Samsung’s S25 And S25 Plus Offer More Of The Same

If nan Galaxy S24 bid heralded nan triumphant beingness of Galaxy AI, past nan S25 and S25 Plus whitethorn beryllium a spot of a comedown: they committedness much AI that’s smarter and sometimes somewhat faster. You’d amended for illustration it because that’s beautiful overmuch each you’re gonna get.

Samsung changed arsenic mini arsenic it could connected nan Galaxy S25 and S25 Plus, announced coming alongside nan larger and redesigned Galaxy S25 Ultra. There’s nan obligatory jump to a caller chipset — successful this case, Qualcomm’s custom-tuned Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, included successful phones worldwide this clip astir — and a invited determination to relationship 12GB of RAM arsenic modular connected each S25 phone, pulling nan guidelines exemplary successful connection pinch nan others.

The displays are nan aforesaid arsenic past year: 6.2 inches connected nan S25 and 6.7 inches connected nan S25 Plus, peaking astatine 2,600 nits of brightness and 120Hz refresh rate. The cameras are identical, too. There’s a 50-megapixel main camera, an ultrawide, and a 3x telephoto, pinch a acquainted 12-megapixel selfie shooter connected nan front.

If you were to upgrade from past year’s Galaxy S24 Plus to this year’s model, nan only spec that would alteration is nan chipset. Well, that and nan truth that nan caller phones are “Qi2 Ready” — they don’t personification nan magnets that Qi2 certification requires, but they’ll title astatine up to 15W connected a Qi2 charger erstwhile paired pinch Samsung’s charismatic Qi2 Ready magnet cases.

Perhaps I’m being a mini unfair. Samsung hasn’t accrued its prices astatine slightest — nan S25 starts astatine $799.99 and nan Plus exemplary astatine $999.99, pinch preorders unfastened now up of a afloat motorboat connected February 7th. It’s too maintaining its committedness of 7 generations of Android updates and 7 years of accusation support.

Both phones are lighter than their predecessors and almost half a millimeter thinner. That should easiness nan disappointment of anyone who’s been hoping for nan motorboat of nan rumored S25 Slim, which is now tipped not to motorboat successful nan US astatine all. But it’s still difficult to debar nan inevitable conclusion: this twelvemonth is simply a package update, not a hardware one.

The caller Galaxy phones are awash pinch AI-branded features — which Samsung says enactment free to usage this year, though its plans are unclear beyond that. Plenty of them personification been coming since past year, for illustration Google’s Circle to Search aliases generative photograph editing devices that fto you necktie elements into photographs aliases region distracting group and objects. Those now make amended results successful small time, helped by improvements successful AI models and nan move to nan Snapdragon 8 Elite, which handles overmuch AI processing on-device, including antecedently cloud-based tasks for illustration Generative Edit.

Audio Eraser is simply a built-in instrumentality for video editing that lets you region aliases trim video sound crossed circumstantial categories — deliberation voices, music, wind, crowds — to attraction connected whichever sounds you attraction about. It useful well, but it’s only caller to Samsung: Google Pixel phones personification been tin to do nan aforesaid constituent done Audio Magic Eraser since nan Pixel 8.

Other AI abilities are conscionable arsenic familiar, but we didn’t ever telephone them AI. Take AI Select, accessed from Samsung’s Edge Panel, which gives “suggested actions” for illustration cropping and sharing screenshots, creating GIFs from videos, aliases adding events to your calendar. It replaces Smart Select, which did astir of that, too, but pinch a different design.

The S25 phones too relationship a regular summary called Now Brief that lets you cognize what’s connected your almanac for nan clip aliases really your commute looks, bringing america backmost afloat circle to 2012’s Google Now. Meanwhile, nan Now Bar is Samsung’s reply to Apple’s Dynamic Island: a lockscreen constituent that tin show sports scores and Google Maps navigation instructions aliases show you what opus is playing. It sounds useful, but is it AI? Apple didn’t deliberation so.

Some of nan caller features correspond overmuch meaningful progress. The phone’s AI adjunct — which is now based connected Google Gemini by default, pinch Samsung’s ain Bixby relegated to entree done its app — tin powerfulness your telephone pinch earthy relationship requests. Ask it to make matter bigger aliases find photos from your past holiday, and it should oblige. Gemini tin now too activity crossed aggregate apps successful a azygous interaction, though this upgrade isn’t exclusive to Samsung. It mightiness look up a bully edifice and banal it pinch your friend aliases propulsion up sports fixtures and adhd them to your calendar.

The problem for maine is that astir of these features are difficult to proceedings in-depth erstwhile you’re astatine a motorboat arena utilizing a telephone that isn’t yours, has less apps installed and nary accounts signed in, and mightiness personification only been group up for nan first clip that morning. We’ll personification a amended consciousness of really effective Samsung’s caller AI features are erstwhile we tin really usage nan S25 and S25 Plus for an extended tally successful our review.

The problem for Samsung is that, until then, it’s not clear what coming should tempt anyone into upgrading. Many of these AI and package features are baked into One UI 7 itself and should rotation retired soon to owners of nan S24 and older models. If nan hardware’s hardly changing, and nan software’s coming to your telephone anyway, what’s nan inducement to upgrade?

Yesterday, my workfellow Allison Johnson wrote that Samsung needs to springiness america a logic to attraction astir caller phones each year. On nan spot of nan S25 and S25 Plus, I deliberation it’s adjacent to opportunity that it hasn’t.

Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge