Perhaps you were about to finalize your Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra purchase, and decided to check YouTube for any last-minute, pre-release videos to help convince you to click the “buy” button. But the title of the newest video caused you to pull your finger back in horror. The rings round the cameras are fake? Time to think twice before making that purchase, right?
No, it’s not time to think twice, at least not for this particular reason. Here’s what’s going on. Well-known phone mangler JerryRigEverything took his craft knife to the rings surrounding the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s cameras and after exerting quite a lot of force, pried them off. The upper most camera ring required so much effort, it lifted the glass from the back of the phone at the same time.
The controversy, such as it is, is the rings are not part of the back of the phone, and adhesive has been used to hold them in place. There is, when you look closely, a gap between the underside of the ring and the glass back, which is where the knife was used to lift them away from the surface. All three cameras down the left-hand side of the S25 Ultra have a ring around them.
In the same way that if you hit the screen with a hammer, or jam a screwdriver in the USB C port, using a knife to separate one part of the device from the other is going to do some damage. This really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. It looks good on video, but does it really tell you much about the phone’s every day durability? No. The Galaxy S25 Ultra’s titanium frame, Corning Gorilla Glass Armor 2, and IP68 dust and water resistance rating do though.
Describing them as fake is confusing. The rings are decorative, something that was obvious before they were pulled off the phone, and they perform this function adequately. They don’t house the camera lens or any glass, as is shown in the video, and Samsung has not claimed they do anything to enhance photographs taken with the phone. Samsung hasn’t mentioned them at all because outside of giving the back of the phone a slightly different look to the Galaxy S24 Ultra, they don’t serve much of a purpose.
If I’m feeling very charitable towards Samsung, the rings may even provide some additional side and front protection to the camera lenses in some situations, and they should do this for the lifetime of the phone, unless you attack them with a knife in the meantime. There are some concerns over the adhesive used not being strong enough to hold the rings in place long-term, but of course, there’s no evidence of this being a problem at this time. It’s helpful to know they have been glued in place though, so we can treat them appropriately, and perhaps keep watch over how it holds up.
The rings around the cameras on my review Galaxy S25 Ultra model have not fallen off yet. I’ve thus far resisted the temptation to jab a knife under each one, but I can get my fingernail underneath and try to force it off. They have not succumbed to my efforts. Probably the worst that will happen is the gap will get filled with dust over time, unless you go full Jerry on them.
Like fake vents on cars, the rings around the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s cameras are decorative and that’s all. I quite like the polished rim and subtle grooves on the surface, and they give the back of the phone a different look to the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Get them in the right light, and they look great. It’s unfortunate they’ve been glued on to the back of a $1,300 smartphone, and like most decorative pieces it wouldn’t matter if they weren’t there, but outside of this there’s no justification for any concern over durability at this stage.
There’s a chance the adhesive may fail in the future — whether through natural degradation, or factors like heat and cold — but we won’t know if it’s a problem until it happens. I also trust that Samsung — which has been all-in on durability since the Galaxy Note 9’s problems — has done its due diligence to make sure it won’t. At this stage, it’s a “good to know” point.
However, if you’re looking for a reason, any reason not to buy the Galaxy S25 Ultra then I suppose you’ve found one. I think the Bluetooth-less S Pen is more of a legitimate reason than the camera rings, but that doesn’t make for such a good headline, does it.
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