2024 may have been the start of AI phones, but 2025 keeps it going, and Samsung’s Galaxy S25 will use AI at the heart of Android, with plenty of guts in other places, too.
Only a few weeks into the new year, we’ve seen TVs, soundbars, headphones, peripherals, vacuums, and even the stay kitchen appliance, all to give us an idea of what’s to come.
But you know what we haven’t seen yet? A new phone.
It’s time to change that, and well ahead of Mobile World Congress in March, Samsung is getting in early with the first of the year’s new phones.
Just like it did last year when it launched the Galaxy S24 range in January 2024, Samsung is using the first month of the new year to talk about what’s coming in 2025, setting the pace early for what you can expect in mobiles this year.
You probably won’t be surprised by the name, and you may not be surprised by the design, but the S25 range aims to update and slightly improve what worked in the previous generations, while leaning on that whole “AI” thing just that little bit more.
This year, the Galaxy S25 range aims to go beyond last year’s introduction, and get an Android phone connected more with how artificial intelligence can work for you.
More AI
At least that’s the idea, anyway, with the S25 launching “One UI 7”, the next generation of Samsung’s Android overlay which will see AI connecting with more parts of how Android works.
An update on the Galaxy AI technology found in over 200 million Samsung phones, 2025’s take on the technology will see AI agents join the dots across aspects of your phone for you, recognising phone numbers and emails, and letting you act on them with one tap. Meanwhile, the AI will look through aspects of your phone to help you find things faster and easier.
In essence, Samsung aims to have AI act as the secretary for your life, allowing you to talk to the phone to do things rather than navigating with gestures and swipes, the way it might be today. It’ll use a combination of AI in the operating system and Google’s Gemini to get it done, and that’s not all.
Calls can be transcribed for note tracking and summaries, while drawings can be improved upon using text and image prompts, giving your sketches a little bit of life. And like last year, your writing can get a helping hand, as well.
More performance
Here’s hoping the AI features will do a little bit more than they did last year, but even if they don’t, the S25 range isn’t just seeing those changes.
There’s also more grunt, as Samsung delivers its most powerful Galaxy S model yet.
Like previous generations, Australia will see three variants ranged from regular to bigger to biggest over the 6.2 inch Galaxy S25, 6.7 inch Galaxy S25+, and the 6.9 inch Galaxy S25 Ultra.
But this year, every model released in Australia will feature the same chip inside, boasting the Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite. Announced last year, the new Snapdragon sees performance boosts in processing, AI and neural processing, and graphical hardware, the latter of which will see improvements across games.
More camera prowess, but only for one phone
Where things get a little different between the models is the camera, where the S25 Ultra gets an upgrade of sorts, while the smaller models, well, don’t.
In the S25 Ultra, last year’s 200 megapixel wide camera makes an appearance, as does the combination of a 50 megapixel 5X and a 10 megapixel 3X telephoto, giving you that little bit of zoom. This year, however, the 12 megapixel ultra-wide from 2024 gets an update to a 50 megapixel ultra-wide, giving you a few more megapixels to work with.
The same isn’t quite true with the S25 and S25+, both of which miss out on the 200 megapixel camera again, as Samsung opts instead for a 50 megapixel main, 12 megapixel ultra-wide, and 10 megapixel 3X zoom camera.
It appears the best camera tech is saved for the S25 Ultra.
All the models will see some of those AI features in the camera tech, regardless of the camera stack and megapixels on offer. They’ll get virtual aperture control much like the iPhone’s portrait mode, though Samsung will connect the aperture control with RAW capabilities in the Expert RAW app, making it that little bit different. They’ll also see support for HDR with Galaxy Log, camera filters, an audio eraser that works in video editing, and more.
Similar design
But they’ll all also come with a similar design. It’s not the same, but it’s also not far off. Samsung hasn’t exactly reinvented the wheel here.
In the S25 Ultra, the flat yet lightly curved edges of the previous S24 Ultra have been flattened that little bit more, and there’s clearly a more edgy look, even if the corners and lines have been softened just a tad.
The standard S24 models before it were a little flatter by comparison, but this year’s S25 and S25+ seem that teensy bit firmer, as well.
Only the S25 Ultra will get titanium, though, and do it with a slimmer and lighter build: the S24 Ultra was 8.6mm thick and 233 grams, while this year’s S25 Ultra is 8.2mm thick and 218 grams.
The trio is stil IP68 water resistant, and all have 5G, WiFi 7, and Bluetooth 5.4, with large batteries and generous storage amounts, as well.
They’ll see fast wired charging and support wireless charging, but interesting, it’s another generation of Samsung flagship phones that misses out on Qi2 wireless charging. No magnetic charging for this phone, it seems, leaving those honours to just the HMD Skyline at this time.
Early thoughts
With three new Samsung phones about to come out in the world, the clear focus will be on the S25 Ultra, which still comes with an S-Pen stylus, as well as the better build and cameras.
It’s clearly the one to beat thus far, and may be able to hold its own until Apple and Google launch their models respectively, likely in September and October later this year.
Samsung will also have some unique accessories, including one that’s a neat collaboration between the phone-maker and fashion brand Crocs. Simply put, Crocs is making a Crocs-like sandal for the S25 range, which will feature the little holes to let you attach your own jibbitz to the extra.
Cases are cool and all, but really the focus here will be on AI, and there’s little reason why: it’s everywhere these days.
Unfortunately, AI still hasn’t really blown our minds when it comes to phones, with only a handful of artificial intelligence features really continuing to be used past the review periods. Google’s screenshots feature in its Pixel phones is handy, the language translation in Samsung’s foldable models is neat, and Apple’s summaries are interesting when they work well (though they don’t always nail it).
Samsung’s additions in the S25 range could make things interesting yet again, particularly with the noise filter technology and call transcriptions, especially if that last one is automatic. If it just happens, it would be nice to be able to sort through calls in a transcription so you remember things the way they actually were.
But as to whether these can change your life, well that will depend on how much you want your life to change, and whether AI can assist with that.
“The Galaxy S25 series and evolution of Galaxy AI will create effortless and intuitive experiences, via human-like AI agents which learn and analyse user patterns and context, to provide seamless and personalised actions or insights,” said Eric Chou, Head of Mobile Experience at Samsung Australia.
Australian Galaxy S25 pricing and availability
In terms of pricing, Samsung’s S25 range is very much the replacement for last year’s models you likely expected, with similar pricing all around.
As such, the Galaxy S25 will start at $1399 for the 256GB model and fetch as high as $1599 for 512GB, while the larger S25+ will cost $1699 and $1899 for the 256GB and 512GB models respectively.
Meanwhile, the really big model, the S25 Ultra, will start at $2149 for a 256GB variant, with the 512GB and 1TB editions set to cost $2349 and $2749 respectively.
Australians can expect the entire range on sale from February 14, with presale launching now.
