Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra vs Sony Xperia 1 VII

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

Samsung

8.4

Iterative but polished

Sony Xperia 1 VII

Sony

7.5

Very Good

What Reviewers Agree On

The 6.9-inch QHD+ LTPO AMOLED with Gorilla Armor 2 anti-reflective coating is the best smartphone display you can buy right now.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy and larger vapor chamber deliver benchmark-leading, consistently smooth performance with minimal thermal throttling.
Battery life on the 5,000 mAh cell easily lasts a full day, with most reviewers ending on 30-40% remaining.
The new rounded corners and flatter titanium frame make the phone noticeably more comfortable to hold than the S24 Ultra.
The new 50MP ultrawide is a real, visible upgrade — sharper detail, better low-light performance and autofocus for macro.
Gorilla Armor 2 and the titanium frame make this one of the most durable flagship phones available.
Seven years of OS and security updates match the best in the industry and help justify the long-term investment.

Pros & Cons

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

Pros

The 6.9-inch QHD+ LTPO AMOLED with Gorilla Armor 2 anti-reflective coating is the best smartphone display you can buy right now.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy and larger vapor chamber deliver benchmark-leading, consistently smooth performance with minimal thermal throttling.
Battery life on the 5,000 mAh cell easily lasts a full day, with most reviewers ending on 30-40% remaining.
The new rounded corners and flatter titanium frame make the phone noticeably more comfortable to hold than the S24 Ultra.
The new 50MP ultrawide is a real, visible upgrade — sharper detail, better low-light performance and autofocus for macro.
Gorilla Armor 2 and the titanium frame make this one of the most durable flagship phones available.

Detailed Comparison

Display

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

Virtually every reviewer calls the S25 Ultra display the best on a smartphone, thanks to the Gorilla Armor 2 anti-reflective coating that practically eliminates glare in sunlight, the 2,600-nit peak brightness, and the sharp 1440p LTPO panel. A few reviewers note PWM dimming only reaches 480 Hz and peak auto-brightness doesn't always sustain.

The anti-reflective coating makes it one of the easiest phones to use in direct sunlight and held up well to scratches over a week of abuse.
The Gorilla Armor 2 panel strikes an almost perfect balance between glossy and matte, with 2,600-nit peak brightness that dazzles in any environment.
The S25 Ultra's anti-reflective screen eclipses every other smartphone right now, especially under harsh sunlight.
After six months of use it is simply put: the best display I've ever seen on mobile — the bezels, brightness and colors are unbeatable.
The low-glare, bright LTPO display is a strength, but PWM dimming is only at 480 Hz which can bother sensitive eyes.
The display still only hits around 850 nits with the manual brightness toggle, so you rarely see the full peak brightness outside of HDR.
Even without a huge display upgrade, this is still absolutely one of the best displays — super crisp, very bright, high-refresh-rate LTPO.

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Deal Breakers

The S Pen lost Bluetooth functionality this year, so remote shutter and Air Actions gestures are gone — a sore point for long-time Samsung owners on Reddit who see it as another feature cut from the 'everything phone.'
At $1,299 the hardware year-over-year gains are minimal, and Reddit sentiment on r/gadgets and r/Android echoes what reviewers say: the Ultra no longer feels special enough to justify the premium.
Qi2 wireless charging only works through a separate magnetic case — the phone itself has no built-in magnets.
The main 200MP and 5x telephoto cameras are physically unchanged from the S24 Ultra, so image quality gains are marginal.
Galaxy AI features are guaranteed free only through the end of 2025, with Samsung hinting at future paid tiers — and Reddit users on r/gadgets are already skeptical the features justify being front-and-center at all.
Shutter lag on the main camera still trails iPhone and Pixel — flagged by 9to5Google in long-term testing and cited by r/apple commenters as a reason they haven't switched.

Cons

The S Pen lost Bluetooth functionality this year, so remote shutter and Air Actions gestures are gone — a sore point for long-time Samsung owners on Reddit who see it as another feature cut from the 'everything phone.'
At $1,299 the hardware year-over-year gains are minimal, and Reddit sentiment on r/gadgets and r/Android echoes what reviewers say: the Ultra no longer feels special enough to justify the premium.
Qi2 wireless charging only works through a separate magnetic case — the phone itself has no built-in magnets.
The main 200MP and 5x telephoto cameras are physically unchanged from the S24 Ultra, so image quality gains are marginal.
Galaxy AI features are guaranteed free only through the end of 2025, with Samsung hinting at future paid tiers — and Reddit users on r/gadgets are already skeptical the features justify being front-and-center at all.
Shutter lag on the main camera still trails iPhone and Pixel — flagged by 9to5Google in long-term testing and cited by r/apple commenters as a reason they haven't switched.

