, but this is a mixed bag of software. On a brief camera note, I think this camera can take some exceptional pictures. I had some fun with portraits of my kid playing pinball this weekend. However, Samsung’s cameras still do that slow shutter thing where if an object moves for a split second, that everything turns to blur. Ehhhhh. OK, I’ll stop complaining. I didn’t mean to complain this much. Look, the display is huge and beautiful. Performance is very, very good and this phone is buttery smooth all of the time. This new One UI 7 skin is actually pretty robust in its feature set and I like most of it. This is a phone that I feel like I’m using 10% of because I know what it is capable of. That’s a cool thought! It makes you want to explore and try new things and see where it might take you. There are just some foundational elements to this phone that seem way off over these first few days. Oh yeah, AI is apparently here and I couldn’t tell you about any of it because it’s all pretty much small use-case, worthless stuff. Shit, there I go complaining again. Someone tell me they love this thing. Tell me that I’m using my Galaxy S25 Ultra wrong. Read the original post: Your Galaxy S25 First Impressions? Mine Aren’t Great. This articles is written by : Fady Askharoun Samy Askharoun All Rights Reserved to Amznusa www.amznusa.com Why Amznusa? AMZNUSA is a dynamic website that focuses on three primary categories: Technology, e-commerce and cryptocurrency news. It provides users with the latest updates and insights into online retail trends and the rapidly evolving world of digital currencies, helping visitors stay informed about both markets.
