Brightness without visibility is useless outdoors
In the ongoing human pursuit of tools that work seamlessly in the world we actually inhabit, Samsung's Galaxy S25 Ultra offers a striking lesson in trade-offs: its anti-glare display is a genuine triumph of outdoor engineering, making it uniquely legible under direct sunlight where rivals with brighter panels fail. Yet at $1,300, the same device carries forward unresolved compromises — color banding, uneven pixel illumination, and a dimming technology slower than what budget competitors now offer — reminding us that excellence in one dimension rarely guarantees excellence in all. It is a phone that sees the sun clearly but struggles, in quieter moments, to show the full spectrum of what it might have been.
- Samsung's anti-glare glass is so effective that the S25 Ultra remains crisp and readable in direct sunlight while a brighter OnePlus 13 becomes nearly unusable beside it.
- Step indoors, however, and the cracks appear: a 480Hz PWM dimming rate — a fraction of what competitors use — causes a grainy, uneven pattern across the screen at low brightness levels.
- The phone still runs an 8-bit AMOLED panel in an industry that has largely moved to 10-bit, producing visible color banding in gradients and on photos the phone's own camera captures in richer color depth.
- Samsung added a vividness slider and improved off-angle color accuracy over its predecessor, but these refinements feel like polish applied over structural problems that remain untouched.
- Even the display's greatest strength carries a hidden cost: most third-party screen protectors strip away the anti-glare coating, forcing buyers to rely on Samsung's own film to preserve the feature they paid for.
Pull out most flagship phones on a bright summer day and the screen washes out, reflections take over, and legibility collapses. The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra sidesteps this entirely. Its anti-glare layer — built into the glass itself — keeps the display crisp and vibrant even with the sun directly overhead. Placed next to a OnePlus 13, which boasts higher peak brightness, the OnePlus becomes nearly unreadable while the Galaxy remains clear. For outdoor use, it is one of the most meaningful display improvements Samsung has made in years.
But move inside, and the phone reveals a more complicated character. At full brightness on the standard slider, the display reaches only around 800 nits — modest for a modern flagship. Higher modes exist, but Samsung's use of 480Hz PWM dimming — where the backlight flickers rapidly to simulate lower brightness — lags far behind competitors like the Honor Magic 7 Pro, which operates at 4320Hz. The practical consequence is visible: at low brightness, a grainy, uneven pattern called mura spreads across the screen. It was present on the S24 Ultra. It remains on the S25 Ultra.
Color tells a similarly unresolved story. Samsung improved saturation and off-angle accuracy compared to its predecessor, and the screen genuinely looks good. But the phone still uses an 8-bit AMOLED panel while the rest of the industry has standardized on 10-bit, producing noticeable color banding in gradients and smooth transitions. Users have reported seeing it on wallpapers and even on photos captured by the phone's own 10-bit-capable camera — a quiet irony the hardware cannot escape.
The anti-glare achievement is real and should not be dismissed. But it comes with a practical footnote: most screen protectors lack an anti-glare coating, meaning the display's defining feature disappears the moment a standard protector is applied. Samsung's own film is required to preserve it.
At $1,300, the Galaxy S25 Ultra is a phone that solved one problem brilliantly and left others — some of them solved by far cheaper devices — exactly where they were. The sun it handles beautifully. The subtler demands of a premium display remain, for now, unanswered.
Walk outside on a bright summer day and pull out most flagship phones, and you'll squint. The screen washes out. Reflections take over. You can barely see what's on the display. The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra doesn't have this problem. It has an anti-glare layer built into the glass itself—a feature Samsung first introduced on last year's S24 Ultra—and it works so well that the phone remains crisp and legible even when the sun is directly overhead. Stand it next to a OnePlus 13, which has a brighter peak brightness, and the OnePlus becomes nearly impossible to read while the Galaxy S25 Ultra remains clear and vibrant. For anyone who spends time outdoors, this is a genuine engineering achievement, and it's almost certainly the best thing Samsung has done for screen visibility in years.
But step inside, and the story changes. The Galaxy S25 Ultra's display reveals itself to be a study in contradictions—excellent in one dimension, mediocre in others, and stubbornly unchanged in ways that matter. The phone costs $1,300. At that price, you'd expect Samsung to have solved problems that plagued its predecessor. Instead, many of those problems remain.
