Samsung Galaxy S25: Excellent Hardware Meets Integrated AI You Can Take With You
Key Analysis:
Samsung’s approach to AI on the Galaxy S25 hits the mark: it is well integrated, leans heavily on Google’s Gemini, and becomes more personalized over time. The private data store the Galaxy S25 builds about users can be transferred to other Samsung phones in the future, but only to other Samsung phones, which helps Samsung lock in users to its ecosystem.
This should help Samsung compete against Apple, especially as Apple begins to roll out Apple Intelligence slowly and piecemeal and app developers are just beginning to use Apple’s Intents API. Samsung doesn’t need to beat random Chinese phones on camera capabilities or battery life; Samsung rarely competes with these phones in-market. However, the Galaxy S25’s hardware is broadly competitive, and is now a global design win for Qualcomm.
This is also good news for Google, which needs Android and Gemini to succeed more than it needs Pixel.
Apart from China (and to a lesser extent, Japan), Samsung’s distribution remains excellent. Pricing has remained the same year over year. In the U.S. that’s $799/$999/$1299, and U.S. carriers are lining up with subsidies and trade-in offers.
Integrated, Transferable AI
Samsung is leaning heavily on Google’s Gemini in the latest Galaxy S line, and that makes a big difference in how integrated the AI functionality feels. It is also good for Google, because the Pixel line, while growing, is nowhere near as critical to the health of Android overall as Samsung’s sales volumes are. Following Google’s recent interface standardization, a long press on the home screen button brings up Gemini. Circle to Search has been expanded to search text, images, and even things like music in videos. The conversational search experience using natural language allows users to find photos from the Gallery by describing what they’re looking for, or changing Settings within the phone with phrases like, “please make my text larger,” or “stop turning off the screen so quickly.”
The Galaxy S25 AI allows for multi-step cross-app actions within the Google app suite, the Samsung app suite, and a couple of third-party app. For example, you can ask the phone to “find the next Commanders playoff game and put it on my calendar.” But you can take this further by asking to find a bunch of YouTube videos, summarize them, and add it to Samsung Notes. Third party apps at launch include Spotify and WhatsApp, but more are in the pipeline. Based on previous announcements, Microsoft’s apps are likely among that group.
Samsung claims that the Galaxy S25 gets to know you and becomes more personalized over time with the Personal Data Engine. The phone essentially builds your own personal LLM securely, privately, and on-device, secured with “Knox Post-Quantum Enhanced Data Security.” The security model sounds like Ant Man or Star Trek technobabble, but Samsung assures me that it is real. Your Personal Data Engine will be transferable to future Samsung phones with Smart Switch, but it is NOT backed up in the cloud, so if you lose the phone or restore from the cloud, you will lose the accumulated data.
The net result of having a personalized AI is that it can surface useful information for you automatically (see below) and suggest routines based on your behaviors. For example: it can recommend automatically turning Bluetooth on or off when you go to your car. SmartThings integration allows it to make environmental suggestions during sleep (change the thermostat and turn off Samsung TV once your Galaxy Ring knows you’re asleep). Even if you don’t own multiple Samsung devices, the AI learns your interests for Morning Insight and Evening Briefs. This includes obvious things like weather and traffic in the morning and less obvious things like the Evening Brief surfacing tasks – or birthdays – that you missed during day, and alerts that you have an early meeting the next morning and might want to change your alarm. The AI does nothing on its own; the user is always prompted to accept or reject any of the suggestions. This customization also extends to the Now Bar – quick actionable items and essential notifications that appear on the lock screen.
If this works, it will make leaving the Samsung ecosystem much, much harder and provide a better moat against Apple.
[Updated Jan 23, 2025] All the functionality described above will work without a separate paid subscription for Gemini. Of course, Google can’t resist an upsell opportunity to offset the unimaginable costs of its data centers, so the Galaxy S25 will come with a six-month subscription to Gemini Advanced. If you get hooked on the larger AI models, Gemini Advanced currently costs $20/month, though it also includes 2 TB of storage from Google One, which costs $10/month on its own.
Hardware
Smartphones are mature devices, and nobody should expect radical changes to non-foldable smartphone designs and components. However, Samsung has made noticeable improvements to both. The boxy design has been smoothed out so the edges of the phone don’t dig into your hands. The bezels are 15% slimmer. The displays are great. The Galaxy S25 Ultra retains the S Pen inside the chassis and a 5000mAh battery.
