Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra could get an unexpected display change that might shock, but the camera should make up for it

It’s often the case that around the launch of a new iPhone, details about other forthcoming phones coincidentally get leaked – each looking to be the best phone of the year. So it’s perhaps no surprise that over the past few days we’ve seen a flurry of leaks about the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. And not all those details will be popular.

One of these comes from Ice Universe – a reliable leaker when it comes to Samsung phones – and points to the fact that the Galaxy S25 Ultra is going to be more compact. The measurements are given as 162.8 x 77.6 x 8.2mm. That’s smaller than the Galaxy S24 Ultra, most noticeably in width, losing just over a millimetre.

With the Galaxy S24 Ultra already having really slim bezels, it might be that the change in width can’t be achieved through shrinking the bezels further, so it might point to there being a slightly smaller display. That could come as a shock: the Galaxy S24 Ultra has a 6.8-inch display and the iPhone 16 Pro Max has just been announced with a 6.9-inch display – is Samsung really committing to a smaller display?

Or is Samsung going to do something remarkable and shrink the device while packing in more display space?

The size of these two phones is practically identical, with Samsung reportedly shaving a fraction of a millimetre off the dimensions so it’s a little smaller. The Galaxy S25 Ultra is also reportedly lighter than the iPhone 16 Pro Max: Apple’s new phone weighs 227g, but the new Samsung device is said to be 219g.

What camera changes are coming to the Galaxy S25 Ultra?

But while there might be a caveat to the lighter build when it comes to display size, reports suggest there are other enhancements being made elsewhere – namely in the camera department.

Samsung’s Ultra phones are already packed with cameras. The S24 Ultra has four on the rear, the main 200-megapixel camera, along with 5x and 3x optical zoom lenses and an ultrawide.

It looks like the only change that’s expected is to the ultrawide camera, moving from the 12-megapixel camera currently in place. But that's said to get a 50-megapixel sensor instead, so it's quite a jump. It's also tipped to come with a f/1.9 lens rather than the f/2.2 lens on the current model.

It follows the sort of trends were seeing elsewhere, with AI also making improvements to the performance in some areas, and hardware changes to cater for bigger weaknesses elsewhere. The change in ultrawide camera is likely to boost the low light performance, and could also give higher resolution macro focus, for example.

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is not expected to launch until January 2025, so you can expect a lot more leaks before there’s anything official announced.