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For today’s hands-on, we have the Samsung Galaxy S25 and S25 Plus. From specs alone, they only seem to have incremental upgrades. However, the biggest change for the flagship series is under the hood.
The entire line is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite, which suggests that Samsung is going all in with performance and their investment in Galaxy AI. With that, it’s safe to say that both devices are well and capable of handling most tasks.
Design
Right off the bat, the Galaxy S25 and S25+ sports a premium feel. At first glance, not much has changed in terms of design language. Both feel lightweight and comfy to hold.
Apparently, there are changes albeit barely noticeable. It’s ever so slightly thinner, but is still well and able to stand by themselves without support.
Both devices also come in new colorways like Navy, Iceblue, Mint, and Silver Shadow.
On top of that there are more colors that are exclusively available online like Blueblack, Coralred, and Pinkgold.
Display
The S25 and S25+ kept the same 6.2 and 6.7-inch Dynamic AMOLED displays. Both have adaptive refresh rates that go up to 120Hz.
The difference between the two screens is that the base S25 has a lone FHD+ resolution while the S25+ can be manually adjusted from HD+, FHD+ and QHD+ resolutions.
To elaborate, the S25 has no screen resolution option in the settings so it’s always set to FHD+ at all times. Suffice it to say, the displays are still as visually pleasing as ever whether you’re scrolling or watching videos.
Bottom line, there’s no notable changes. However, we do appreciate that Samsung kept it simple. After all, if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it.
Performance
Last year, the S24 and S24+ were powered by the Samsung Exynos 2400. This time around, the entire Galaxy S25 line is powered by a Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy.
Samsung worked closely with Qualcomm to optimize the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy in order to maximize performance and efficiency. This is paired with a newer Adreno 830 GPU.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite is a 3nm chipset with an 8-core processor composed of two (2) Oryon (Phoenix L cores) running at 4.32GHz and six (6) Oryon (Phoenix M cores) running at 3.53GHz.
This chipset is relatively fresh, making waves as it offers a ton of processing power, great thermals, and ray tracing. While we weren’t able to play a game to measure efficiency, it did pretty well with its integrated AI-powered features alone.
Users should expect somewhere between 40-45% better performance and efficiency compared to the previous Snapdragon chipset and almost the same 40% range for graphics performance.
These devices will both have 12GB LPDDR5X base memory and up to 512GB of UFS 4.0 internal storage available. This is an upgrade for the Galaxy S25, which had a base memory of 8GB last year.
Put these together with the new chip from Qualcomm, and we’re certain that the S25 and S25+ can handle anything you throw at it.
As for battery, the S25 has a 4,000mAh capacity while the S25+ has 4,900mAh. Both will have a 45W wired charging capability, 15W wireless charging, and 4.5W reverse wireless charging.
Cameras
For cameras, we have a 50-megapixel main, 10-megapixel telephoto, and 12-megapixel ultra wide at the rear for both models. They have the same 12-megapixel camera at the front as well.
While the specs don’t say much, we believe the change is apparent with its image processing capabilities. Optics are powered by Samsung’s Next Gen ProVisual Engine, which filters subjects that are either inactive or in motion in real time.
Notable features include an upgraded generative edit and portrait studio. It now develops accurate facial expressions with natural tones and colors.
There’s also an on-device editor now that lets users edit audio. You can either remove noise or tone it down. The tool should be appreciated by content creators, as it can detect voices, wind, and music.
Software
Moving on to software. The Galaxy S25 line is slated to ship with One UI 7 based on Android 15. This segment is mainly focused on Galaxy AI, which has some notable upgrades and innovations.
This includes Circle to Search, which can now be used to look for songs in the background. It’s basically Shazam, where users just have to click a music note icon below the display and it’ll listen in and direct you to the browser should it find your song.
Surprisingly, it was pretty accurate! This should be a neat feature for those that are out and about and find catchy songs you really want to save.
Aside from this, most of what the S25 and S25+ offers falls under personalized, streamlined features. For example, you can converse with your own device. You can ask it to mark a date and it’ll use Gemini, Google Calendar, and Samsung’s own dedicated calendar to take note.
There’s also the addition of the Now Bar, which is Samsung’s take on the Dynamic Island. It works as a smart lock screen that shows essential notifications, which can be tailored to user routines and preferences. For instance, it can give you directions when you’re driving to work.
Unfortunately, our time with both devices was too short for us to make the most out of the new features. We’ll try to cover the entirety of what One UI 7 has to offer in a separate article instead.
Pricing and Conclusion
That about wraps it up for our hands-on with the Samsung Galaxy S25 and S25+. While they mostly stayed the same when compared to their predecessors, we believe that the chipset upgrade is huge.
Of course, we aren’t really able to run proper tests on it with our limited time. This is the same for how it fares in terms of battery life, charging, and other Galaxy AI-backed features.
In terms of how much these devices will cost you, The Galaxy S25 starts at PHP 51,990 with 256GB. It’s also available for PHP 60,990 with 512GB.
As for the Galaxy S25+, it will start at PHP 67,990 with 256GB and cost PHP 76,990 with 512GB. It’s a pretty penny, but at least both devices will now come with 12GB of base memory.
What do you guys think? Share your thoughts on the Samsung Galaxy S25 and S25 Plus in the comment section below.
We also have a separate article for those interested in the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra for those interested.