All Galaxy S25’s globally are powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, which Samsung claims is not just a binned part, but a separate SKU with better performance in Samsung-requested areas. This new Snapdragon has a 40% more capable NPU, 37% faster CPU, and 30% faster GPU. The GPU in the Galaxy S25 scores 40% better on 3DMARK compared to the Galaxy S24, with 18% better frame rates in tested games. Samsung improves thermals further with a 40% bigger vapor chamber on the Galaxy S25 Ultra and a 15% bigger vapor chamber on the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25+ over their predecessors. The stock Snapdragon 8 Elite phones we have tested to date have had excellent performance and extraordinary battery life; we’ll have to see if the Galaxy S25’s AI functionality impacts that much. I will have a Galaxy S25 Ultra review unit shortly after this report is published.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra gets a new 50 MP Ultrawide camera that lets in 34% more light. The 200MP main and 50 MP telephoto with 5x optical on the Galaxy S25 Ultra are carryovers from the last generation but all three models have better processing and AI categorization that allows for better zoom, macro, and video recording at night. 10-bit HDR is on by default during video recording.
There are notable software changes as well. Samsung’s new Audio Eraser in the photo editing app is wild: the Galaxy S25 uses AI to understand different audio sources – wind, voices, music, noise, crowds, and nature -- entirely on device, so can correct any file taken on any device within Samsung’s editor app. Samsung’s AI Photo Editing was already best in class, but it now better understands what it is seeing so it removes shadows from the people it is deleting. Plus, all the fun generative edit tools from before have gotten better as the AI models improved.
Samsung Wallet will gain Instant Installment (BNPL) and Tap to Transfer (P2P but to any other wallet, not just Samsung’s) coming shortly after launch.
[Updated Jan 23, 2025] During the Galaxy Unpacked keynote, Samsung announced that there are new features in the Health app, keeping your personal health records (U.S. and India only to start), mental health tracking, a vascular load indicator, and antioxidant intake. At the keynote, Samsung showed a clip of someone using the fingerprint reader when describing these features, but I initially assumed that this was meant to indicate that the data is secure, not that the fingerprint reader is able to determine the composition of what you ate that day. However, at a panel on the day after Galaxy Unpacked, Samsung’s Director of Health, Dr. Hon Pak provided some clarity on how Samsung is creating the Galaxy S25's new antioxidant index: it is measuring beta carotine in the skin as a way to determine antioxidant levels. I’ll update this report once I have more clarity on how that data is being gathered. I haven't found this feature on my Galaxy S25 Ultra review unit; it may not be implemented in the preproduction software. The mental health section has been added to Samsung Health already as “Mindfulness” in beta; it is self-reported and includes brief meditation prompts. Health Records is also already showing up on my phone. This is not a simple logging app, it appears to go out and interface with health system EMRs. I will be testing this when I get back from Unpacked.
Sustainability
A friend recently asked if she should import a niche Android phone for sustainability purposes, and my response shocked her: if you actually care about sustainability and not just virtue signaling, buying from Samsung (or, for similar reasons, Apple) is by far the better choice:
Samsung flagship phones hold their value longer and are often resold after being traded in and used by a new buyer.
Samsung supports longer life by promising to update its software for seven years.
Samsung continues to improve durability year over year, and the impact of these changes to chemically treated glass is real. Samsung shared that the Galaxy S24 had 60% fewer screen repairs than the Galaxy S23. The Galaxy S25 features Corning Gorilla Armor 2 that is 29% more resistant to fractures so it should be even less likely to break.
With the Galaxy S25, Samsung now uses recycled materials in every external component; on the Galaxy S25 and S25+, the frame is 100% recycled aluminum. Samsung is recycling old plastic wafer trays from Samsung Semiconductor and using them for some of the plastic parts in the new S25 phones as well.
The new phone’s batteries feature a minimum of 50% recycled cobalt in the battery, and that cobalt is sourced from recycled Galaxy phones that have been traded in – a beautifully circular supply chain.
There is no change in pricing on any of the models from last year, but the Galaxy S25 now starts with 12GB of RAM (up from 8 GB) and all models now support Wi-Fi 7. Satellite connectivity is also supported in the Galaxy S25 hardware; individual carriers will choose how to implement it. Samsung’s global carrier support continues to be a strength.
[Update Jan 23, 2025] New Form Factors Teased
During the Galaxy Unpacked keynote, Samsung promised that its AI would be applied to new devices — and in the slide it showed not only an icon representing upcoming XR headsets and smart glasses, but also a dual folding phone/tablet. (I wasn’t fast enough on the shutter to capture it, but YouTuber extraordinaire Michael Fisher was; photo is from his Twitter feed.) Samsung Display had already showed off the display technology at CES, and Huawei has a dual-folding phone on the market in China, so this wasn’t entirely a surprise. However, it is the first time Samsung Mobile has publicly indicated that it has a dual fold device in the pipeline.
Samsung fully confirmed another rumor, that it is developing a super-slim smartphone, the Galaxy S25 Edge. (Why “Edge?” Probably because it was easy for Samsung’s lawyers to clear, as it was a past Samsung name.) Mockups were shown off at the experience area after the presentation; pictures above.
Samsung’s Project Moohan Android XR headset was also in the presentation area. The headset was launched late last year as part of Google’s Android XR developer announcement, but had never been shown in public before.
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