Samsung’s Galaxy S25 series has arrived, and it’s… well, it’s here. The tech giant unveiled its latest flagship phones at its Unpacked event this week, and the reaction has been lukewarm at best. Despite being packed with the latest AI-powered features thanks to a deeper integration with Google’s Gemini, the S25 lineup feels strangely underwhelming. Are these phones truly boring, or are we just numb to incremental upgrades in the smartphone world?
The Galaxy S25, S25+, and S25 Ultra hit the shelves on February 7th, 2025, starting at $799.99, $999.99, and $1,299.99 respectively. Samsung is clearly banking on AI to be the differentiating factor this year, with features like the Now Bar (a blatant Dynamic Island clone) and Cross App Action taking center stage. But is AI enough to excite consumers when the hardware feels so familiar? Let’s dive deep into what makes these phones tick, and why they might be leaving you with a sense of déjà vu.
The “New” Flagships: If It Ain’t Broke…
The S25 and S25+ are almost indistinguishable from their predecessors, the S24 and S24+. The design language remains unchanged, with the same sleek look and feel. Even the screen sizes are identical: 6.2-inch for the S25 and 6.7-inch for the S25+. The only noticeable difference is a slight reduction in weight, which is welcome but hardly groundbreaking.
The S25 Ultra, with its 6.9-inch display, does offer a slightly tweaked design, adopting the flat frame and rounded corners of its smaller siblings. This creates a more unified look across the lineup, but again, it’s hardly a revolutionary change.
Internally, all three models get a bump to 12GB of RAM, which is a decent upgrade. However, considering the heavy emphasis on AI, it’s surprising that Samsung didn’t go all out with 16GB.
AI to the Rescue?
Samsung is making a big deal about AI in the S25 series. The Now Bar, which sits at the bottom of the lock screen, provides contextual information throughout the day, similar to Apple’s Dynamic Island. Cross App Action allows Google’s Gemini AI to perform tasks across different Samsung apps, like creating calendar events or summarizing notes.
While these features are certainly interesting, they don’t feel truly transformative. Gemini’s capabilities, at least in this initial implementation, seem rather basic. Creating calendar entries and summarizing notes are hardly revolutionary. We’ve seen similar functionality in other AI assistants for years.
Moreover, Samsung’s own Galaxy AI still feels a step behind Apple’s tightly integrated AI experience. While it can surface some contextual information, it lacks the proactive intelligence and deep learning capabilities that make Apple’s AI feel truly personal and intuitive.
Camera and Battery Life: Incremental Improvements
The S25 Ultra boasts a 200-megapixel wide lens, while the S25 and S25+ stick with 50-megapixel main shooters. All three phones feature a new Night Video mode with Audio Eraser functionality, which is a nice addition for low-light recording.
Battery capacities remain largely unchanged from the S24 series: 4,000 mAh for the S25, 4,900 mAh for the S25+, and 5,000 mAh for the S25 Ultra. Samsung claims that a new ProScaler technology will make the screens sharper and brighter, which could impact battery life, but we’ll have to wait for real-world tests to see how it performs.
The Elephant in the Room: The Galaxy S25 Edge
Perhaps the most exciting announcement at Unpacked wasn’t even a fully revealed phone. Samsung teased the Galaxy S25 Edge, a super-thin device that revives the “Edge” branding but with a new focus on slimness rather than curved displays.
Rumors suggest the S25 Edge will be just 6.4mm thick, making it one of the thinnest smartphones on the market. It’s expected to feature a 6.4-inch display and a dual-camera setup. However, Samsung remained tight-lipped on specs, pricing, and release date, leaving us with more questions than answers.
The S25 Edge feels like the phone Samsung should have led with. It’s a genuinely intriguing device that pushes the boundaries of smartphone design. By relegating it to a “One More Thing” teaser, Samsung inadvertently made the rest of the S25 lineup look even more pedestrian.
Is “Boring” the New Normal?
The Galaxy S25 series raises an important question: have we reached peak smartphone? Innovation has slowed in recent years, with most new phones offering only incremental improvements over their predecessors. Foldable phones are a notable exception, but they remain a niche product for now.
Perhaps we’ve simply reached a point where smartphones are “good enough.” They can handle all our daily tasks with ease, take stunning photos and videos, and last for a full day on a single charge. What more could we ask for?
Maybe the problem isn’t that the phones are boring, but that our expectations are too high. We’ve become accustomed to yearly leaps in technology, and now that those leaps are smaller, we feel disappointed.
Or maybe Samsung is just playing it safe. The S25 series is clearly aimed at maintaining the status quo, not shaking things up. With the S25 Edge waiting in the wings, it seems like Samsung is holding back its truly innovative ideas for later.
The Galaxy S25 series is not a bad lineup of phones. They’re well-built, powerful devices with decent cameras and battery life. But they lack the “wow” factor that we’ve come to expect from Samsung flagships.
The heavy focus on AI feels somewhat forced, especially since the actual AI features aren’t particularly groundbreaking. And the lack of any significant design changes makes these phones feel like minor iterations of their predecessors.
Samsung may be hoping that the S25 Edge will inject some excitement into the lineup when it eventually launches. But for now, the S25 series feels like a missed opportunity. It’s a collection of solid but uninspiring phones that fail to capture the imagination.
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