Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra / Google Pixel 8a

The Samsung Newsroom release is dated 23 January Korea time; the event was 22 January in US time.

Samsung notes memory options may vary by market and usable storage is lower because of preloaded software. There is no card slot.

There is no card slot; the 256 GB option is not offered in every country.

Samsung quotes 40% NPU, 37% CPU and 30% GPU gains over the previous generation. This version is tuned for Galaxy with higher clocks than the standard Snapdragon 8 Elite.

It is the same chip as the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro.

The vapor chamber spreads heat from the chip into the body, helping clocks hold longer in extended gaming.

The viewable area is smaller than the diagonal because of rounded corners and the camera hole. Refresh that drops to 1 Hz saves power on static content; Vision Booster adjusts tone mapping in bright light.

The always-on display shows the time, notifications and the song playing nearby (Now Playing) at low power while the phone is locked.

Used on the front only. Corning says it survived drops of up to 2.2 m onto a concrete-like surface in internal lab tests; this is not a durability guarantee for any given phone.

Titanium is used only on the frame, excluding the volume and side keys.

Per Samsung, 3× and 5× are optical; 2× and 10× are “optical quality” zoom made by sensor cropping. OIS is optical image stabilisation.

Log records a flat profile for colour grading; results depend on the editing workflow. Audio Eraser can reduce layers such as voices, music, wind and crowd separately in videos.

The 45 W adapter is sold separately. Samsung quotes up to 31 hours of video playback. Wireless PowerShare charges earbuds or a watch from the back of the phone.

According to Android Central’s one-year report, the phone received One UI 8 (Android 16) ahead of schedule.

5G/LTE availability depends on market and carrier.

Water resistance is not permanent and may diminish over time.

IP67 means full dust protection and resistance to brief immersion; it is one step below IP68. Protection can diminish over time.

Colour availability varies by country and carrier.

The upper limit, 90 Hz on earlier A-series phones, rises to 120 Hz on this model; Google notes it is not available in every app.

HDR brightness is measured with the whole screen lit and peak brightness with only 5% lit.

The aluminium in the housing and camera bar is 100% recycled; the back cover uses 76% recycled plastic.

Super Res Zoom up to 8x is software magnification; there is no telephoto camera.

According to Google, average battery life in testing was at least 31 hours; figures are based on a median user profile.

No charger is included; the box contains a USB-C cable and a Quick Switch adapter for transferring data from an old phone.

The seven years count from the first sale date on the US Google Store; this was the first A-series phone with the promise.