The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra says goodbye to those low light gaming issues

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra has officially launched, and in great news for mobile gamers, it looks like the Korean tech giant has fixed one of the main issues with last year’s S24 Ultra flagship. While the S24 Ultra certainly didn’t lack performance power, multiple reports suggested its display had a problem with grainy visuals in low light or when using low brightness settings. Fortunately, that doesn’t look to be the case with this year’s Android flagship, making the S25 Ultra the perfect pick for late-night mobile gamers who have to keep the brightness down.

Based on the specs alone, the S25 Ultra looks like a future pick for our guide to the best gaming phones, boasting an overlocked Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, 12GB of RAM, and a lovely 6.9-inch AMOLED display with super slim bezels. Before getting our hands on the phone, our main concern was whether it’d suffer from the same visual issues as last year’s model, which seemed possible considering the minimal display upgrades outside of increased durability. While we still haven’t had the chance to check it out ourselves, one of the industry’s more reliable sources has suggested we’ve got nothing to worry about.

The new details surrounding the S25 Ultra’s display are courtesy of notable tech tipster Ice Universe, who shared a picture of the fresh flagship side-by-side with the S24 Ultra showing both phones at a low brightness setting. It’s pretty clear from this image that the S25 Ultra doesn’t suffer from the same graininess as the S24 Ultra, even if there isn’t much going on on the display to give it away. Still, the picture leads us to believe you can enjoy the visuals of all the best Android games on the S25 Ultra even when you’ve tanked the brightness, which is a win in our book.

Of course, these are still early days, and until the S25 Ultra arrives with users in early February, we won’t know for sure if this year’s Android flagship doesn’t have a quirk of its own. Peculiarly, neither the Samsung Galaxy S24 nor S24+ had the same issue with grainy visuals at low brightness, which means it could just have been a hardware quirk of the S24 Ultra that Samsung didn’t spot until after it had shipped the device. Either way, the brand seemingly solving this issue makes what already looks like one of the best Samsung phones on paper even more tempting, especially considering how some benchmark tests point to it blowing the iPhone 16 Pro Max’s gaming performance out of the water.

If you’re thinking about picking up this flagship phone yourself, be sure to check out our Samsung Galaxy S25 pre-order guide, and keep an eye out for our upcoming review of the Android blockbuster. Or, if you’re looking for something a little more affordable, check out our picks for the best budget gaming phones and the best mid-range phones.