I’ve used Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra for a week now and have been enjoying its design refinements, updates like a new higher-resolution ultrawide camera and lots of AI. And while Samsung’s follow-up to last year’s Galaxy S24 Ultra feels like more of the same, it also carries over one of that phone’s best features: an anti-reflective coating that makes the display look less like a mirror.
Whether reading my news feed on the S25 Ultra sitting outside at a cafe under early morning January sunlight or shooting photos under overhead office lighting, I am stunned by how few reflections and less pronounced lighting glares appear on the screen, especially compared to my iPhone 16 Pro. Having less visual distractions to get between me and what I’m looking at is an impactful improvement that should be on more phones, not just ones with a $1,300 price tag. The less expensive Galaxy S25 and S25 Plus lack the Ultra’s anti-reflective screen coating.
Samsung’s anti-reflective coating debuted on the S24 Ultra and is perhaps still one of the most notable screen updates that came out on phones over the past year. The S25 Ultra’s screen has a similar anti-reflective coating to add to its other incremental improvements, like thinner bezels that increase the display size from 6.8- to 6.9-inches and a switch to Corning Gorilla Armor 2, which Samsung claims has better durability.
In everyday use, I notice (or rather don’t) the minimal reflections on the S25 Ultra’s screen. Given that the US is so heavily dominated by Apple and Samsung, it surprises me that we don’t see this perk on the iPhone. I don’t have trouble seeing what’s on the iPhone 16 Pro’s display, even in direct sunlight, but there is a lot more “visual noise” that gets between me and what I’m trying to see on the screen. By contrast, the S25 Ultra’s display feels more immersive because there’s less glare on it when taking photos, watching videos or just responding to messages. And it would be a killer addition on the iPhone, maybe the iPhone 17, especially for creative types that use it to create content and film videos.
While AI has stolen much of the spotlight over the past year, phone screens have quietly made significant advancements. Aside from Samsung, OnePlus has its AquaTouch 2.0 on the OnePlus 13 that helps keep the screen usable even as mist and rain accumulate water drops on it. That same phone also has a Glove Mode that, as the name suggests, allows you to interact with the screen while you’re wearing gloves. The TCL 60 XE NxtPaper phone has a hardware switch on the side which turns the screen to a black-white mode that looks similar to the e-ink display that you’d find on an Amazon Kindle.
Over the years, we’ve seen phone makers one up each other when it comes to display size, resolution and with how fast they can replace LCDs with OLED screens; could anti-reflective coatings be the next? If they’re looking to improve the user experience, enabling you to see more of the screen even in bright daylight seems like a worthy pursuit.
And while I still have more testing to do with the new Galaxy S25 Ultra, new features like the 50-megapixel ultrawide camera and the updated display have impressed me the most, but the anti-reflective screen proves to me that some of the best improvements continue to pay off years down the line. I can’t wait until upcoming phones like the iPhone 17 series adopt this simple but meaningful upgrade.
Source: Apple Needs to Steal This Galaxy S25 Ultra Feature for the iPhone
