Samsung Galaxy S25 series hot take

Samsung's first Unpacked of the year is arguably its most important event yet. It set the tone for much of the smartphone market in the first half of 2025 and introduces Samsung's flagship for the year, the Galaxy S25 Ultra. The Galaxy S25 and S25+ tagged along, which is probably the highest praise we could give them. Oh, and Samsung teased a Galaxy S25 Edge and while it's featuring around four edges, it has little to do with its legendary namesakes.

So without further ado, here's our hot take on the series.

One UI 7 is great, AI finally looks appealing

The first half hour of Samsung's 1 hour and 10 minutes January 2025 Unpacked presentation was all about One UI and AI, so it's only right we start with that.

For the first time, Samsung delayed its One UI update from late fall to mid-winter. Seeing the end result makes that delay feel worth it. The new take on Samsung's UI feels fresh and, crucially, faster. And it brings unprecedented features, such as a vertical app drawer - just imagine all the possibilities!

Jokes aside, the new Gemini-powered AI smarts feel worthwhile - not just gimmicks. Circle to Search can now recognize phone numbers, emails, and URLs for quick actions. Multimodal AI agents interpret text, speech, images, and even videos for natural interactions - you can ask Gemini to find a specific photo in Gallery, for instance. Search is content-aware suggesting your next step - sharing a GIF, or saving an event.

Natural language input allows you to control certain phone features. For instance, you can voice search your Gallery and ask the AI assistant to pull out photos from your trip to a particular place. You can even ask it to enlarge the font if it's too small!

We love the Galaxy S25 Ultra's new design

The Galaxy S Ultra entered its rectangular phase in early 2022 with the Galaxy S22 Ultra. It was distinctive and unique, and it lent itself adeptly for a pen-equipped phone.

But the new rounded-off shape looks smarter and even more importantly, it brings a major improvement to handling. The Galaxy S25 Ultra is a big phone and this makes it a comfortable one in the hand.

Impressively, Samsung made the display 0.1-inch bigger, the phone 0.4mm thinner, and 14g lighter, without compromising durability or the size of internals like the battery!

The best display glass gets even better

The Galaxy S24 Ultra remained the only phone with an anti-reflection display on the market despite rumors that other manufacturers would come out with the same tech. The less-reflective display proved amazing for outdoor visibility, as our summertime battery test proved.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra could've easily sat on that lead, but it brings a further improved panel - the Gorilla Armor 2 retains its anti-reflection coating, but is brighter and more durable.

The new 50MP ultrawide sounds good on paper, but early samples are not convincing

Samsung upgraded only the ultrawide angle camera on the Galaxy S25 Ultra - the other 12 cameras across the Ultra, Plus, and Vanilla remained unchanged. Gone is the 12MP sensor with f/2.2 optics, in comes a new 50MP imager with a brighter f/1.9 lens. The focal length remains at 120°.

The higher-megapixel camera opens up 8K videos and should, on paper, produce ultrawides with more detail, while its upgraded aperture should deliver nicer shots in low light.

However, we're not seeing it in our first samples. We have two camera comparisons between the Galaxy S24 Ultra and S25 Ultra (part 1, part 2) and we can't easily say the new camera is better. The older one seems to produce sharper photos with more detail.

That's a theme throughout - the main 200MP camera enjoys the newer (and likely faster) ISP of the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip and yet, we're seeing sharper and more detailed images from the older phone.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra is the worst Ultra in the world at photography

Compare the Samsung Ultra to the Xiaomi 14 Ultra, vivo's X100 Ultra, Huawei's Pura 70 Ultra, or Oppo Find X7 Ultra and it will come out last in overall imaging performance. It's not a good look for the company that invented the segment.

S Pen downgrade, really???

Bewilderingly, Samsung took away Bluetooth connectivity from the S Pen in the Galaxy S25 Ultra. There's also no accelerometer, meaning no Air Actions. The S Pen used to be the best remote shutter in the world and now it's just a stylus. Very strange.

Only Snapdragon 8 Elite Mobile Platform for Galaxy

The Snapdragon 8 Elite is a major step up from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. The "for Galaxy" denotes slightly higher clock speeds on the main 2x Oryon V2 Phoenix L cores, the GPU, and the NPU. The "original" SD 8 Elite has them at 4.32 GHz, while the Galaxy-exclusive CPU runs at 4.47 GHz.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

• 256GB 12GB RAM$ 1,299.99
• 512GB 12GB RAM$ 1,299.99

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Fans around the world will be happy that every single Galaxy S25 unit across the globe uses this chipset.

The Galaxy S25 and S25+ are boring

Aside from the new chipset, the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25+ are unchanged from their predecessors. They have the same displays, the same batteries, the same charging speeds, and the same cameras.

They didn't get the anti-reflective display, the new ultrawide camera, or even an autofocusing ultrawide. But hey, the Galaxy S25 now comes with the same 12GB of RAM as the Plus and Ultra.

No global variant with 16GB of RAM

But seriously, only 12GB of RAM on the Galaxy S25 Ultra sounds insulting. The Pixel 9 Pro has 16GB, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra tops out at 16GB, while the OnePlus 13 even has up to 24GB of RAM.

Samsung Galaxy S25

• 128GB 12GB RAM$ 799.99
• 256GB 12GB RAM$ 809.99

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Yes, there is a 16GB Galaxy S24 Ultra, technically, but you can't buy one outside of Korea, China, and Taiwan. Once again, it's not a good look.

There's a Galaxy S25 Edge now

Samsung teased the Galaxy S25 Edge. Rumored as the S25 Slim, the Edge resurrects a line of legendary handhelds by Samsung. The first was the Galaxy Note Edge which had a sloping right edge that opened up additional functionality, like the Edge screen. Others, like the Galaxy S6 edge, S6 edge+, and Galaxy S7 edge had two sloping edges that felt as sharp as a knife back then.

The new Galaxy S25 Edge seems blunt by comparison. It looks more like a Galaxy Alpha.

Are there now too many models?

There may be at least one Galaxy S25 model too many now. If Samsung brings out a Galaxy S25 FE later on, it would make the series even harder to navigate. We may be ready for a world where the smallest Galaxy S or the middle one is unneeded.

Samsung Galaxy S25+

• 256GB 12GB RAM$ 999.99
• 512GB 12GB RAM$ 1,019.99

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