Samsung Galaxy S25 review: The top Android phone for most people, with a stark performance upgrade and useful AI

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Samsung's Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Plus are excellent phones. They're incredibly powerful, and despite looking the same as the previous generation and coming with virtually no camera improvements, they still have a modern, high-end design and still take great photos.

New AI features and a new processor comprise the bulk of the upgrades on both phones. A top-tier new chipset and more RAM than the previous model yield the biggest generational performance jump I've seen on a phone with the Galaxy S25, which has knocked off its predecessor as our best Android phone for most people.

Battery life received a slight bump despite having the same battery sizes as the previous generation. Beyond that, much about the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Plus remain unchanged or only marginally improved.

Design: A familiar, classy design

With flat aluminum edges, flat displays, and flat glass backs, the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Plus are modern-looking devices with a clean and minimalist aesthetic.

Anyone with the Galaxy S22 series or older will find them fresh and new. Otherwise, owners of more recent Galaxy S phones will find the Galaxy S25 very familiar. In fact, it's nearly identical to the Galaxy S24, save for bolder black borders surrounding the cameras on the back and minutely thinner black borders around the display.

To be sure, phones don't need dramatic design changes year after year to be good. Apple's iPhone 16 looks and feels very similar to the iPhone 12 from 2020, for example, and it's the top phone in our guide to the best phones overall.

Performance: Stark advancement in benchmark testing

The Galaxy S25 series as a whole runs on Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Optimized for Galaxy — a variant of the standard Snapdragon 8 Elite processor specifically optimized for the Galaxy S25 series.

Based on day-to-day experience running apps and games, the optimized processor has no tangible benefit over the standard one. The OnePlus 13, which runs on the standard Snapdragon 8 Elite, feels as fast and smooth as the Galaxy S25. It's only in benchmark results that the Samsung Galaxy optimized version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite shows any improvement, and it's minor.

Either way, the Galaxy S25 runs as quickly and smoothly as you'd expect from a new high-end phone. However, benchmark results show the equivalent of an astounding three-generation jump — the Galaxy S25 scored about 900 points higher than the Galaxy S24 when we'd normally expect a 300-point increase.

The Galaxy S25's performance improvements aren't felt around the phone's launch in 2025. Rather, they will be felt three or four years into its life, when it should theoretically open and run common apps and demanding games just as quickly and smoothly as it did at launch.

Combined with Samsung's promise to deliver seven generations of the Android operating system and seven years of security updates, the Galaxy S25 series could be one of the most long-lasting Android phones you can buy. It's set to be smoother and faster than any other Samsung phone at the end of its life.

New AI features: Useful with room for improvement

Apart from the processor, the biggest upgrades in the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Plus are new or improved AI features exclusive to the latest Galaxy S series (for now). Most of them work well and could prove useful. Others don't work so well in their current iteration.

Summoning Google's Gemini AI chatbot by long-pressing the power button is one of the biggest AI additions to the Galaxy S25 series. Gemini is basically Google's version of ChatGPT, and it can perform the usual phone-based tasks, like setting a timer or starting a call, as it has the old Google Assistant built in.

Gemini is excellent for a range of tasks, from finding emails in your inbox with specific bits of information, to coming up with a workout routine, and even for devising a complete itinerary for a vacation. It's useful to get an answer to a question rather than sifting through links in a Google search, as it feels like it does the research for you. However, it can occasionally return with outdated or incorrect answers to some fact-based questions, so it's generally best to crosscheck its answers, especially if something seems off.

With the new Cross App Actions functionality, you can use Gemini with your voice to perform various tasks without opening an app. For example, Gemini used Gmail to search my emails for an upcoming car rental and add it to my Google Calendar. I also asked Gemini to search for restaurants nearby, and from the list of restaurants it presented from Google Maps, I asked it to send one of the options to a contact in the Messages app, all with my voice using Gemini and without opening a single app.

