Samsung's first Unpacked event of 2025 brought the Galaxy S25 series, and while the hardware changes may seem iterative at first glance, there's a lot more going on inside that could make these devices some of the best phones of the year.
Galaxy S25 Ultra leads the way in power
The Galaxy S25 Ultra continues Samsung's overall design language from last year, but with a few improvements. For starters, it's the thinnest and lightest Ultra yet, weighing in at 218 grams and measuring 8.2mm thick, compared to the S24 Ultra's 233 grams and 8.6mm. In the grand scheme of things, a 15-gram difference won't mean much, but with the Ultra being one of the largest phones on the market, it's nice to see Samsung slim down the weight and thickness as much as possible without sacrificing any core features.
The real upgrade here is the new Snapdragon 8 Elite chip for Galaxy. Samsung claims a significant performance boost of 40 percent in the NPU, 37 percent in the CPU, and 30 percent in the GPU compared to last year's model. We've seen other devices like the OnePlus 13 use this chipset, but given Samsung's "For Galaxy" moniker, you can expect these phones to have slightly higher clock speeds across the board, which could give Samsung devices a slight edge.
Particularly noteworthy is the improved thermal management. Samsung has increased the vapor chamber size by 40% and implemented a new thermal interface material, which helps maintain increased performance during extended use.
In terms of cameras, the Ultra has seen some meaningful upgrades this year. The ultra-wide camera has been bumped up from 12MP to 50MP, which should help bring out more detail not only in landscape shots but also improve macro shots. The rest of the setup remains familiar with a 200MP main sensor, a 50MP 5x telephoto lens, and a 10MP 3x telephoto lens.
Honestly, what people are most excited about in terms of camera quality is the default 10-bit HDR recording and improved log support, which will be interesting to compare with the iPhone 16 Pro , which is currently the gold standard in smartphone video.
Aside from those changes, the biggest visual difference with this year's Ultra phones is the rounded edges. The Galaxy S25 Ultra follows the same flat, rounded edges style as the smaller S25 and S25+ phones, making the Ultra much easier to hold.
Still, it's clear that this design language, which is blatantly copied from the iPhone and subsequent Pixel line, makes the S25 Ultra feel more generic than it needs to be.
S25+ and S25 get a bunch of upgrades
The regular S25 and S25+, which look identical to the S24 and S24+, also get a host of upgrades. Both devices now feature recycled materials in every external component, a first for the series, and include recycled aluminum in the frame.
Both phones share the same Snapdragon 8 Elite chip for the Galaxy as the Ultra, with the main differences coming in the camera and battery size – 4,900mAh for the Plus model and 4,000mAh for the base model.
Aside from the chipset, this year has been another year of very minor changes, with the rest of the phone's hardware being almost identical to the Galaxy S24 and S24+. While it's commendable to see Samsung starting to introduce more meaningful and sustainable approaches to its supply chain, the end-user experience hasn't really changed much this year for the base models. That's a shame, because these are the devices that would benefit the most from a visual overhaul.
Galaxy AI is more contextual
On the software side, Samsung is bringing Android 15 via One UI 7 along with a few upgrades to its Galaxy AI suite. The interesting part of the Galaxy S25 software suite isn't necessarily the individual features, but rather Samsung's approach to contextual awareness. The phones now use what Samsung calls a Personal Data Engine to analyze a user's usage patterns on the device and enable a more personalized experience while keeping the data private.
Some practical applications include the new Now Brief feature, proactively making suggestions via the Now Bar on the lock screen, and better understanding of natural language when searching the photo library or adjusting system settings.
There's also a new Audio Eraser feature for videos that lets you isolate and delete specific audio categories similar to what we saw with the iPhone 16 series.
It'll be interesting to see how all these new AI features play out in real-world testing, but what's constant with Samsung's software promises is its commitment to software upgrades and security for an amazing seven years.
Overall, while it may seem like an iterative update on the surface, the combination of the new Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, improved thermal management, and more sophisticated AI features makes it feel like a more significant upgrade than in recent years. The Ultra, with its improved ultra-wide camera and new build materials, is shaping up to be a compelling option for power users.
The real test will be how all these AI features perform in everyday use, and whether the new chip can maintain its performance over time. But from what we’ve seen so far, Samsung seems to be making meaningful strides, even if not all of it is immediately visible.
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