Performance

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy delivers a meaningful generational jump in both CPU and GPU, rivaling Apple's A18 Pro and outscoring the iPhone 16 Pro Max in multi-core. The 40 percent larger vapor chamber keeps the phone cool even under sustained gaming loads. The r/apple thread citing a 36% GPU lead over the iPhone 16 Pro Max generated heated discussion, with most commenters conceding the Snapdragon chip is genuinely fast even if they still wouldn't switch.

The phone benchmarks crazy high, rivaling Apple's A18 Pro — a little lower in single core but higher in multi-core.
Samsung's 40 percent larger vapor chamber keeps the phone from warming up in normal use and benchmarks are up 30-40 percent depending on the task.
Playing Genshin Impact at max settings for nearly an hour produced no stutters and no hot spots — a noticeable improvement over the S24 series.
Multi-core Geekbench hits 9,793 versus the iPhone 16 Pro Max at 8,772 — the S25 Ultra pulls ahead thanks to extra cores and 12GB of RAM.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite is the most welcome generational upgrade this year, with a boosted 'for Galaxy' variant delivering more CPU headroom than the standard chip.
Under heavy loads the S25 Ultra becomes a bit power-hungry, which can cause faster-than-expected battery drain when multitasking or running demanding apps.
Everyday tasks run smoothly and there was no meaningful performance difference versus the OnePlus 13 running the same chip.
Apple users on r/apple concede Apple has fallen behind on GPU performance, saying 'competition is good' after the S25 Ultra posted a roughly 36% GPU lead in benchmarks.

Sony Xperia 1 VII

Snapdragon 8 Elite delivers top-tier performance with 12GB RAM, handling everything from photo processing to gaming without issue.

Snapdragon 8 Elite ensures flagship-level performance for all tasks — photo processing, video editing, and gaming are all handled with ease
The 4K display resolution demands more GPU power, but the 8 Elite handles it without noticeable battery or performance penalties
Thermal management is adequate but the tall form factor can get noticeably warm during extended gaming sessions

Camera

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

The only new hardware is a 50MP ultrawide with an f/1.9 aperture and autofocus — the 200MP main, 10MP 3x and 50MP 5x telephoto lenses all carry over from the S24 Ultra. Reviewers agree the ultrawide is a genuine improvement and low-light video processing is noticeably cleaner, but colors still skew saturated and shutter lag persists — a complaint echoed on Reddit by would-be switchers. Samsung's imaging is now slightly behind the Vivo X200 Pro and Xiaomi 15 Ultra but remains top-tier.

The new 50MP ultrawide delivers more fine detail than the S24 Ultra's sensor, and the wider f/1.9 aperture helps keep noise low.
Some low-light ultrawide shots are sharper than both the Google Pixel 9 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max, but the rest of the cameras feel static.
Samsung's penchant for slightly overboard sharpening is still visible, though the new ultrawide beats what the Pixel 9 Pro can do.
Photos straight from the camera are a little too natural-looking, and most shots need editing to look their best.
The 3x optical zoom uses a small, outdated sensor and is now a weak point of the camera setup.
All cameras stay the same as on the S24 Ultra except the ultrawide, and Samsung is relying on the new ISP to improve quality.
The S25 Ultra takes better zoom and ultrawide photos than last year with cleaner skin tones, and shutter lag is finally put to bed.
Samsung has aimed for consistency, and after six months the stills are vibrant yet muted — pictures up to 15x zoom remain tack-sharp.
The shutter activation is slow and not as instant as competing phones — a persistent Galaxy flaw Samsung should address.
Side-by-side low-light video clips versus the S24 Ultra show clearly more fine detail from the S25 Ultra.
iPhone-curious switchers on r/apple still call out shutter lag as the thing holding them back: 'I just want to open the camera and snap a picture right away. I don't want to have a motion blurred photo.'

Sony Xperia 1 VII

The triple camera with real-time Eye AF, 120fps burst, and Cinema Pro mode offers photographer-grade control that no other phone matches.

Real-time Eye AF tracking for humans and animals works flawlessly — borrowed directly from Sony Alpha cameras, it locks on and never lets go
120fps burst shooting captures moments impossible for any other smartphone — sports and action photography is genuinely viable
Cinema Pro mode shoots in 4K 120fps with LOG recording — a tool for serious videographers who need color grading flexibility
Auto mode photo processing noticeably trails Google Pixel and iPhone — casual users who point-and-shoot will get better results from competitors