It’s 2025, and that means it is time for the Samsung Galaxy S25 series to arrive. As with previous years, the series consists of three phones – the regular Galaxy S25, the larger S25+, and of course, the big boy S25 Ultra.
The Galaxy S25 phones come with updated tweaks, but much of the new stuff is on the fresh suite of AI features that Samsung has added to the devices. Ahead of their launch, we got to experience what these new phones had to offer.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Series
If you’ve thought that the Galaxy S phones couldn’t get thinner, think again. For the S25 series, Samsung has managed to shave off even more fat from the previous generation. The Galaxy S25 Ultra, in particular, sees a 15% improvement from the Galaxy S24 Ultra in bezel size and is 15 grams lighter than before. Meanwhile, the S25+ and S25 also receive weight reductions of 7 grams and 6 grams respectively. The design of the phone is also slightly different. You’ll see that the device’s edge is more rounded than its predecessor, which Samsung says is for a more comfortable grip.
Internally, all three Galaxy S25 phones are equipped with the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, which promises massive gains over the previous generation’s chip—namely, performance improvements of 40% for the NPU, 37% for the CPU, and 30% on the GPU. In addition to the new chipset, the phones also have a larger vapour chamber for better heat dissipation.
There have been no changes to the rear camera systems of the Galaxy S25 and S25+, but the S25 Ultra does feature a new 50-megapixel ultrawide camera. That means users will get high-resolution shots at every focal length—from macro photos to even long-distance 100x shots. For people who prefer videography, 10-bit HDR recording—which offers 4x richer colour expression—is now automatically applied.
That marks the highlights of the hardware changes of the Samsung Galaxy S25 series phones, but there is more to talk about with AI. Namely, Samsung has made the device more of a conversational helper, with Gemini pulling the strings as the new default assistant for One UI 7. Samsung made it a big point of how it makes everyday interactions easier.
One neat feature to come out of this new natural conversational implementation is that Gemini can roleplay as specific characters, so you could have it be Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy and it’ll humorously reply to you with his trademark “I am Groot”. More usefully, however, another feature is taking a picture of something and having Gemini interact with it. Snap an image of the inside of your fridge and it can now come up with recipes using the available ingredients.
The device has been made even smarter overall than before—you can ask it to bring up photos from a specific location, change settings like making text bigger, or even summarise a long YouTube video in a different language. But more importantly, the phone can do tasks across simultaneous applications in one go; making everything more streamlined.
For instance, saying the prompt “Find Japanese restaurants and send it to James” will have it search for places on Google Maps and then compile it to send through text—the process seems very intuitive. At the moment, the supported apps for this are only the ones native to the Galaxy device, Google’s suite of apps, as well as Spotify and WhatsApp.
Beyond voice commands, there are a few other new nifty features on the Samsung Galaxy S25 series. Now Brief gives you a summarised brief of info (for both morning and evening) that is tailored based on your habits and priorities, while also proactively offering suggestions. Circle to Search also returns and gets powered up. In addition to recognising phone numbers, email addresses and URLs onscreen, it now comes with the ability to search audio. Notably, it works for both audio played on the phone (like from a video you are watching) or background sound (music playing at the mall).
Speaking of audio, you can now edit out unwanted noise from a video with the new Audio Eraser tool. This isn’t exactly a new feature on phones, with the Google Pixel 8 devices having it when it launched back in 2023, but Samsung’s version has more options, with six categories of sound that you can tweak – Voices, Nature, Crowd, Wind, Music, and Noise.
When you start editing the audio, the device identifies the types of sound present and gives you the available choices to adjust. In the videos that Samsung showcased, the adjustments it can make are pretty incredible. With the video panning over a woman loudly playing the piano in the background, it almost completely muted the sound from her when tweaking it in the settings. A Samsung representative also demoed it live using fake crowd noise and it also performed well. These are, of course, done with controlled environments, so we’ll have to see have good it can actually be in real-world tests.
Samsung Galaxy Ring
Alongside the Galaxy S25 series, the Galaxy Ring also was present at our preview event. The smart ring has already been available in other areas, but now it has arrived on Singapore’s shores. Worn on the index finger of your less dominant hand, the Galaxy Ring brings a number of health-tracking features – complemented by Galaxy AI of course.
There’s tracking for sleep, heart rate, cycling, and activities, but the ring goes the extra step in presenting the data to users.
For instance, there’s a feature called Booster Card that gives comprehensive and personalised messages based on how you did. If your resting heartbeat is high, it’ll recommend you to do more workouts in order to lower it. Alternatively, it also lets you know if you have been walking more than your previous days. Another is Energy Score, which calculates how ready you are for the day based on factors such as sleep time, exercise time, and more.
Samsung has also made the smart ring to be very durable. It’s made of Titanium and also features IP68 water and dust resistance. In terms of using it, the Galaxy Ring is rated to last up to 7 days and the bundled charging case adds more juice once you’ve depleted it.
The Galaxy Ring has 11 size options available (size 5 to 15) and users can pick between three colours – Black, Silver, and Gold.
Availability
The Samsung Galaxy S25 series comes out relatively soon! It’ll be widely available from 14 February 2025. Meanwhile, the Galaxy Ring comes out even earlier, with users able to get their hands on it today.
Pre-orders for the Samsung Galaxy S25 series are available today, with the phones priced starting at S$1,288 (S25), S$1,478 (S25+), and S$1,828 (S25 Ultra). You’ll be able to make your orders on the Samsung Online Store (S25 and S25+, Ultra), their official store pages on Shopee and Lazada, local telecommunication operators (M1, Singtel and StarHub), and select consumer electronics & IT online stores (Best Denki, Challenger, Courts, Gain City, Harvey Norman, iShop Changi)
If you’re keen to try out the Galaxy S25 series yourself, Samsung is hosting Galaxy AI Town at New Bahru—an event where consumers get the opportunity to get personal with the new Galaxy S25 Series and its AI features. With unique experiences on offer, there’s also the chance to win exclusive merchandise from Samsung by completing the stations and earning tokens. More than 30 events (comprised of workshops, panel discussions, and more) are also scheduled to take place from 24 January 2025.
For the Galaxy Ring, you can purchase it from the Samsung Online Store and the physical Experience Stores, their official online platforms Lazada, Shopee, and KrisShop, and major consumer electronics and IT stores. The Galaxy Ring will retail for S$538.
Photos by Russell Loh of the DANAMIC Team.
