I’ve used the Galaxy S25 for a week and it’s the fastest small phone I’ve tested, but I’d trade some speed for newer cameras

Samsung Galaxy S25 review: Two-minute review

The Samsung Galaxy S25 is polished, powerful, and predictable. Everything about the Galaxy S family has gotten a bit better over the years – the sleek design that is totally not an iPhone lookalike; the One UI 7 interface that looks much nicer even as it grows more complex; the bright and colorful display that draws you into every web page and photo. It’s all great, but it’s not very exciting.

The Galaxy S25’s performance is top-notch: this is the fastest phone you can buy at the time of its release, other than the more expensive Galaxy S25 Ultra. Unlike Apple, which hobbles its base model iPhone 16 with a slower processor, Samsung has ensured that the Galaxy S25 starts on the same platform as its larger brethren, with an identical Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset inside. There’s nothing this phone can’t handle.

That might be an empty compliment, because the Galaxy S25 just doesn’t do very much more than you’d expect a flagship phone in 2025 to do… not yet. At launch, Samsung bragged on and on about Galaxy AI, and all the ways this phone would get to know you. Maybe it will, someday, but none of that is here just yet.

In fact, throughout the phone, the AI takes steps backwards. The Now Brief feature that Samsung wants us to use multiple times a day? It offers the weather, and news stories I really don’t want to read – at least Google Discover knows the stories I like. Even the health advice wasn’t helpful – get more sleep? Thanks, I’ll get right on that.

I used to be able to use AI to turn on the flashlight or activate my personal hotspot. Now I have to wrestle between competing AIs. Samsung said users won’t need to know whether they’re using Bixby or Google’s Gemini, so seamless will the combined AI experience be. In my time with the phone, however, that was not at all true. Many of the features I used to enjoy with Bixby are now hidden, because Gemini takes over the side button when you set up the phone, and Gemini cannot do half of what Bixby can do.

Bixby continues to improve, and it comes closer to fulfilling its promise of a voice interface. I can now ask Bixby to “help me charge my Galaxy Buds using my phone” and it will open the correct Settings menu for wireless power sharing. Sadly, Bixby itself is hard to find, relegated to the Search bar in the Settings app.

I can always put Bixby back on the side button, but then I’d lose Google Gemini features, such as they are. It’s easier now to talk to Gemini, and Google’s Search is more ready than ever to identify whatever you see or hear, whether that’s live in person or on the phone screen. Beyond that, it can, um… I’m not sure, exactly.

Samsung told me that Galaxy AI would do things like turn off the TV when I fall asleep, or identify the best thermostat setting to help me fall asleep. Yes, Samsung appears to be obsessed with sleep across its Galaxy range.

So where, exactly, is the AI? I’m using a Galaxy S25, and a Galaxy Watch Ultra, and Galaxy Buds 3 Pro. I’m watching my Samsung Smart TV, and controlling everything, including my lights and thermostat, through Smart Things. So, where is it? Where are the suggestions? Where is the intelligence?

If Samsung is being cautious and not overextending Galaxy AI for now, then I appreciate the sensitivity and I will be patient. I don’t need AI-generated fake news headlines, or inaccurate summaries of my messages. When Samsung’s Galaxy AI summarized my phone calls or my Notes, it was very accurate, with no glaring errors. There’s no AI help for Notifications yet, sadly.

I will continue to feed my Galaxy S25 my personal data to keep in the Samsung Knox-secured Personal Data Engine, and hopefully its Galaxy AI will chew that up and spit out features that are tailored to my personality and habits. I can be patient, because, AI features aside, the Galaxy S25 is a satisfying phone.

The cameras on the Galaxy S25 are great, even if they didn’t get an exciting upgrade with more megapixels or longer zoom. Samsung’s One UI 7 software is the most heavily customizable version of Android you’ll find – you can change everything down to the number of rounded corners on your squircle-shaped widgets, or you can leave everything unchanged, and enjoy the colorful, smooth feel of One UI 7.

