An excessive amount of AI, not sufficient Extremely

It seems like each main tech firm is completely satisfied that AI is the long run. And for all I do know, they could be proper. However whereas we’re ready for somebody to develop our seemingly inevitable AGI-based overlords, we’ve to undergo by means of each child step to get in the present day’s machine learning-powered options. Sadly, that’s an issue for devices just like the Samsung Galaxy S25 Extremely — as a result of when the largest focus of a brand new $1,300 flagship smartphone is iterative AI updates, the system can really feel a bit underwhelming. Mix that with {hardware} that looks as if it’s been frozen in time for the final couple of years and also you get one thing that leaves you wanting extra.

Design and show: Rounded corners, Gorilla Armor 2 and never a lot else

For this 12 months’s Extremely, Samsung needed to present the telephone a softer, extra curvy look to bolster the familial resemblance between it and its cheaper siblings. And by rounding off the S25 Extremely’s corners, I’d say mission achieved. Elsewhere, its back and front glass at the moment are product of Corning Gorilla Armor 2, which includes a new model of the corporate’s anti-reflective coating and appears nice. When mixed with bezels which might be 15 % smaller than earlier than, you get a telephone with tremendous clear strains and a barely bigger 6.9-inch show (up from 6.8 inches) with out a rise in its bodily measurement.

However make no mistake, the S25U nonetheless feels quite a bit just like the final two Ultras that got here earlier than it. Its flat edges give it a really boxy really feel, and despite the fact that the Word line is lifeless, there’s nonetheless the requisite cubby gap for the S Pen. Nevertheless, for 2025 the included stylus has gotten a minor downgrade now that Samsung has eliminated help for Bluetooth Low Vitality. This implies it not helps Air motion gestures, so you’ll be able to’t use it as a distant digital camera set off or to do issues like swap cameras or change photograph modes.

Samsung claims this lack of performance shouldn’t be a giant deal as a tiny fraction of individuals really used the function. Plus, if you need a option to remotely snap a photograph, there are different strategies like holding your hand as much as the digital camera or utilizing a Galaxy Ring or Watch. However in the event you’re one of many few who did take pleasure in Air actions, it’s an unlucky step backward. Fortunately, for individuals who completely want a stylus with gesture help, you’ll be able to nonetheless get that performance from Samsung’s elective S Pen Professional.

One small factor I do wish to name out is the improved anti-reflective coating on the S25 Extremely’s display screen. It strikes an nearly good stability between typical shiny shows and the matte texture used on conventional desktop displays. Colours stay vivid whereas nonetheless chopping out probably the most distracting types of glare, and with a peak brightness of two,600 nits, the display screen dazzles in virtually any setting.

Efficiency: Extra pace than you’ll know what to do with

The Galaxy S Extremely has by no means lacked energy, however that didn’t cease Samsung from including much more pace due to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, 12GB of RAM and as much as 1TB of storage. This factor completely flies and there’s not a lot you are able to do to sluggish it down. Samsung has even tightened up the animations in One UI in order that the telephone feels as responsive as its benchmarks recommend, that are up as a lot as 30 to 40 % relying on the duty (or nearer to fifteen % whereas gaming). The one wrinkle to that is that, when below heavy masses, the S25 Extremely does turn into a bit power-hungry, which may end up in barely faster-than-expected battery drain when doing heavy multitasking or working demanding apps.

Software program: Simply what you needed, extra AI

The S25 Extremely’s predominant focus for this 12 months is on improved AI. This may be seen throughout quite a few new and improved options (and a few apparent inspiration from rivals like Apple and Google) with the overall objective of constructing all of its instruments extra highly effective, extra intuitive and in lots of circumstances, simpler to make use of along with your voice.

The primary main addition is Samsung’s Now Transient, which provides a personalised feed stuffed with issues just like the climate, native site visitors, upcoming calendar appointments, the information and extra. It will get refreshed periodically all through the day (morning, noon, afternoon, and so forth.) and through the use of what Samsung calls its Private Knowledge Engine, it is going to try to be taught what you want as a substitute of getting you test off a listing of tickboxes. It’s a useful software, although for anybody already accustomed to the Android ecosystem, it’s not particularly groundbreaking. And it does take time for the telephone to know what you do and don’t care about, which provides a little bit of a studying curve to the method.

Now Briefs additionally works with Samsung’s Now bar to floor related occasions in different areas of the telephone — particularly your lock display screen and notification shade. It’s meant that can assist you maintain tabs on apps you’re utilizing (like how lengthy you’ve let the Voice Recorder app run) or stuff like sports activities scores, with the flexibility to toggle between various things just by swiping left and proper. It’s useful, however forgive me if that is turning into repetitive, as a result of many of those seem like duplicate variations of stuff like Google’s Reside Notifications.

In the meantime, in the event you open the Edge Panel by swiping in on the tab on the best aspect of the display screen, you’ll see much more AI options. AI Choose is a revamped tackle Sensible Choose, which helps you are taking screenshots, flip movies into gifs and extra. Drawing Help is the software previously often called Sketch to Picture, which helps you to create artwork by doodling with the S Pen or utilizing textual content inputs. After which there’s the self-explanatory Interpreter app, plus an icon for Now Transient in case you don’t like utilizing the widget. All of those form of work similar to you anticipate them to, and in some circumstances like when drawing, the ensuing pictures are a contact extra detailed and life like than earlier than. However to me, the largest improve throughout Samsung’s second-gen AI suite is a barely extra cohesive UI that makes studying what every software can do a bit simpler.

