If you’re looking for the absolute best camera phone you can buy, then well, according to our guide that would be the iPhone 16 Pro or iPhone 16 Pro Max, but the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra lands just behind them, and there’s every chance the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra will have them beat.
You probably won’t have to wait long for this phone either, as it’s likely to land in January, alongside the standard Samsung Galaxy S25 and the Galaxy S25 Plus.
We don’t know for sure what cameras the S25 Ultra will have yet, but leaks suggest they could be an upgrade on the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra’s camera system, so this might be an exciting handset for photographers. Below, you’ll find everything we’ve heard about the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra’s cameras so far.
What cameras will the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra have?
Before discussing the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra’s cameras, let’s take a quick look at the cameras the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra has, since the upcoming phone will likely be building off these.
That handset then has a 200-megapixel (f/1.7, 1/1.3-inch, 24mm) main camera, a 12MP (f/2.2, 1/2.55-inch, 13mm) ultra-wide with a 120-degree field of view, a 50MP (f/3.4, 1/2.52-inch, 111mm) periscope camera with 5x optical zoom, and a 10MP (f/2.4, 1/3.52-inch, 67mm) telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom.
All except the ultra-wide have optical image stabilization (OIS), and there’s also a 12MP (f/2.2, 26mm) camera on the front.
So this is one camera-packed phone, and it’s likely that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra will be just as packed full of cameras, albeit with at least one key difference, as you can see in the chart of predicted camera specs below.
That key difference then is the ultra-wide, as multiple sources have suggested the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra will have a 50MP ultra-wide camera rather than the 12MP of its predecessor.
All those extra megapixels could allow for more detailed shots, but we’re not sure for now how else this camera might differ from the current one – whether for example the sensor will be a different size, or the field of view will differ.
Sadly, the leak above claims that the rest of the cameras on the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra won’t be changing though, so we may once again get a 200MP main snapper, a 50MP periscope, a 10MP telephoto, and a 12MP selfie camera.
That said, we haven’t heard a vast number of camera leaks yet, so it’s still possible that there will be other changes.
In fact, one tip from @BennettBuhner suggested that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra would not only have a 50MP ultra-wide camera, but also a 50MP periscope camera with 10x optical zoom, a 50MP 3x-5x variable zoom telephoto camera, and a main camera with a larger 1-inch sensor (but still 200 megapixels).
But while another source has backed up the 50MP ultra-wide claim, no one else has echoed those other specs, and this tipster doesn’t have much of a track record, so we’re doubtful these specs will pan out.
Even if there are no other upgrades to the lenses or sensors though, the new chipset in the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra – expected to be the top-end Snapdragon 8 Elite – is sure to prove beneficial.
For one thing, its ISP (image signal processor) – which is essentially the brain of the camera and handles the processing of photos – is likely to be more capable than the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra’s.
We’re also likely to see new and improved AI photography features, and the existing AI photography tools may work better on the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra too, as with its extra power it will probably be able to handle AI tasks more smoothly.
But ISP and AI improvements aside, our best guess for now is that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra’s cameras will be the same as the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra’s, with the exception of a new 50MP ultra-wide sensor.
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