Here’s the thing. The Galaxy S25 is a great phone, but there are competitors that are finally catching up to Samsung. You can get a OnePlus 13 for the same price (with OnePlus’s trade-in offer), and that phone has better battery life and nicer cameras. The Google Pixel 9 Pro just got a fabulous new look; it’s more expensive, but I’ve seen that price drop to the Galaxy S25’s level for Black Friday, and its price will surely drop again.

If you need a phone, the Galaxy S25 is an excellent choice that will keep you satisfied for years. If you’re looking to upgrade from a Galaxy S24, you may want to wait a bit longer, because the Galaxy S25 offers only subtle improvements, and I’m hoping that Samsung freshens up the Galaxy S lineup with something more exciting next year.

Samsung Galaxy S25 review: Price and availability

• Available for $799 / £799 / AU $1,399 with 128GB of storage (256GB in Australia)
• All the colors are kinda blue, including Icyblue, Navy, and Mint (and Silver)

The Samsung Galaxy S25 starts at $799 / £799 / AU$1,399, which is not only the same price as the Apple iPhone 16 and Google Pixel 9 (the Pixel 9 is very slightly cheaper in Australia), but also the same price as last year’s Galaxy S24 at launch. It’s a big deal that Samsung didn’t raise the price, because I’ve heard strong rumors that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset inside is more expensive than previous Snapdragon platforms. It’s worth the premium.

The Galaxy S25 starts with a paltry 128GB of storage in the US and UK, but Australia skips that low-end model and starts at 256GB. Also, for some reason US customers can’t buy a Galaxy S25 with 512GB of storage, although it’s not really an issue, as 256GB is probably the sweet spot. Every Galaxy S25 comes with 12GB of RAM inside.

You can find the Galaxy S25 in a few shades of blue and also silver, and Samsung is keeping a few colors exclusive to its own online web store, like a snazzy pinkish Coralred color. My review sample is Silver Shadow, and it’s a nicer-than-average shade of light grey, with real depth to the finish on the back glass.

An important note here is that Samsung fans often say nobody pays full price for a Samsung phone. You can look for sales throughout the year, especially in the form of a trade-in discount if you give Samsung your old phone. The Galaxy S25 is worth the list price, but keep an eye out for deals, and we will do the same.

• Value score: 4 / 5

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Samsung Galaxy S25 review: Specs

The standout spec in the Samsung Galaxy S25 is the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chipset. It seems that Qualcomm has overclocked the two primary Oryon cores by 0.15GHz – and if that doesn’t sound like much, know that those cores run at a mind-melting 4.47GHz at peak, and it's hard to imagine squeezing any more speed out of these chips.

That gives Samsung the benchmark crown for many of our Future Labs benchmark tests, whether you’re comparing the Galaxy S25 to the iPhone 16 Pro or any other Android phone. The Galaxy S25 isn’t the spec champ in most other ways, but it has enough power for bragging rights.

You can find phones with screens that refresh faster than 120Hz, like the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro. You can get a phone like the OnePlus 13 with 16GB of RAM, not to mention much faster charging speeds; Samsung is still stuck in the slow lane when it comes to charging.

Finally, the camera specs haven’t improved, and that’s disappointing. It doesn’t seem like any of the three main camera sensors have gotten larger, which is the most clear sign that image quality will improve. Samsung’s camera software, with its AI help and Snapdragon image processing pipeline, is better than ever, but I’d still like to see Samsung focus its camera sights on a phone that isn’t its Ultra.

Samsung Galaxy S25 review: Design

• Smaller than an iPhone 16, with a larger display
• Still looks like last year’s Galaxy S (and the year before’s, and…)

The Galaxy S25 has a 6.2-inch display, but the phone is smaller in every way, and even lighter, than the Apple iPhone 16 with its 6.1-inch display. The greatest trick Samsung ever pulled was fitting a larger display into a smaller phone – but we saw that trick in 2023 with the Galaxy S23, and it’s still the same trick.

