Samsung Galaxy A25 review
One UI 6 on top of Android 14
The Galaxy A25 runs on Samsung's current One UI 6 on top of the latest Android 14. This is the "full-fat" One UI instead of the "Core" version available on some lower-end Galaxy devices. That means fewer, if any, feature omissions.
The Galaxy A25 is eligible for four years or four major OS and One UI updates and a total of five years of security patches throughout its lifecycle. That's not half bad in our books.
You are getting the same general UX and even most of the features of the Galaxy S series, which is great to see on a mid-range device. The good news to all Galaxy users is that the list of software features reserved for the flagships has been shrinking in recent years and currently includes niche things like Samsung DeX.
Despite the major jump up in version, OneUI 6.0 remains very visually and functionally familiar without too many obvious changes. There are some small things here and there - like more freedom to move your clock widget on the lock screen, a new button layout on the quick panel and an enhanced notification layout in the notification shade.
The home screen has simplified icon labels, and you can now drag and drop icons from one screen to another by holding the icon with one hand and swiping between screens with the other. There is a new Weather insights widget and a Custom camera widget that can launch the camera straight into a selected camera mode.
There are some small behavioral changes with settings as well. Airplane mode, for example, has gotten smarter and now remembers the last time you had Bluetooth or Wi-Fi turned on alongside Airplane mode and restores said state automatically. Battery settings now get their own top-level menu for easier access. The Digital Wellbeing menu has been redesigned to be more easily legible.
Samsung's new Auto Blocker is a one-stop shop for all of your privacy and security needs. You get automatic checks for things like malware and suggestions and some neat optional features like preventing unknown apps from being installed, blocking potentially malicious ADB commands from being executed on the phone, and scanning images for malicious content.
Speaking of Samsung apps, you get quite a few of the company's in-house developed solutions like Samsung Messages, Phone, Contacts, Gallery, Notes, Health, Files, Internet, and Store, often in conjunction with "duplicate" Google apps, for roughly the same function. Samsung isn't shy about including some of its more niche apps as well that many users will never end up using, like the Wearable app, Smart Things, and Global Goals. Members or Samsung Free.
There aren't too many pre-loaded apps that we would outright consider bloatware, but our Galaxy A25 unit came with TikTok, Spotify, Netflix, Facebook, Temu, Happy Color and WoW. Luckily, nothing you can't quickly uninstall and get rid of.
We noticed no ads within One UI 6 on the Galaxy A25 as is usually the case.
Performance
The Galaxy A25 is based on Samsung's Exynos 1280 chipset. It is a fairly modern part from 2022 made on a 5nm LPE (EUV) manufacturing process. We have already seen this chipset perform quite adequately in the past in devices like the Galaxy A53 5G and the Galaxy A33 5G. It has an octa-core CPU configuration with two ARM Cortex-A78 cores working at up to 2.4GHz and another six Cortex-A55 ones clocked at 2.0 GHz. The onboard GPU is a Mali-G68 unit.
The Exynos 1280 is paired with either 6GB or 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB or 256GB of onboard storage. Our test unit, which we ran the benchmarks on, is a base 6GB/128GB one.
Let's start with GeekBench and some CPU testing. First off, it is encouraging to see that Samsung seems to have squeezed some extra performance out of the Exynos 1280 since it clearly performs better inside the Galaxy A25 compared to, say, the Galaxy A53 5G. This could be down to many things, including faster memory or storage and OS improvements. Still, it is a pleasant finding.
GeekBench 6
- Multi-core
- Single-core
Motorola Edge 40
Motorola Edge 40 Neo
Galaxy A34
Realme 11 Pro
Tecno Pova 5 Pro
Galaxy A25
Moto G84
In the grander scheme of things, the Exynos 1280 seems to perform a bit better than the Snapdragon 695 and the Snapdragon 4 Gen 1 in both single and multi-core CPU tasks. The Dimensity 6080 is mostly trading blows with it back and forth, as well as the Dimensity 7050. Anything from MediaTek's 80xx line is superior, though, and so is the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 inside the Poco X6.
The Dimensity 1080 seems to be slightly better in overall performance - a reality backed up by AnTuTu and its much more compound set of tests that also take into account things like storage and memory speed. The Galaxy A34 outpaces the A25 by a bit and the A54 has a bigger lead still.
AnTuTu
- v9
- v10
Motorola Edge 40
Poco X5 Pro
Motorola Edge 40 Neo
Galaxy A54
Galaxy A34
Galaxy A25
Poco X5
Neither is near the top in overall performance in this price range, however. That honor seems to go to the Motorola Edge 40 and the Infinix GT 10 Pro, rocking the MediaTek 8020 and 8050, respectively. Still, the Galaxy A25 definitely holds its own well and offers a nice little bump in AnTuTu score over its A24 predecessor.
3Dmark largely paints the same picture as AnTuTu, with the Motorola Edge 40 and the Infinix GT 10 Pro topping the chart. When it comes to GPU performance, the Mali-G68 inside the Galaxy A25 seems to be about on par with the Dimensity 1080 and the Dimensity 7050 since all of these chips share the same GPU setup. And said setup offers a commanding lead ahead of the Mali-G57 MC2 crowd, as found inside the Helio G99, Dimensity 6080 and Dimensity 700, as well as the Adreno 619 on the Qualcomm side of things.
3DMark (offscreen)
- Wild Life (1440p)
- Wild Life Extreme (2160p)
Infinix GT 10 Pro
Motorola Edge 40
Poco X6
Galaxy A54
Motorola Edge 40 Neo
Galaxy A25
Galaxy A34
In more practical terms, we found the Galaxy A25 runs smoothly with no noticeable hiccups or slowdowns. It has plenty of power for daily tasks as well as some casual gaming.
The Galaxy A25 never gets overly hot to the touch, even after extreme stress testing. The included passive cooling solution seems to handle the heat output of the Exynos 1280 quite well, too. The Galaxy A25 doesn't thermal-throttle suddenly or aggressively, offering a smooth performance curve instead.
Thermal-throttling
Reader comments
- Anonymous
- 18 May 2024
- nG0
It's Samsung who make the decision when to release their security updates and how often. I did get a security update dated 1 April 2024, the day after you posted this which is better. I'm now waiting for the One UI 6.1 update. I don'...