Galaxy S25 Ultra reportedly still starts at 12GB of RAM, lower than Pixel

According to a new leak, Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S25 Ultra won’t see an increase in memory, with 12GB of RAM on its base model.

Samsung’s “Ultra” flagships originally debuted as the company’s most powerful, “nothing held back” smartphones, and remain the pinnacle of what the company has to offer in slab smartphone design. Apparently, though, the upcoming Galaxy S25 Ultra will be just a bit behind in one key spec.

@Jukanlosreve on Twitter/X says that the Galaxy S25 Ultra will come in three memory/storage variants – 12GB/256GB, 16GB/512GB, and 16GB/1TB.

Essentially, the configurations won’t be changing from the current Galaxy S24 Ultra.

That’s rather surprising given Samsung’s heavy focus on AI features, which are often dependent on having more memory available. Google’s Pixel 9 series, which is also heavily focused on AI, kept this in mind with the Pixel 9 Pro, 9 Pro XL, and 9 Pro Fold all having 16GB of RAM across all variants. Only the base Pixel 9, priced at $799 (over 30% less than Samsung’s “Ultra” release), has 12GB of RAM. Of course, Google’s latest Pixels also still start at 128GB of storage, so it’s not like Google’s upgrade is without a trade-off.

The OnePlus 13 is also expected to have a global variant that has 12GB of RAM, but the focus is clearly on models with 16GB or more as the base model will only be available in a single color.

It’s also noteworthy that this is somewhat within the established pattern for Samsung, as the Galaxy S22 Ultra and S23 Ultra both had 8GB/12GB offerings. By that schedule, the S26 Ultra would be the one to increase the base model. However, it’s also interesting, and pretty funny in hindsight, that 2021’s Galaxy S21 Ultra already had 12GB of RAM in its base model.

The Galaxy S25 series is expected to arrive in late January.

More on Samsung:

• Samsung developing Galaxy S25 ‘Slim’ to battle iPhone 17
• Galaxy S25 Ultra ditches the Galaxy Note design in first hands-on leak [Video]
• Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra reportedly has even smaller bezels than iPhone 16 Pro Max

Follow Ben: Twitter/X, Threads, Bluesky, and Instagram

Add 9to5Google to your Google News feed.