The Galaxy S25 Ultra, announced today, comes with Qualcomm’s latest chipset, an upgraded 50MP ultrawide camera, and not much else, hardware-wise, except rounded edges which make it a lot easier to hold. With no price increase over last year’s model — starting at $1,299 — it’s a light refresh of Samsung’s biggest phone, with a major emphasis on One UI 7.0’s AI upgrades which will also come to other Samsung phones — S25 and S25 Plus.
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TechTranscript
00:00Look, I've always been pretty high on Samsung's phones.
00:06They have the best screens in the game, they're fast and reliable, and the camera is always
00:11good enough, even if not the best.
00:13That's why they're the default Android choice for so many people year after year
00:17after year.
00:19But if you were looking for a big, flashy reason to upgrade your Galaxy S series phone
00:23in 2025, good luck finding one with the new Galaxy S25 series.
00:29I just spent some time with the new phones, the Ultra, the Plus, and the regular S25,
00:35and there's just not a lot new.
00:38People hold onto their phones longer than ever, and that means if you haven't gotten
00:41a new phone in a few years, Samsung's latest are still going to feel pretty exciting and
00:45like a big step up.
00:47For us phone nerds, Samsung is betting everything on one key new feature.
00:52Well, a bunch of new features.
00:54And you knew it was coming.
00:56Galaxy AI.
00:57Okay, so let's start with the headliner, the Galaxy S25 Ultra.
01:02As always, the screen is the star of the show here.
01:05Samsung has slimmed down the bezels even more, so it's now got a 6.9-inch QHD Plus OLED
01:11display.
01:12Now, thankfully, the phone itself is more comfortable thanks to those rounded corners.
01:16The flat edges of the S24 Ultra can kind of dig into your palm, so I'm happy that it's
01:21different now, and this is one of those small but very welcome tweaks on the hardware.
01:25And one of the best things about last year's Ultra, the anti-glare coating is back again.
01:30And let me tell you, once you've used a screen that can fend off reflections like this one,
01:35it's so damn hard to go back to anything else.
01:38Everybody else, please copy Samsung.
01:40Camera-wise, the Ultra is mostly the same as the last couple years, except for a higher
01:43resolution 50-megapixel ultrawide, which is also used for macro shots.
01:48It's worth touching on the S Pen because it somehow got worse.
01:53Samsung removed all the Bluetooth features, so the air gestures, waving it around like
01:56a wand, and pressing the button to activate the camera shutter, that's all gone.
02:01Apparently, it was used so rarely that Samsung just decided it wasn't worth keeping it anymore.
02:06Okay.
02:07In my experience, I use the stylus for random moments.
02:10It's convenient when you need it.
02:11I edit photos with it and stuff like that, but mostly, it stays in the cradle.
02:15So no huge loss for me, but some of you might be bummed.
02:19That's the Ultra.
02:20As for the S25 Plus and S25, the story is much the same.
02:25They're very samey to last year's phones.
02:28Samsung is using more recycled parts now, which, hooray environment, that's always a
02:31good thing.
02:32Thankfully, all the phones now include 12GB of RAM, and that should help out a lot with
02:37their new AI tricks that I'll cover in a bit.
02:39They also have larger vapor chambers for better sustained performance.
02:43All three S25s are powered by the 3nm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, which gives you modest
02:49gains in CPU, GPU, and neural processing performance.
02:53Speaking of which, let's get to those Galaxy AI features, which you get no matter which
02:57one of these phones you choose.
03:00Now there are a large batch of AI features to run through.
03:04Samsung talked about AI agents that can kind of act across apps and do chained actions
03:10for you.
03:11So you can say, find the upcoming Buffalo Bills game and add it to my calendar.
03:16Using both Gemini and Bixby, the S25 will kind of do what you request across multiple
03:21apps.
03:22Okay, you've got a new event on your calendar called Buffalo Bills versus Baltimore Ravens.
03:27It worked pretty seamlessly, but for now it only works in Samsung and Google's apps and
03:32Spotify and WhatsApp, and other developers are going to have to join in with their own
03:35use of the API.
03:37Second is a new AI select feature in the sidebar.
03:40You swipe it over, tap the button, and this feature is context aware, so based on whatever's
03:44on the screen, it's going to try and make recommendations on what you want to do.
03:48If you're watching a YouTube video, for example, it'll recommend making a GIF out of a video
03:51recording.
03:52It worked pretty well.
03:53I'm curious to see how well it works on different tasks that are less obvious, but we'll see.
03:58It seems like a convenient thing that means digging through settings less.
04:02Samsung's also worked on all the natural language search.
04:04So if you want to find a photo from a wedding taken in a certain city or state, it'll pull
04:07those up just by making a simple request versus having to type in all the specifics.
04:12You just ask it, find me the photos I took in this city, or find me wine that was gifted
04:17to me by this friend, and it'll pull up all those results.
04:21There are also helpful briefs, both in morning and at night.
04:24These are all on-device, so it changes each time you pull it up, and it looks at your
04:27calendar appointments for your first meeting in the morning, it'll tell you how well you
04:31slept overnight when you wake up in the morning, etc.
04:34And then there's a less original idea, and that's the Now Bar, which is basically Samsung's
04:38take on Apple's live activities.
04:41On your lock screen, you'll now see live notifications for a timer, or maps, or your Uber, etc.
04:47And it'll slowly progress as those things get closer.
04:50We've seen it before, it looks the same here, but it's helpful, so I don't mind.
04:55Now this means your phone knows a whole lot about you, and Samsung emphasized that this
05:00is all on-device.
05:01There's a setting you can change to make sure that all the processing is done on your phone.
05:06And as usual, security is the name of the game, and Samsung says you have a military
05:10grade protection for your data.
05:12The chip that stores all of this can't be accessed by other apps.
05:16And if you want an AI-free experience, you can always just shut all of it off.
05:21And that, really, is the full story of Samsung's Galaxy S25 series.
05:25I do like the look and feel of the Ultra, and those rounded corners that don't dig
05:28into my palms anymore.
05:30But elsewhere, the list of what's the same is longer than what's changed, and the prices
05:35are also the same, so that's good.
05:38But if you're a team Samsung, and you've squeezed everything you can out of your current
05:41phone, I'm sure there's still some excitement here.
05:44It's a big upgrade for you.
05:46For me, I was hoping for a Spark, or something truly fresh, well, anywhere.
05:53Maybe next year, I guess.
05:55Thanks for watching.
05:56Samsung Unpacked is coming right up with some potential surprises, like a slim version of
06:00the S25.
06:01That's one rumor.
06:02And we're still waiting for details on this AR headset by Samsung and Google.
06:05So stay tuned for more details on that.
06:08And Alison Johnson's full review of the new S25s.