The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra could feature a big hardware upgrade

28 Sep 2024, 06:32 by Chethan Rao · Android Police

Key Takeaways

Samsung's Galaxy S25 Ultra may come with a variant that boasts at least 16GB of RAM, a significant upgrade over the Galaxy S24 Ultra's 12GB capacity.
The company trails behind competitors like OnePlus and Google, whose high-end phones offer up to 16GB of RAM.
Samsung is also expected to offer upgraded hardware on the Galaxy S25 Ultra, whereas the vanilla Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25+ may not look too dissimilar from their predecessors.

As one of the flag bearers of the high-end Android smartphone segment, Samsung's devices get a lot of eyeballs, and with good reason. The Galaxy S24 Ultra is among the best phones you can get today, but that is all set to change in a few months when the Galaxy S25 series is officially launched. Some recent leaks related to the upcoming flagship trio haven't been too exciting, to say the least. But according to a reliable leaker, Samsung could introduce a crucial hardware upgrade with the Galaxy S25 Ultra early next year.

Samsung Galaxy S25: News, leaks, rumored price, and release window

The Galaxy S25 trio is coming early next year — here's what we know

In a post on X/Twitter, Ice Universe claims with some confidence that the Galaxy S25 Ultra will "definitely" feature a variant bearing at least 16GB of onboard RAM. If true, this would mark a big shift for Samsung since the Galaxy S24 Ultra models offer a maximum of 12GB out of the box. Samsung's recently launched foldables, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and the Z Flip 6, also max out at 12GB.

Catching up with the competition

Although this would be big news for Samsung, it's not new to the industry. For instance, OnePlus already offers up to 16GB of RAM on some of its devices, with a China-exclusive version of the OnePlus 12 offering a whopping 24GB of RAM. A recent rumor suggests the OnePlus 13 could bring 24GB of LPDDR5X RAM to global markets next year. Meanwhile, Google's recently launched Pixel 9 Pro smartphones have 16GB of RAM, with only the vanilla Pixel 9 offering 12GB. With these factors in mind, it would be an understatement to say that Samsung is playing catch up.

Why Android needs more RAM than iOS

They're different beasts

Apart from this revelation, several other leaks have given us insight into what's to come with Samsung's next-gen flagship lineup. The Galaxy S25 Ultra, in particular, could get an ultrawide camera upgrade in the form of a new 50MP sensor. We've also heard that Samsung is looking to put all its eggs in the Qualcomm basket, as all models are expected to feature the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chipset, which, according to recent reports, could be rebranded to Snapdragon 8 Elite.

While we've already seen a handful of unofficial renders of the Galaxy S25 Ultra, a leak also revealed what the standard Galaxy S25 could look like. Not to be left behind, renders of the Galaxy S25+ popped up not too long ago, indicating that the smartphone may not look dissimilar to the Galaxy S24+.