Maybe my favourite new use of AI is improved pure language instructions all through the telephone. For instance within the Gallery app, you’ll be able to seek for particular topics simply by hitting the asking Gemini (or Bixby too, in the event you’re into that). It’s a handy option to shortly discover a particular photograph amongst 1000’s of photographs — although as soon as once more, there’s comparable performance in Google Pictures. However extra importantly, you should use voice instructions to do stuff like change system settings and even add occasions to your calendar. And also you don’t even have to be very particular. Once I requested the telephone so as to add the subsequent Knicks sport to my calendar, I didn’t want to present it any extra info than that. All of it feels barely magical, even when it’s not a necessary a part of my day.

Cameras: A brand new ultra-wide sensor however that’s about it

Like its predecessors, the S25 Extremely includes a 200-megapixel predominant digital camera and a 50MP telephoto with a 5x zoom. The one improve is a brand new 50MP sensor for its ultra-wide lens (up from 12MP). As you’d anticipate, expansive panorama pics look a contact sharper due to the elevated decision, although apart from that, there aren’t a ton of instantly apparent enhancements to the remainder of the telephone’s normal picture high quality.

As you’d anticipate, in brilliant mild the S25 Extremely captures beautiful pictures with wealthy particulars and vibrant colours. Nevertheless, I did discover that Samsung’s penchant for going barely overboard on sharpening can nonetheless be a problem. The brand new ultra-wide sensor additionally gives a noticeable improve in picture high quality to the purpose the place I want it over what the Pixel 9 Professional can do. However I need to admit, in comparison with the principle digital camera and even the 5x zoom, that lens is the one I exploit the least, so it doesn’t have as a lot of an affect on my total images.

In low mild, the S25 Extremely almost saved tempo with Google’s Evening Sight mode on the Pixel 9 Professional, and in a couple of conditions, it pulled forward. Nevertheless, I had a tough time recognizing how a lot of an impact Samsung’s improved noise discount had on nighttime graininess. Regardless, even with a couple of hiccups, the S25 Extremely proved it could hold with different top-tier shooters from Google and others.

In the meantime, within the Digicam and Gallery apps, there are some useful tweaks together with the brand new Audio Eraser function. It makes use of AI to determine a handful of various sound varieties (similar to speech, wind noise and extra) earlier than making a customized EQ that allows you to alter issues on the fly. That is nice for these occasions once you’re taking pictures video and ambient sounds make it exhausting to listen to what individuals are saying. It’s also possible to create and save customized photograph filters to make sure all of your pics on social media have a singular and constant look.

Moreover, for extra superior customers, there’s a digital aperture setting that offers you a bit extra management over depth of subject, although it is nonetheless not almost nearly as good as having the ability to bodily swap lenses like you’ll be able to on a correct digital camera. And for much more demanding content material creators, Samsung created a brand new Galaxy Log video format that means that you can extra simply edit and colour grade your footage. That stated, until you’re a YouTuber or hardcore video junkie, you might not get a ton of use out of those instruments, particularly with the latter of the 2 being restricted to Samsung’s Knowledgeable Uncooked app (which doesn’t come pre-installed).

Battery life and charging: Samsung is chopping corners with its Qi2 “readiness”

The scale of the Galaxy S25 Extremely’s 5,000 mAh energy pack hasn’t modified in 5 years, however that’s OK since you nonetheless get nice battery life. On our native video rundown check, it lasted an unbelievable 29 hours and 27 minutes, which is up nearly two hours in comparison with final 12 months’s telephone. That stated, it’s necessary to notice that the S25U loses in each capability and longevity to the OnePlus 13, whose 6,000 mAh cell posted a good higher time of 30:18.

Wired charging is staying put at as much as 45 watts and annoyingly it is a very comparable story when utilizing wi-fi pads as nicely. That’s as a result of whereas technically the S25 Extremely helps model 2.1 of the WPC’s Qi charging spec and is alleged to be “Qi2 ready”, as a result of Samsung didn’t embody magnets contained in the telephone, it received’t work with the wide range of Qi2 equipment on sale in the present day. At the least not with out some assist. For that, you’ll want to depend on a Qi2 charging case so as to add the right alignment and mounting level wanted to connect magnetic peripherals.

For lots of Android telephones customers, that is actually disappointing after seeing the wealth of MagSafe devices that iPhone customers have loved for a number of generations. As the largest telephone maker on the planet, Samsung has a whole lot of sway in the case of fostering the adoption of helpful protocols like Qi2 and seeing them cease in need of actually supporting the spec is a bit bewildering.

Wrap up

The S25 Extremely is a vastly versatile telephone, however this version of Samsung’s flagship is tough to get enthusiastic about. That’s as a result of whereas it is one of many few handsets with an included stylus and a protracted 5x telephoto zoom, its normal {hardware} and capabilities haven’t modified a lot for the reason that earlier technology. And even two fashions again for that matter. Even so, the screens on Samsung telephones are unequalled whereas digital camera high quality stays among the many finest. And whereas its battery hasn’t gotten larger in years, longevity stays sturdy. Then you definately add in a brand new Snapdragon 8 Elite chip with blazing efficiency and also you get a telephone that’s good at just about all the things. However for $1,300, it higher be capable to ship on all that and extra.

And it is that “and more” the place the S25 Extremely’s worth proposition will get a bit awkward. The telephone’s greatest developments are extra highly effective software program and AI. Options like AI Choose, Now Transient and improved pure language instructions make the telephone smarter and simpler to make use of. However contemplate this: For those who may pay for these instruments individually, how a lot further would you fork over to get extra subtle AI in your telephone? For a lot of, that quantity could be zero, or on the very least a method lower than the value of upgrading and the trouble of organising a brand new telephone after which determining use it.

This implies a whole lot of what Samsung targeted on on this technology feels extra like a bonus reasonably than a must have function. And when you will get round 90 % of the telephone’s capabilities from earlier fashions, probably the most harmful factor Samsung is asking patrons to contemplate is why they should improve in any respect.