Samsung Galaxy S25+ review

7 February 2025


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jiyen235, 17 hours agopreferably jn5 cus i think it takes better pics, for exampl... moreWhy lyt-818 over ov50h?

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    • 17 hours ago

    Gsmarena sets score from the money they got from manufacturers

      vik457, 17 hours agoSo like lyt-818/ov50h main cam, jn3 ultrawide and jn3 3x wi... morepreferably jn5 cus i think it takes better pics, for example the S25U compared to the Oneplus 13, so a jn5 UW cam would be nice as for the 3x i think the IMX854/IMX858 would be sufficient, well they'd be an upgrade over whatever they have now at least lol I do like the Xiaomi's 3.2x cam tho I have a feeling that Samsung will never in a million years have a cam as large as that, with a zoom level like that, with an aperture as bright as that. f/1.8..... Xiaomi cooked hard lol. So I think, to be safe, an OV64B or the LYT-600 would be fine.

      So, an HP2/OV50H/LYT-818 (preferably the LYT one) main cam, JN5 UW cam with f/1.9 aperture like the S25 Ultra and an OV64B 3x cam OR an IMX858 3x cam with f/1.8 aperture.

        jiyen235, 18 hours agoIf they had a 1/1.3" main cam, the UW cam with autofoc... moreSo like lyt-818/ov50h main cam, jn3 ultrawide and jn3 3x with alop?

          Kangal, 20 hours agoYou raise excellent points. However, the S25+ has the best... moreIf they had a 1/1.3" main cam, the UW cam with autofocus and the same sensor they use for the 5x on the S25 U for the 3x for the S25+, I'd have been singing a different tune.

          You do you man but I think unless you get this phone for 700 dollars or lower, you're just gonna be wasting money by going for this. For your gaming use case, the IQOO 13 to me is far superior. There's no way the S25+ can handle emulation properly, as Samsung not only has inferior cooling compared to other brands but they also have horrible throttling now too. Save your money and use the IQOO 13, im sure you'll be happy. You were eyeing the S24+ despite having a Pixel 8 Pro, so much for the long term updates lol

            SShock, 20 hours agoNot supplying a charger is absurd, but including cable that... morei mean, if both chinese and mainstream companies are gonna remove the charger, which would you be happier with, a slower charging phone or a faster one? I'm not defending this practice, all im saying is that if Samsung, Google or Apple supplied a charger in the box to make up for their slow charging it'd have been fine but they have both slow charging AND no charger in the box lol double whammy

              SShock, 20 hours agoNot supplying a charger is absurd, but including cable that... moreIt's region dependent for Chinese brands. Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo and Honor are no longer supplying chargers in the box in their newly launched phones in Europe (the EU at least). Of the Chinese brands in Europe, only Nubia seems to still come with a charger in the box with their latest flagship as far as I can see

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                David 040882, 22 hours agoThen what does "Generational upgrades are far and far ... moreProblem :

                Zenfone 11 + 8 elite = zenfone 12
                Gsmarena: 😒

                S24Plus + 8 elite = S25 Plus
                Gsmarena: 😏

                  jiyen235, 06 Feb 2025I wonder why they put the Xiaomi 14 Ultra by default in the... moreAt this point, it's safe to say that the star rating has nothing to do with the content of the test, but rather with the content of the check.

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                    • 20 hours ago

                    It is amazing how terrible this camera is. Like seriously, the colours are WAY off

                      rant:
                      Hey, at least with my current setup I have something pocketable, with the Razer JungleCat. Also I'm able to emulate upto Wii flawlessly. I treat the rest: WindowsXp, Xbox, PS Vita, NSwitch, as bonus content. All that in a setup (Pixel 8 Pro) that won't void my warranty, and that has 8 years software support.

                      In terms emulation, soon in the luxury phone market, we will experience emulation of Xbox 360, PS3, WiiU, and Windows7 games in the mainstream. It's almost ready. And soon after that, they will get polished, optimised, and should run flawlessly. But we are still a long way out from XB1, PS4, XSS, PS5, and Windows10 emulation, and they won't make the jump to the pocketable handheld category, will be exclusive to portable device form-factor. So an iPad Pro Mini, SteamDeck-2, or Lenovo Legion 2 would be the way forwards.

                        jiyen235, 22 hours agoI don't care what exact sensor they use, the 1/1.56&qu... moreYou raise excellent points.
                        However, the S25+ has the best physical size and weight in the flagship market. All other devices seem to be way larger or way heavier.

                        I was considering the S24+ for this reason, and it's 7-Year support. The S23U/S24U and now the S25U are just too heavy, too big, and not a fan of the sharper corners. So I went with an inferior Pixel 8 Pro for the Custom Roms, and now it feels like a midrange (QC 7g2+) device at a luxury device price.

                        I just wished Samsung would treat the S25+ like the S25U, just with the known changes. Smaller battery, smaller screen, S Pen support but No Silo, maybe one-camera less.... but keep all the other components the same technology and high luxury quality. The price demands it. Basically barking at moon, but it would be great if Samsung had a Developer Mode, where you can void the warranty but they let you Unlock Bootloader and apply Custom Firmware. Now they block you, and void your warranty for any reason they want to, even worse Customer Service than what Apple has.

                          Not supplying a charger is absurd, but including cable that's not even capable of charging at 45W when you do provide powerful enough charger is just insane. Not only this shouldn't be allowed, Samsung shouldn't be allowed to advertise charging speeds at all when they go out of their way for users not to receive the advertised speeds. Like, most normies, even if they happen to somehow buy expensive fast charger, they usually come without the cable which means they'll use Samsung's one which won't even charge fast enough. But normies won't even notice and that's that. This should be illegal worldwide.

                          Props to Chines phone makers who brag about charge speeds and then also actually include both cable and charger to deliver those claims.

                            Since all S25 versions are modest upgrades over last year's, and even then they're not so different between one another, couldn't we have had one test article with all of them in one place?
                            How many times can one read on One UI 7 AI features that are identical across all three phones?

                              DerLuke, 22 hours agoJust a comment on video recording tests- saw some YouTube r... morei don't think it really matters, at best proper video recording could lead to 2-5% more power usage. Because as you said, it's always scanning and processing things, yeah it's unrealistic but it's better to have a point of comparison than to not.

                                jiyen235, 22 hours agoI don't care what exact sensor they use, the 1/1.56&qu... moreJust a comment on video recording tests- saw some YouTube reviewers to do those with phones on the table. in other words Black screen. I can only imagine how unrealistic that is, there is constant watchdog, focus,ai, imagine scanning, etc which could misbehave when people are recording with camera covered... If i was writing the software I'd even consider camera module crashed and force restart it periodically...

                                But yes, recording, encoding, saving..
                                iPhone 15 pro max ultra was even crashing and powering off upon release, if i recall correctly..
                                My son's nothing phone 2a gets very hot when recording videos too..

                                On the topic of Sxx+, Samsung have always priced it very close to Ultra, but without Wacom capabilities..it makes no sense to pick +. It's just a trap, idk why but they don't want people buying + at all :(


                                Edit: I'm the same Luke, had to register at the end

                                  Romeozero, 07 Feb 2025Really lack of competitiveness and attractiveness at this p... moremaybe in your country...

                                    vik457, 23 hours agoNo the sensor is gn3 while a55 has imx906, they have been r... moreI don't care what exact sensor they use, the 1/1.56" sensor market is only there for flagship killers or midrangers, there's not gonna be a magic sensor that's gonna be perfect at this class. My point is that they both use the same sized main sensor, with the same aperture as well, NO upgrades for the more expensive phone other than software processing.

                                    And yeah, Samsung has the worst telephoto out there of the main players, it was impressive back with the S21 Ultra as they were able to cram in 2 long range telephotos but it seems Samsung's still stuck in 2021 whereas everyone's gone ahead lol. And no autofocus on UW cam is just sickening, even the base iPhone 16 gets it..... Apple's less greedy than Samsung in a way, ofc, that phone is 60 hz only but im just talking about camera specs.

                                    Also, you're right, the speakers are good but not amazing and certainly not a plus point of this phone especially considering the high price, the Oneplus 13 is louder and better, you can just turn down the volume of that phone for better dynamics than this phone at the same loudness with a better FR.

                                    Idk about sustained brightness, i haven't seen any proper tests done on that apart from just one vid done by Tech Droider recently and the beach test GSMArena did a little while ago. I did see a video by HuashengTest/PeanutTalks about 2024 Ultras and Xiaomi and Samsung are the ones who hold the brightness for longest, with Vivo having high brightness but only for 2-ish mins.

                                    And yeah, these battery test numbers don't really line up with what we see on other tests, I think it's always best to just use these as a simple guide, a small sample, not as the rule. Combine the results of a handful of tests and you'll see some patterns and that's the important thing. For example based on the numbers on this website the X200 Pro is not even better than the S24 Ultra but in tests done by The Tech Chap you can see it's actually even better than the iPhone 16 Pro Max lol, the main thing that always helps Apple and Samsung from what I've seen is video recording. This is the scenario where Chinese phones just choke and Apple and Samsung gain the lead. If a phone test has a video recording test for a long time then iPhones and Galaxies come close to the Chinese phones and if it's based on apps and games then the Chinese phones are far superior. Go watch XEETECHCARE's battery drain test on the S25U vs the X200 Pro and stuff. You'll see what I mean.

                                    People made fun of IQOO for downgrading the camera system but it's not far off from this phone, only the telephoto cam is inferior and only cus of zoom range, otherwise the IQOO is a far better buy imo, 90% of this phone in terms of camera and even better everywhere else like battery, charging, speakers, sustained performance and display for 30% cheaper.

                                      jiyen235, 22 hours agoDoesn't explain why the S25 Ultra has a far superior b... moreHm, might well be.. if the browsing tests were done in night mode in (e.g dark background), that would probably tell more about display efficiency...

                                      Sxx+ was never a good deal. Samsung pricing was always putting it very close to Ultra and without Wacom capabilities...it made no sense picking it at all..for me + was always a trap...

                                        Anonymous, 07 Feb 2025No upgrades = Con against Zenfone but not Galaxy Wow !! Then what does "Generational upgrades are far and far between" mean on the cons list, eh?

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