Sadly, Samsung hasn’t changed the Galaxy S design significantly since the Galaxy S23, when it introduced the porthole-style cameras. The new phones look so much like the older models, even the dimensions are unchanged. The Galaxy S25 matches the Galaxy S23 in height, width, and depth to within a millimeter.

Why does that matter? Because I expect a phone design should improve or the phone should drop in price, and the Galaxy S hasn’t improved. Why are we paying the same amount for a phone that hasn’t changed since 2023? Except for the main processor and RAM, these phones are identical.

It’s a good design, it gets the job done, which is getting out of the way of Samsung’s fantastic phone display. The bezel is even smaller this year, though we’re talking fractions of millimeters, not a noticeable improvement. There is still a bezel; it’s just very small.

Frankly, if you’d never seen a smartphone before, you’d have a hard time telling a Samsung Galaxy S from an iPhone. The two have come full circle to resemble each other again. The camera lenses are arranged differently, but otherwise, these phones are glass slabs with rounded corners. The only real difference is where Samsung and Apple stick the buttons.

• Design score: 4 / 5

Samsung Galaxy S25 review: Display

• Excellent, bright AMOLED screen with full-color always-on display
• Fingerprint scanner is still glitchy

The Galaxy S25 has a fantastic display. It’s bright, colorful, and extra smooth when you’re scrolling through your apps or web pages. There’s very little distance between the glass and the screen, so it feels like elements are floating just beneath the surface.

Samsung displays also excel in bright light, and the Galaxy S25 was easy to use for taking photos on a bright, sunny day with heaps of dazzling, white snow on the ground. The extra brightness really kicks in when the sun is out, and it makes a big difference.

The S25 doesn’t get the ProScaler technology that’s designed to make videos look better, with a higher resolution, but I didn’t see much difference between videos on this phone and the Galaxy S25 Plus, which, along with the S25 Ultra, has the Samsung TV tech. In terms of color, smoothness and brightness, the two are identical.

I think the fingerprint scanner under the display needs improvement. After using the OnePlus 13 for a few months I’ve been spoiled by the reliability of that phone’s scanner. The Galaxy S25 often made me re-present my fingerprint two or three times, and then resort to using my password because it couldn’t recognize my finger.

• Display score: 4 / 5

Samsung Galaxy S25 review: Software

• One UI 7 is the best-looking One UI in a long time
• Still far too complicated, though Bixby helps

I expected to write a few hundred words about Galaxy AI on the Galaxy S25, but, um, where is it? The usual stuff is here, including the photo-editing tools, and the writing assistance, and the transcription for phone calls and voice memos. The phone does a nice job of making suggestions for apps, settings, and even widgets, when you open the widgets menu. It takes a light touch, offering suggestions but not being too pushy.

I was expecting more pushy. I was hoping for more pushy. Samsung sent me a Galaxy Watch Ultra to go along with the Galaxy S25, and I’ve been feeding my phone, via its Personal Data Engine, all of my health data for days. The most I’ve gotten is a critique on my sleep habits. I was expecting much more.

At Galaxy Unpacked, Samsung said the Galaxy S25 would use the Galaxy Watch to learn when I fall asleep, and then check Smart Things to understand how the temperature and lighting in my home affected my sleep patterns. I have all of those things set up, including my lights, thermostat, and Samsung TV on Smart Things. And… nothing happens.

I’ve asked Samsung, and they’ll get back to me with more instructions on how to set this all up, but that’s my big problem with Galaxy AI so far. It doesn’t happen, and I might need to do more to set it up.

Take Google Gemini, which now lives on the Side Button of my Galaxy S25. So long, Bixby, right? Nope, Bixby is still there, but you have to find it. If you use the Search feature in the Settings menu, you’re using Bixby. You could have kept Bixby on the side button, but the setup process pushes you to use Gemini instead.

