Watching the hour-long Galaxy S25 Unpacked event you’d be forgiven for thinking that Samsung wasn’t launching any new devices and instead just announcing new software. As at other recent tech events, AI was all the rage and dominated the show.
There are new Galaxy AI features like “cross app actions” that should let the phone’s digital assistant utilize multiple apps to respond to your requests. A new “conversational search” should make it easier to adjust settings by typing in natural language. In Settings saying, “My eyes are hurting,” can prompt the phone to lead you to brightness and blue light adjustments instead of having to hunt down the individualized menus.
And at first glance, the new Galaxy S25 line looks a lot like last year’s S24, which looks like 2023’s S23.
But to me, one of the most interesting parts of this phone is something much more simple: the battery life. As people continue to keep their phones for longer and show limited interest in AI in general, Samsung’s claim that the S25 series has its “longest battery life yet” holds particular merit.
For the S25 Ultra, the company is claiming 31 hours of battery life, which is an hour longer than the S24 Ultra, though how it fares in the real world remains to be seen.
A recent CNET survey found that US buyers still don’t really care for AI on their phones. But they do care a lot about better battery life. Camera features are also important, and Samsung has at least bumped up the ultra-wide sensor to 50 megapixels on the S25 Ultra. (The S25 and S25 Plus camera resolutions remain the same as last year’s models.)
Samsung already had very impressive cameras and solid software — outside of AI — on its older phones. And while I would’ve liked to have seen a more ambitious design shift (which Samsung appears to be doing with the teased slimmer Galaxy S25 Edge), you can’t really argue that the company needed to do something radical with its already popular main models.
The Ultra gaining thinner bezels to move the screen from 6.8 inches on the S24 edition to 6.9 inches on this year’s phone is a small but nice touch. As is the general thinner and lighter profile that all three models seem to be sporting. These aren’t big needle movers on their own, but they could add up to a nicer experience if you upgrade from a device that is a couple of years old.
And maybe the AI features will be useful in the future. With Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Elite chips and 12GB of RAM now standard across the line and Samsung’s promise of seven years of software updates, perhaps these phones are well-equipped to handle at least some of those future functions.
For now, and in the immediate future, the feature that matters most to me is the battery life. While it may not be as flashy or sexy for an hour-long keynote, it is, at the end of the day, what pushes me to consider the S25 when upgrading.
Now if only Samsung could finally put magnets in the phone itself for Qi2 wireless charging instead of having users rely on buying a case…
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