Almost a year ago to the day, the YouTuber JerryRigEverything — Zack Nelson — took his razer knife and lighter to the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, and it coped surprisingly well.
With the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra due in early adopters’ hands on February 7, the YouTuber is back to put it through its paces, and while it’s mostly more of the same, in a handful of ways it’s taken a step backward.
In all, there are three drawbacks that buyers should know about. Most importantly, the screen toughness enhancements brought by Corning Gorilla Armor Glass last year appear to have vanished.
In 2024, Nelson’s set of mineral picks only made a dent in the S24 Ultra’s screen at level 7 on the Mohs scale of hardness, with deeper grooves emerging at level 8. This time around, it’s back to faint scratches at level 6 and deeper markings at 7.
“I’m not too sure what’s going on here with the glass at level 6,” Nelson says. “It could be that the glass might just have been a tad too brittle last time so they dialled it back with Gorilla Armor 2.” Either way, you probably want a screen protector if you were lulled into a false sense of security with last year’s model.
The second surprising thing is that the S25 Ultra’s camera rings aren’t flush with the back of the phone, as they are on the S24 Ultra. They are, as Nelson puts it, “slightly elevated, flexible, dust-collecting utopias.”
Sure enough, with a little help from a knife, the metal camera rings pop off, proving they’re a slightly unnecessary aesthetic touch. “Yeah, the ring is for sure secure, and I don’t think they’ll ever fall off on their own, but they really are over here just glued into place like a pair of fake eyelashes.”
This, combined with a botched and oddly out-of-focus Samsung label on Nelson’s model leaves some questions about build quality that shouldn’t exist on a flagship smartphone. “I don’t want to say I’m getting Temu vibes, but back in my day, 1,300 bucks used to go a lot farther,” he adds. Ouch.
Finally, there’s the S Pen. We already knew this was a downgrade, thanks to Samsung removing the Bluetooth functionality and with it the ability to use Air Gestures or act as a remote camera trigger. This has proved so unpopular as to trigger a petition to Samsung demanding its reinstatement for the Galaxy S26 Ultra.
In any case, when snapped in half, Nelson finds a more hollow S Pen, with space for the no-longer-required battery.
Otherwise, it’s business as usual. The titanium frame scratches with a knife, but the phone stays strong during a bend test with plenty of force. When a lighter is applied to the screen, it takes a good 30 seconds to leave a permanent mark.
In short, the video shows that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra remains one of the toughest smartphones you can buy, but that makes the backsteps all the more mysterious. Durability fans may want to opt for last year’s model, but if you want the power of the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, you’ll probably want to spring a little extra for a good screen protector, too.