That’s too bad, because Bixby is better for the Galaxy S25. Bixby can do things, and I don’t just mean setting timers and checking the weather. Bixby understands the Settings menu better than the Samsung Help Hotline. You can ask Bixby a question using natural language and it will find the settings you need. Say “Bixby, I want to use my phone to charge my Galaxy Buds” and Bixby opens up the Battery menu to Wireless Power Sharing.

You can say “turn on the flashlight” and Bixby can do that, but Gemini can’t. I wish that Bixby were in charge of the phone, including Gemini. Gemini can have a conversation, but Bixby can get things done. Let Bixby talk to Gemini for me.

Samsung said this wouldn’t be confusing, and that users wouldn’t need to know whether they were using Bixby or Gemini or some future AI feature. That’s not exactly true. If you ask the wrong AI to do something, it will act confused and ignore you. That doesn’t make me want to keep using the AI.

Elsewhere, I hate to say that Samsung is falling back into its old ways of software bloat with the Galaxy S25. The amount of extra, unnecessary software is mind-boggling. From Samsung, you get the Samsung Members app (which should just be a website), Shop Samsung to buy Samsung gear, and the Galaxy Store for apps, almost all of which are available on Google’s Play Store as well.

You also get the Samsung Smart Things app, even if you don’t have any Smart Things equipment, and the Galaxy Wearable app, even if you don’t have any Galaxy wearables. But wait, there’s more. There’s Samsung News, Samsung Global Goals (?!), and an app just for Tips about your phone.

Then there are two photo gallery apps, one from Google and one from Samsung. Also two Calendar apps, two web browser apps, oh, and Microsoft gets to stick four apps on your phone as well, just for good measure. Hope you enjoy LinkedIn.

All told, there are 46 apps already installed on your phone before you turn it on for the first time; the final one of these, YouTube, dangles alone an unsightly second page for apps. It’s too much. It’s time for the junk to disappear; it’s time for the duplicate apps to end.

I will freely admit that Samsung Internet Browser is faster than Google Chrome, but it doesn’t benefit users to have two web browsers on a brand-new phone, it just confuses me.

• Software score: 3 / 5

Samsung Galaxy S25 review: Cameras

• Reliable cameras with great camera modes
• Not the best quality, but still impressive

The Galaxy S25 has an impressive array of cameras that take excellent photos, especially if you love to share your photos for some dramatic effect. The cameras tend to saturate colors deeply and give images a warmer tone, which makes subjects like food, sunrises, and faces look more dramatic and inviting. It’s not exactly accurate, but who cares!

These aren’t the best cameras around, not even in this price range. The OnePlus 13 really impressed me with its image quality, and side-by-side shots taken against the Galaxy S25 show the Galaxy can’t match OnePlus for dynamic range, low-light exposure, and accurate color.

I still like the Galaxy Camera app for its versatility. You get the normal shooting modes for slow motion or portrait shots, in addition to a dedicated Night mode. There’s also a great Food mode that is my go-to for showing off anything I cook.

In classic Samsung fashion, there’s a Pro mode, or you can download an extra app for Expert Raw mode, which gives you even more advanced features like simulated aperture and astrophotography.

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I’m not the biggest fan of AI photo editing, but occasionally even I would like to remove a random passerby from my tourist photos. The Galaxy S25 is so good at this that it can even remove a person’s shadow with accuracy. If someone is standing on a wood floor, the generative AI will perfectly match the wood planks when it makes the shadow disappear.

• Camera score: 4 / 5

Samsung Galaxy S25 review: Camera samples

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Samsung Galaxy S25 review: Performance

• Snapdragon delivers on its performance promise
• Too bad there aren’t more cool features to take advantage of it

What do you do with the fastest smartphone in the world? That’s the question Samsung needs to answer, because while the Galaxy S25 wins on many performance and benchmark tests, it’s not clear what the phone can do with all of that power.