Start with the brightness. Samsung's marketing materials claim the display reaches certain peak brightness levels, but the reality is more complicated. At full brightness on the standard slider, the display tops out around 800 nits—surprisingly low for a modern flagship. There's a sunlight mode that pushes it to around 2,000 nits, and an extra brightness mode that reaches roughly 1,500 nits, but here's the catch: Samsung uses Pulse Width Modulation, or PWM, to control brightness. This is a technique where the backlight flickers on and off rapidly to create the illusion of dimness. The Galaxy S25 Ultra uses a 480Hz PWM rate. That sounds fast until you compare it to competitors. The Honor Magic 7 Pro uses 4320Hz. Even at that rate, Honor only applies it at low brightness levels. Samsung's approach means the display never actually reaches its maximum brightness potential in the way some other phones do. The result is that at 20 percent brightness, a grainy pattern becomes visible across the screen—a phenomenon called mura, where pixels aren't evenly lit. This was a problem on the S24 Ultra. It's still a problem on the S25 Ultra.
The color story is similarly mixed. Samsung addressed complaints that the S24 Ultra looked washed out by adding a vividness slider and enhancing saturation. The S25 Ultra kept those changes, and the colors do look good. The phone also maintains better color accuracy when you view the screen from an angle compared to its predecessor. But Samsung continues to use 8-bit AMOLED panels while the rest of the industry has moved to 10-bit as standard. This creates visible color banding—those subtle striations you see in gradients and smooth color transitions. A side-by-side test with an 8-bit and 10-bit gradient image shows the problem clearly. The OnePlus 13 displays additional colors throughout the gradients. The Galaxy S25 Ultra shows the same limited palette in both tests. Users have complained about this on wallpapers and even on photos taken with the phone's own camera, which can capture 10-bit images. Some manufacturers try to hide this limitation by using color dithering to fake deeper color depth, but that creates flickering pixels. Samsung at least avoids that trap, but the fundamental limitation remains.
There's also the matter of eye comfort. Samsung's Eye Comfort Shield reduces blue light by lowering the intensity of blue subpixels, making the display appear yellower. It works, and it adjusts automatically based on time of day, reducing blue light at night to align with natural circadian rhythms. But blue light filtering is Samsung's only real eye care solution, and it's a narrow one. The brightness management issues—the low PWM rate, the mura at low levels—these are eye comfort problems too, and they haven't been addressed.
The anti-glare filter deserves emphasis again because it's genuinely exceptional. But there's a practical caveat: most screen protectors don't have an anti-glare coating. If you use a standard protector, you lose the display's best feature. You need to buy Samsung's official anti-reflection film to preserve what makes this screen special outdoors.
For a $1,300 phone, the Galaxy S25 Ultra's display is good. It excels in sunlight. But it's not the best display Samsung could have made, and it's not the best display in its price range. The anti-glare engineering is brilliant. Everything else suggests Samsung prioritized outdoor visibility over overall panel quality, leaving unresolved problems that budget phones have already solved.
Citações Notáveis
Samsung's anti-glare filter is one of the best things Samsung has ever done for screen visibility, and nearly every other phone on the market is harder to see outdoors because of reflectivity.— Android Central Labs review
For a $1,300 phone, the display's mediocre dimming technology and persistent grain patterns suggest Samsung prioritizes outdoor visibility over overall panel quality consistency.— Android Central Labs analysis
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does the anti-glare layer matter so much more than raw brightness?
Because brightness without visibility is useless. A brighter screen that reflects sunlight back at you is harder to read than a dimmer screen you can actually see. Samsung solved the real problem people face.
But you mentioned the display has lower brightness than competitors. How can it be better if it's dimmer?
It's about what happens to light. The OnePlus 13 is brighter in a lab, but outdoors, that brightness bounces off the glass and back into your eyes. The Galaxy S25 Ultra's anti-glare coating scatters that light, so you see the image instead of the reflection. Brightness is only useful if you can see it.
What's the deal with the color banding? Is that something most people would notice?
Most people won't see it in everyday use. But if you're looking at a sunset photo or a smooth gradient, you'll see distinct bands of color instead of a smooth transition. It's the kind of thing that bothers you once you notice it, and you can't unsee it.
Why is Samsung still using 8-bit panels when everyone else moved to 10-bit?
That's the question. It's not a technical limitation—they're capable of it. It seems like a cost decision, and it's frustrating because the phone costs $1,300. You're paying flagship prices for a panel that's behind the curve.
The mura issue—the grainy pattern at low brightness—that's been there since the S24 Ultra?
Yes. Samsung had a year to fix it and didn't. That's the most frustrating part. It's not a new problem. It's a known problem they chose not to solve.
So should someone buy this phone for the display?
Buy it if you spend a lot of time outdoors. The anti-glare layer is genuinely special. But if you're indoors most of the time, or if you're sensitive to grain and color banding, there are better options at this price.