It works well for the actions it supports, but it has limitations. For example, it can't add a calendar entry for an event discussed in a text message. I hope, and expect, more actions to be added over time, as it's genuinely useful for performing menial tasks for you, like manually searching for a specific email and adding a calendar entry.

Another useful AI feature is the new search function in Samsung Gallery. It lets you find a photo based on context and location, and you can search with text or your voice with natural language, like "bath time in Greenwich." It's incredibly useful if you have a huge photo library. That said, it can be a redundant feature if you use Google Photos, as a similar search function that uses Gemini's AI smarts was recently added.

Samsung has also upgraded its AI-powered object removal in the Gallery app so that it removes the shadows cast by the objects you're removing. It works well and should prove useful to anyone who likes to use object removal.

Music recognition has been added to Circle to Search to recognize audio that's coming from your phone, like from a video. It works well, and it's useful to get the name of a song from content that doesn't reveal which song is playing, like an ad or a social media video. It can be useful to find the music from a YouTube video, but I've found that most music in YouTube videos is copyright-free material that isn't always recognized, unless a YouTube video includes licensed music.

You can also search for settings using your voice with natural language, which helps to find settings depending on your request. For example, asking for a setting to help with eye strain reveals relevant settings. It can reveal settings you didn't know existed, but it can also return irrelevant settings.

AI Select is a general-purpose feature that lets you do AI-powered tasks for what you see on the screen, like converting photos into AI-based illustrations and summarizing pieces of text you see on the screen. Except for creating GIFs from a video, it hasn't proven very useful overall. For instance, the text I see on the screen isn't long enough to need a summary, and I can't imagine cartoonifying images is something people need. AI Select is also unintuitive to use, and it quickly became a forgotten feature after testing.

Samsung has not indicated when or if previous Galaxy generations will adopt the AI features introduced with the new series.

Display: High-quality and unchanged

Both Galaxy S25 displays use high-quality OLED panels that produce superb brightness, contrast, and colors. Animations are pleasingly smooth thanks to adaptive 120Hz refresh rates on both models.

The Galaxy S25's 6.2-inch display supports 1080p resolution, and the Galaxy S25 Plus' 6.7-inch display goes up to 1440p, but it's set to 1080p resolution by default. Both are easily sharp enough for most people.

Apart from a higher brightness, which makes it notably easier to see apps and videos in bright sunlight, the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Plus displays offer nothing significantly new since the Galaxy S20 from 2020. Maximum brightness for both phones is unchanged year over year at 2,600 nits.

I'm not dinging Samsung for making so few changes to the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Plus displays. Higher resolutions and refresh rates aren't needed, and the phones already use OLED panels, which are difficult to improve upon.

Cameras: Still stellar

Effectively unchanged year over year, the identical 50MP main cameras, 12MP ultrawide cameras, and 10MP 3x zoom cameras on the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Plus take excellent photos, and I'm happy with the test shots and personal photos I've taken so far.

Thanks to cropping into its 50MP main camera, the Galaxy S25 is able to take 2x zoom shots (above) at full optical quality rather than using digital zoom, which degrades quality. With that in mind, you could argue the Galaxy S25 has four cameras — an ultrawide, a main camera, a 2x zoom, and a 3x zoom.

Photos taken with the 3x zoom lens are still sharp and clear, despite the comparatively low 10MP resolution.

Even up to 20x digital zoom, photos look surprisingly sharp and clear. That's thanks to AI processing, which artificially clarifies details by generating what the phone thinks the details should look like. However, this can occasionally result in strange textures, like the one below.

Despite its 50MP main camera, the Galaxy S25 takes 12MP photos. Still, it uses all 50MP in a process called pixel binning, which combines pixels to capture more light and produce clear photos when light conditions aren't ideal. For most people, the 12MP photos taken by the Galaxy S25's 50MP camera are plenty sharp when flicking through photos from vacations or other memorable events.

With that said, I'd love to see an option to take photos in an intermediary resolution, like 25MP, to capture sharper details when cropping into photos to view finer details. Apple's iPhone 16 series takes 24MP photos (by default) with its 48MP camera, and finer details are notably sharper compared to Galaxy S25 photos when you crop into them.

The Galaxy S25 can record up to a whopping 8K resolution at 30 frames-per-second (fps), but 4K (UHD) should suffice for most people and won't eat up your internal, external, or cloud storage as quickly.

Video quality is excellent, with balanced brightness, contrast, and natural colors, and the phone doesn't excessively boost brightness or color saturation. I'm also pleased that Samsung's 30fps setting looks smooth without venturing into the soap opera effect. In this important regard, the Galaxy S25 is a better option than Google's Pixel 9 phones, where 30fps videos appear somewhat stuttery.

Samsung added support for the LOG video format, which video hobbyists and even professionals can appreciate for finer editing. For most people taking videos of scenery, activities, or memories with friends and family, the LOG format isn't likely to be relevant or used at all.

Battery life and charging: Slight improvements

The Galaxy S25 ended our intensive battery test with 62% remaining, while the Galaxy S25 Plus ended with 63% remaining. Both are slight year-over-year improvements despite carrying over the same 4,000 and 4,900 mAh batteries from the respective Galaxy S24 models.

That's a good result for the Galaxy S25, typical for a flagship phone with a 6.2-inch display. However, the Galaxy S25 Plus still trails far behind the competition in the large-display range among the best phones for battery life. The iPhone 16 Plus and iPhone 16 Pro scored 70% and 74%, respectively, and the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL scored 70%.

Still, translated into daily use, both phones should last most people through a typical day running apps, playing games, streaming video, and listening to music with Bluetooth headphones with a screen-on time of at least three hours.

Charging speeds have remained the same since the Galaxy S22 series, with 25W for the Galaxy S25 and 45W for the Galaxy S25 Plus. These charging speeds are fine, but again, they feel like missed opportunities for improvement, especially for parity in the series.

Wireless charging speeds still cap out at 15W, though the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Plus are newly "Qi2" compatible. That means you can attach a case with integrated Qi2 magnets for magnetic wireless charging accessories, like Apple's MagSafe chargers. The phones themselves don't have magnets for attaching to magnetic accessories.

Biometrics: Missing opportunities to innovate

Samsung seems so focused on AI-powered features that existing features that could do with some attention feel forgotten. The most glaring of all is biometrics.

While Samsung's facial recognition works well when there's enough light for the front camera to see your face, it's uncomfortable to the eyes in dark conditions when it abruptly brightens the screen to illuminate your face. Plus, it doesn't work at more acute angles like Apple's Face ID does on any of the best iPhones.

The fingerprint sensor works well; in my case, it's the first fingerprint sensor on a Samsung phone that works reliably. Still, it fails to register my fingerprint more often than Face ID fails to recognize my face.

Nothing beats the speed and convenience of an advanced facial recognition system like Face ID that uses specialized sensors, and I wish Samsung and other Android phone makers would innovate on this front. The basic facial recognition that uses the front camera and the fingerprint sensor, no matter how advanced it is, feels comparatively archaic.

Should you buy it?

Among the best Samsung phones released to date, the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Plus are especially good upgrade models for those with older devices experiencing degrading performance and battery life, like the Galaxy S21 series or older. Those upgrading from any budget model, even newer ones, will also find the Galaxy S25 or Galaxy S25 Plus to be a major upgrade.

That's thanks to the series' incredibly powerful processor, which could give both phones the longest potential lifespan of any Android phone so far. Snappy performance could easily outlast the battery after it's significantly degraded. If that's the case, you could replace the battery for a lower cost than buying a new phone.

Those with more recent models from 2023 or newer won't find much reason to upgrade to the Galaxy S25. The Galaxy S23 and newer still perform quickly and smoothly and take excellent photos. They also support several AI features released by Samsung, though it's unclear at the time of writing which new AI features introduced with the Galaxy S25 series will also feature in older Galaxy S models. Still, AI features alone aren't yet a reason to upgrade.