To be fair, Samsung lets you choose to limit Galaxy AI so that all computations are handled on the device, and not in the cloud. It’s unclear if that saves a lot of energy, but it certainly shows Samsung’s confidence in the power of the Galaxy S25. OnePlus is still offloading almost all of its AI tasks to cloud computers, even though its OnePlus 13 has the same Snapdragon 8 Elite processor as the Galaxy S25.

Well, not exactly the same processor, as Qualcomm overclocks the chipset just a smidgen so that Samsung can add a ‘for Galaxy’ label. That makes it the de facto performance winner, though again I wish Samsung were putting all of that power to better use.

Don’t get me wrong, everything is very smooth. The interface is buttery slick, and all of my games and apps ran at top performance on the S25. I have no complaints - I was just hoping for a bit more. While One UI 7 looks nicer than ever, I was hoping for maybe something a bit flashier to take advantage of that powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite.

Where’s my rippling screen when I tickle Bixby, the way my iPhone ripples when Siri wakes up? How about cool animations, or even a fancy screensaver? There’s a generative AI wallpaper that will change the weather in any photo to match your local weather, but it just adds snowflakes on top; it doesn’t let snow accumulate, which would have been cool.

It’s too bad that all of that Snapdragon power is going to AI features, because I would have liked to have seen some real advances in the interface this generation to match the leap in performance. Samsung has a winner – the Galaxy S25 is unequivocally faster than the iPhone 16. Now, let’s see what it can do with all that power, besides standing atop the winner’s podium.

• Performance score: 5 / 5

Samsung Galaxy S25 review: Battery

• Best battery life of any phone this size
• The Galaxy S25 Plus and Ultra have faster charging

The Samsung Galaxy S25 has excellent battery life, better than competing phones of this size. In my testing, the Galaxy S25 lasted a full day every single day I used it, even if I took a lot of photos or played graphically intense games with a Bluetooth joystick connected.

Our Future Labs tests say the same. The Galaxy S25 lasted longer than the similarly-sized iPhone 16 and Google Pixel 9. The iPhone 16 lasted less than 12 and a half hours in our battery rundown test, while the Galaxy S25 made it to nearly 16 hours.

You can find better battery life on a phone, but you’d have to buy a much bigger phone. For phones this size, the Galaxy S25 has the best battery life I’ve seen, likely thanks to the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, which has gone hand in hand with impressive battery longevity in every phone I’ve tried, like the OnePlus 13 and the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro.

For charging, the Galaxy S25 is capable, but its speed is average. It charges at 25W, the same as the iPhone. It charged to 50% in 30 minutes, and was fully charged within an hour, but I’ve seen much faster charging on phones like the OnePlus 13.

The Galaxy S25 has wireless charging as well as reverse wireless charging, so you can power up your Galaxy Buds 3 Pro case by laying it atop your phone battery – and Bixby can help you find the feature if you get stuck.

• Battery score: 4 / 5

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Samsung Galaxy S25 review: Also consider

How I tested the Samsung Galaxy S25

• I tested the phone for more than one week
• I took dozens of photos
• I played games and watched movies
• I checked email and worked in Slack
• I used AI features extensively
• Benchmark testing is for comparison, not scoring purposes

I tested the Samsung Galaxy S25 extensively, alongside the Galaxy S25 Plus, for almost two weeks, using the same work and personal apps and accounts on each.

I used the Galaxy S25 for taking photos, communicating with work colleagues using messages and Slack, and conducting video conference calls. I played games, and edited photos from my Google Photos library.

I connected the Galaxy S25 to a Galaxy Watch Ultra and Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, supplied by Samsung. I wore the Galaxy Watch to bed, and let the Galaxy S25 monitor me as I slept. I connected an Xbox wireless controller to play games. I connected the Galaxy S25 to my car for Android Auto and multimedia. I connected the phone to my Steelseries USB-C keyboard, my MX Master mouse, and my Dell monitor for DeX capabilities.

I used Smart Things on the Galaxy S25 to control my home thermostat, lights, security, and television. I used Gemini as my primary side button AI, but also used Bixby extensively.