Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, S25, and S25 Plus quick review: What is a smartphone?

Samsung claims Galaxy AI has received a phenomenal response in India with close to 84 percent owners of flagship Galaxy devices, using it at least once a month. Of course, we don’t know the exact things they are doing—there are a bunch of things you can do with it already—but the response, particularly among the Gen Z, towards Samsung-branded artificial intelligence, seems like just the right amount for the company to go ahead and give them what they want and what they need—which is more AI. That is the sole purpose of the new Galaxy S25 series, launching in India today.

It’s not so much about the phone hardware anymore although, make no mistake, specs are vital. They will always be. But the smartphone—and particularly the Galaxy S25 series—has now transcended those conventional underpinnings and perhaps started to become something it was always meant to be, your true companion. And what is a true companion? They are those who know you inside out, or at least take the effort to get to know you. They are there when you need them most. Good, bad, ugly, times don’t matter. They do. You do.

And look, let’s be honest, your smartphone knows more about you than you’d think. It was about time, the two of you had the talk. Again, that’s what Samsung wants you to do with the Galaxy S25 series, or at least, that’s the impression I got, after a near one-and-a-half-hour-long product briefing of the Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, and S25 Ultra before its high-profile Galaxy Unpacked January 2025 event.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra in photos

Galaxy AI is now in its second year, but Samsung doesn’t want you to call it version 2.0 or whatever. There’s some merit to that. The kind of stuff it is promising to deliver—with One UI 7 on these new devices—from natural conversations to breakthrough AI Agents, qualifies for a 10.0, at the very least. But that is how fast AI is moving. What matters—and what’s impressive—is that Samsung is keeping up.

One UI 7 is being billed as an “AI-first” platform. Samsung says it has redesigned the whole software from framework down to the UX (short for user experience) and it is following a hybrid approach (where a lot of things essentially happen on-device), to facilitate “human-like AI” and the S25 series is the first to boot all this capability out of the box.

On the S25, S25 Plus, and S25 Ultra, there are three wizards at work. Samsung, Google, and Qualcomm. All the new devices are powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite. The “for Galaxy” branding makes a return and while it doesn’t account for higher clock speeds—we asked—it allows Samsung to “integrate AI at the chip level” because of the powerful Qualcomm NPU (short for Neural Processing Unit) and add a feature called “Pro Scaler” that lets these phones (particularly the S25 Ultra and S25 Plus) display standard definition content at QHD-level, with more than 40 percent better optimisation compared to last year’s Galaxy S24 series. Google brings the brains and was talked about more during the hands-on session actually, because well, it’s Gemini. What did you expect?

The Galaxy S25 series phones with One UI 7 use a mix of voice, Google Search, and sensors (think microphone, camera) to source information from multiple apps to answer your queries. The trick is that AI is talking directly to Google Search and doing all this heavy lifting without opening any app, or you having to manually type anything at all. At launch, these devices can source this data from all Google apps, Galaxy native apps, and few third-party apps, too, including WhatsApp and Spotify. You could do this before in some or the other way, but not at this scale and certainly not this cohesively. The idea—because it is AI—is also to get things done fast with minimal delay.

A new feature called AI Select gives you relevant suggestions when you take a screenshot. Now Brief gives you a nice little summary of your sleep conditions (for Galaxy Watch users), weather forecast, while also scheduling reminders, right on the home screen. Now Bar takes some of it to the lock screen. AI also lets you quickly find photos from the gallery, change phone settings and more, all just by talking to it. It can remove six different kinds of “noise” when recording videos. There’s lots going on, on these phones, without a doubt. Mind-boggling stuff straight out of science fiction. And if Samsung data is anything to go by, people will be ready and waiting in lines, to buy the Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, and S25 Ultra for this reason. Question remains, how many of these features will remain a Galaxy S25 series exclusive and for how long.

Samsung Galaxy S25, S25 Plus in photos

Which is an excellent segue into the all-important thing we didn’t talk about in the beginning—hardware. What’s different? The short answer is, not a lot. The Qualcomm chip upgrade is one. The other is that the S25 Ultra is about 15 percent slimmer and thinner than the S24 Ultra, possibly because the integrated S-Pen doesn’t have any Bluetooth or battery anymore that might have helped shave off some. It has a slightly bigger screen, too, 6.9-inch versus 6.8- on the S24 Ultra. The design is getting a refresh with Samsung going for rounded corners and flat chassis, something that spills into the S25 and S25 Plus models as well. The construction uses Corning Gorilla Glass Armour 2 on the Ultra now.

The 12-megapixel ultrawide from the S24 Ultra has been replaced by a new 50MP sensor with autofocus which adds macro photography. Video is also getting an upgrade with 10-bit HDR and recording in LOG format.

Rest of the package remains consistent across the board including extended software support for up to seven on all the three devices. The S25 and S25 Plus come in 12/256GB and 12/512GB, and S25 Ultra in 12/256GB, 12/512GB, and 12/1TB memory configurations. The Galaxy S25 starts at Rs 80,999, the Galaxy S25 Plus at Rs 99,999, and the Galaxy S25 Ultra at Rs 1,29,999.

Samsung Galaxy S25 series first impressions

The Galaxy S25 series is a bold step forward in the world of smartphones, pushing the boundaries of AI integration and redefining what it means to have a truly intelligent companion. While the hardware sees incremental upgrades, the real magic lies in the software and the seamless, intuitive experience it offers. This is a glimpse into the future of mobile technology, and it’s exciting to see where Samsung takes us next.

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