New Samsung Galaxy S25 Phones Are Designed to Showcase AI Features
Samsung touted modest hardware improvements to its flagship S-series devices, including sharper nighttime video, but the more advanced AI tools are the big draw
Samsung officially unveiled its Galaxy S25 smartphone lineup—the S25, larger S25 Plus, and premium S25 Ultra—with some modest improvements to battery life, processing power, and camera performance. But, as expected, the hardware upgrades took a back seat to splashy new AI features and a smarter Google Gemini assistant included in the new One UI 7 software update.
That means there may be little reason to rush out for an upgrade.
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Galaxy AI Gets Even Smarter
Samsung touted improvements to its Galaxy AI system and the AI-enabled Google Gemini assistant. Most of the upgrades are available on the latest One UI 7 software release, which will be available for older S-series generations sometime after the S25 release, Samsung says.
Google Gemini will be better able to work across apps and complete complicated tasks in fewer steps, Samsung says. It will also be more capable of understanding natural language patterns, which will make requesting help significantly easier.
For example, you can ask Google Gemini to quickly dig up that photo from last summer of your friend in Central Park or identify a song playing in the background of a YouTube video. Want to find great pastries nearby? Ask Gemini for recommendations—and then have that info texted to a friend, with AI-summarized highlights from reviews on Google Maps. Gemini can even suggest recipes based on a photo you snap of what’s in your fridge.
Photo: Samsung Photo: Samsung
A Now Brief feature delivers roundups of personalized info throughout the day—like the forecast, the fastest route to work, and your daily Energy Score—while the Now Bar widget on your lock screen gives you quicker access to info in certain apps, like the music you’re currently playing or the score of a live sports game, without opening your phone.
While not exactly groundbreaking—many of these apps already exist in a similar form on other smartphones—they may save Galaxy users time on otherwise tedious activities that require scrolling, searching, or leaping from app to app. Just keep in mind that many of the buzziest AI features will be available on older S-series models with the new OS update.
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Camera Upgrades: Sharper Video and a New Ultrawide for the Ultra
The S25 cameras aren’t getting any major overhauls this year, which is a good thing if you love how photos turn out on your current Galaxy phone.
The S25 Ultra does have a higher-resolution 50-megapixel ultrawide camera in place of the 12-megapixel ultrawide camera on its predecessor. And that allows you to take even more detailed, up-close shots, Samsung says. Otherwise, the S25 Ultra is keeping its 200-megapixel main shooter, 50-megapixel telephoto with 5x optical zoom, and 10-megapixel telephoto with 3x optical zoom.
The camera hardware on the S25 and S25 Plus remains the same. The models feature a 50-megapixel primary camera alongside a 12-megapixel ultrawide and 10-megapixel telephoto with 3x optical zoom.
When it comes to videos, the S25 models will be able to take sharper and clearer video, including at night and in low-light conditions, with a wider and more realistic color range, Samsung says.
Samsung touted some new AI-enabled photo and video editing tools, too. For example, you’ll be able to create a custom filter that mimics the look and feel of a favorite photo. And with Samsung’s new Audio Eraser feature, you can easily remove or isolate specific sounds, like background noise, music, or voices, from your videos.
But souped-up camera specs don’t always translate to better-quality photos and videos. That’s why we test the camera performance on every smartphone that comes through our labs. (See which models fare best.)
As mentioned, the complete results for the S25 series will be available to CR members shortly after the phone’s release.
