Samsung Galaxy S25 and S25+ hands-on: Slimmer, but a little too similar

In just a few years, Samsung has built up a substantial collection of artificial intelligence tricks, features and apps. While some of them have been impressive, like live translation and annotation, others (often involving generative AI) aren’t actually helpful — or notable — enough to warrant regular use.

The latest trio of Galaxy S flagship phones means another barrage of AI. Samsung has saved the best hardware for its S25 Ultra, of course, but the company also has smaller (and cheaper) flagships, with the Galaxy S25 ($800) and larger S25+ ($1,000) both launching at the same time.

And those AI features could be more crucial for the base S25 and larger S25+. Aside from the addition of a potent new chip, the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, there’s not a lot here to differentiate from last year’s Galaxy S24. In fact, you really have to look for changes.

The Galaxy S25 and S25+ are as premium and solidly built as any of their predecessors. Once again, the company has gone for aluminum frames, while the S25 Ultra gets the favorable titanium treatment. There’s also Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 across both the screen and the back of the devices, with a trio of cameras (the same again) standing out as the only detail on the otherwise smooth backs. All of the devices’ edges are flat just like their predecessors — even the S25 Ultra’s design has caught up here too. Is this more comfortable than the curvier sides? I don’t think anyone knows. We’ve seen Samsung, Apple and many others flit from rounded to flattened edges. I don’t know anymore.

But, boy, are they skinny. Does the Galaxy S25 “slim” exist? I’m not sure it needs to: This year’s S-series models are the slimmest we’ve seen in nearly a decade – barring Samsung’s foldables (… unfolded). Both the S25 and S25+ are 0.4mm thinner than their predecessors. That makes the S25 the thinnest Galaxy phone since the 6.8mm Galaxy S6. They’re both more pocketable because of this change, but I have an oversized affection for the base S25. It’s bigger, but it reminds me of the Apple iPhone mini (RIP).

As you’d expect from Samsung, the AMOLED displays on these new phones are vivid, bright and gorgeous, with refresh rates up to 120Hz. The smaller 6.2-inch S25 has an FHD+ resolution, which is fine for a screen this size. Fortunately, the bigger S25+ has a higher-res qHD+ 6.7-inch display.

So what’s the biggest upgrade this year? It’s a bit dry, but it’s the chip. The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy is the biggest hardware upgrade since last year. Samsung claims the S25’s CPU is 37 percent faster than its predecessor, with 40 percent improvements on the NPU, and a 30 percent more powerful GPU. Those are substantial jumps.

Given the hardware has barely changed, AI improvements and upgrades are the core focus for the Galaxy S25 series. Some features were unavailable during my briefing or will require a closer look and deeper testing. Some are intriguing, though, like a new spatial-temporal filter on the camera app. It’s a Samsung exclusive since it relies on the custom Snapdragon 8 Elite chip and adds more power to noise analysis, as well as the ability to apparently maintain crispness of photo and video subjects while taming blurring backgrounds and low-light noise.

Samsung says its new AI image processing with ProScaler offers 40 percent improvements to its AI images only on the S25+ and S25 Ultra. If you’re looking for video upgrades, the S25 series all records 10-bit color profile video by default, while Audio Eraser offers some AI-augmented noise removal, although the benefits were difficult to discern during my brief time with the devices.

A new large language model is also part of the S25’s camera processing, which the company says will improve Portrait mode results and generative AI editing like object removal. Sadly, there is no sign of the Pixel’s “Add Me” — arguably the best application of AI and photography on a phone. However, Samsung has also used its AI improvements (and the more powerful chip) to substantially improve the generative AI selfies inside the S25’s Portrait Studio. Just look at what it did with my face at our briefing. This is a pretty decent line drawing — and yes I was wearing a neckerchief.

Like we’ve mentioned elsewhere, Samsung has refined its existing AI features. A new AI select button will appear when you tap on the side panel, suggesting what you might want to do, based on the context of what the S25 can “see” on screen; Circle to Search can now figure out what to search based on sound too, using Google’s existing Shazam-like hum-to-search feature. Cross-app smarts that integrate Google’s Gemini mean the voice assistant can dip in and out of multiple apps to add appointments, figure out routes and set reminders. From my brief testing, this appears to involve only core Samsung and Google apps, which could constrain exactly how useful this is. I’m at least intrigued and want to test this out in real life.

Another feature that demands real-world testing is Samsung’s new “Now Bar” and “Now Brief,” which is meant to collate your smartphone life and schedules into, hopefully, a single place. It’ll offer up a morning and evening briefing, even pulling in sleep and wearable data for some wellness and health insights.

One feature Samsung mentioned but did not hugely elaborate on was the S25’s Personal Data Engine, which will analyze user context, patterns and preferences to deliver a personalized way of using your new Samsung device. I’d imagine that taps into “Now Brief,” which seems similar to iOS’s daily summaries, offering up a curated selection of your schedule, weather updates, travel plans and even fitness and health insights from all those Galaxy wearables. Whether this offers some truly personalized experiences within One UI 7 will only be clear once we’re using these phones, but it’s hard to imagine it’ll be all that game-changing. Let’s see if the S25 can change my mind, Samsung.