Samsung Galaxy S25+ review

Display

The Galaxy S25+ employs the same display we saw on the Galaxy S24+ - a 6.7-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel with 1,440 x 3,120 pixels, up to 120Hz refresh rate, and HDR10+ support.

The screen has a small perforation for the selfie camera and is protected with a Gorilla Glass Victus 2 sheet.

According to Samsung, the maximum peak brightness is also unchanged since last year - 2,600 nits.

Our display measurements show that little has changed since the Galaxy S24+, quite expectedly. The maximum brightness when controlling it manually was 442 nits without boost and 765 nits with the extra brightness boost. This is in the same ballpark as the Galaxy S24+ and Galaxy S23+ screens.

The maximum automatic brightness we captured on the Galaxy S25+ was 1,449 nits, about the same as on the Galaxy S24+ and higher than the Galaxy S23+.

The minimum brightness at point white was just 1 nit.

The Galaxy S25+ offers two refresh rate modes - Adaptive and Standard. Do not let these descriptions fool you, as, in fact, both modes are adaptive and will continuously switch refresh rates, but only the Adaptive one will max out at 120Hz, while Standard is limited to 60Hz. Adaptive will also work at 120Hz in compatible games.

The Adaptive mode is also, well, more adaptive, by trying to better match Hz to the fps of the currently playing videos, while Standard will just fix the refresh rate at either 30Hz or 60Hz for most of the videos.

The screen will drop to the minimum of 1Hz for static content, regardless of the mode.

Finally, the small Galaxy S25+ supports HDR10 and HDR10+ - no Dolby Vision video here, as usual. YouTube served us HDR streams and so did Netflix, in FullHD too thanks to the Widevine L1 compliance.

The Galaxy S25+ also supports the Android Ultra HDR standard and will boost highlights for metadata-enhanced photos taken on it, or on other standard-abiding handsets. It works in the in-house Gallery, as well as Google Photos and Chrome.

Battery life

The Galaxy S25+ has a 4,900 mAh battery, just like the S24+ before it.

In our testing, the S25+ offered a nice little battery life bump over its predecessor. We got a small improvement in our call test and a bigger improvement in our gaming test (possibly courtesy of the Snapdragon 8 Elite). The web browsing and video streaming numbers are similar to what we had on the S24+. Overall, the S25+ got a solid Active Use Score of 14:26 hours.

Update, 09 Feb: Following further retesting, the web browsing/socials result has been adjusted to a higher figure, and the gaming result has been adjusted to a lower figure after the review publishing. We've updated the Active Use score below to reflect the new results.

Our new Active Use Score is an estimate of how long the battery will last if you use the device with a mix of all four test activities. You can adjust the calculation based on your usage pattern using the sliders below. You can read about our current battery life testing procedure here. For a comprehensive list of all tested devices so far, head this way.

Charging speed

The Galaxy S25+ supports 45W fast wired charging, or as Samsung likes to call it, Fast Charging 2.0.

The phone also supports 15W wireless and reverse wireless charging. Samsung has updated the wireless charging to be Qi 2.1 Ready, which means you get support for magnetic wireless charging accessories, but there are no magnets inside the phone (hence the Ready moniker), so to use the feature, you need a case that has magnets built-in.

Of course, the S25+ ships without a charger, or if you get a bonus one from your retailer, it will be the 25W power adapter, which will still get the job done, but not in the fastest possible time.

Update, 09 Feb: With further testing, we found out that Galaxy S25+ no longer requires a 5A cable/charger to reach its max charging power. The 3A cable that arrives in the box gave us a peak of 39W (13V/3A) when paired with the 45W Samsung charger, which means it can use higher voltage but lower amperes to achieve the same charging power.

This mode of charging is not possible with the S24+, which requires a 5A cable and a 5A charger to reach its peak charging power of 42W (9V/4.6A).

What's great about this change is that now you can enjoy the fastest possible charging speeds on the S25+ with the cable in the box and any USB-PD/PPS charger you may have that's only capable of outputting 3-3.25A max (like many chargers rated at 65W). You can, of course, still use a 5A cable/charger combo if you have one, but this widens your fast charging options considerably.

We used Samsung's 45W power adapter with its bundled 5A-rated cable for our test result below. We recorded 42% of charge in 15 minutes, 75% in 30 minutes and 100% in 58 minutes. Overall, just like most other recent Samsung flagships, the S25+ charges fully in about an hour.

On the plus side, slower charging may be easier on the battery longevity in the long run. Additionally, Samsung offers a few Battery Protection options if you feel that extra care is needed. You can choose between Basic (stops at 100% and starts again after a 5% drop); Adaptive (adjusts by your charging and sleep patterns); or Maximum (you can choose a custom limit 80%/85%/90%/95%).

Speakers - loudness and quality

The Galaxy S25+ has stereo speakers of the hybrid variety - meaning there is one speaker at the bottom of the phone, and the earpiece acts as a second one. Just like any other hybrid pair, the earpiece is quieter and focuses mostly on high and mid-tones, while the bottom full-blown speaker has bass and good vocals.

The Galaxy S25+ also supports Dolby Atmos with Movie, Music, Voice and Auto presets. There is also a specific Dolby Atmos for Games option.

The S25+ seems to feature a speaker system with a tuning similar to the S24+. It also managed to get a very good score in our testing. The audio quality is very good, too - the vocals are great, and the high frequencies are well presented, but the bass is barely there.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.