Hype for the Samsung Galaxy S25 series is building by the day, with rumors pointing towards a January release date for what is expected to be a three-phone Galaxy lineup.
Naturally, many fans and commentators have focused their attention on the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra – the rumored super-premium model that surely will supplant the S24 Ultra as the best Samsung phone, well, ever.
In turn, we’re hearing a lot about the upgrades supposedly coming to this new flagship – a larger display, better ultra-wide camera, and a refreshed design have all been posited as possible updates. However, there are also some less exciting rumors flying around, one of which concerns a possible price hike for the Galaxy S25 Ultra versus its predecessor.
For me, this would pretty much constitute a worst-case scenario. Nobody likes spending more money, but I’m not just railing against the concept of price increases here – this is a bad idea for the Galaxy S25 Ultra specifically.
No more headroom
The currently-available Galaxy S24 Ultra is a properly top-of-the-line phone, with a 6.8-inch display, a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, and a 200MP main camera. As such it commands one of the highest price tags on the market, with the cheapest model costing $1,299 / £1,249 / AU$2,199.
I’ve always found the price of the S24 Ultra a little hard to stomach, but managed to get my head around it as a uniquely powerful phone that perhaps couldn’t exist without such a high price. And even at this price, the value for money is still there – 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, plus all those great specs, means the S24 Ultra can get by at the very edge of understandable pricing.
However, my understanding of the S24 Ultra as a fairly priced phone is far more fragile than, say, the iPhone 16 Pro at $999 / £999 / AU$1,849 or Pixel 9 Pro XL at $1,099 / £1,099 / AU$1,849 – both expensive phones, but ones that feel less financially strenuous for the features on offer.
And, of course, there are plenty of great phones that don’t even approach the four-digit barrier: the base model Pixel 9 and iPhone 16 both start at $799 / £799 / AU$1,349, with the vanilla Galaxy S24 just ahead at $799 / £799 / $1,349.
It’s my strong suspicion that any price increase for the S25 Ultra would push things over the edge.
The Galaxy S24 Ultra’s current high price tag just doesn’t leave any headroom: a hike would see the Ultra detach from its current position as an expensive upgrade on the S24 and S24 Plus, and become stranded in the specialist price bracket occupied by Sony and a few fringe models like the Xiaomi 14 Ultra.
And with general living costs rising seemingly worldwide and Chinese phone makers now applying serious pressure on the highest end of the phone market, now feels like a worse time than ever for phone makers to increase the cost of their most expensive models.
Part of my job is to apprise people of good deals and help people get the most out of their money when it comes to purchasing tech. The S25 Ultra could, of course, surprise us and launch as a paradigm-shifting device, but it’s far more likely to be an iterative upgrade; I would seriously struggle to encourage anyone to spend more than $1,299 / £1,249 / AU$2,199 on a conventional smartphone, even one that is truly ultra-powerful.