One of the many gripes most people on the internet have about the Samsung Galaxy S25 series is that these phones do not differ much from their S24 predecessors—we say the difference is there, albeit minute. But do little differences warrant a phone upgrade? We say approach it mindfully: an upgrade to the Galaxy S25+ is ideal if you’ve had your current phone for upwards of three years, but perhaps not if you’ve only recently gotten the Galaxy S24 series.
We spent a good month trialling the Galaxy S25+, going through its bells and whistles alongside the brand’s hallmark AI features—here are our thoughts.
The Phone
First things first: we couldn’t get enough of the Coralred colourway, a refreshing and vibrantly coloured smartphone. The 6.7-inch phone is a good size that sits perfectly in the palm yet has a large enough screen—all the better to see with. And see properly we did, with the 120-Hz LTPO, AMOLED screen packing all the pixels in, making for a very sharp and bright display. It’s also made to be a lot more durable now with the Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2, which is an apparent upgrade from the Galaxy S24 series and said to be 29 percent better resistant to fractures. Now, that’s good news to those known to have butter fingers—or in our case, slippery grips from an exhilarating game.
During our time with the Galaxy S25+, it had also proven itself to be quite the gaming buddy, and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor paired with 12GB of RAM serves the purpose. According to Samsung, this elixir provides a 30 percent increase in graphics alongside a 37 percent CPU upgrade, which helps when you’re trying to make millisecond gestures to ensure you don’t get in the way of a headshot. But of course, all that gaming would be for naught if it wasn’t for the upgraded vapor chamber cooling system, keeping the phone from getting hot while we’re at it.
Even if you’re not a gamer, that cooling system will come in handy, especially when we’re constantly producing content using the camera system.
The Camera
The Galaxy S25+ features a very modest amount of three back cameras and one front-facing camera: a 50-MP primary camera, 12-MP ultrawide, 10-MP 3X telephoto, and 12-MP selfie. This more than fulfils any content-creating needs, as you can see in our Instagram Reel below taken at KL’s newest art space, Immersify.
The 50-MP primary camera more than delivers, offering stunning quality even in the low-lit areas of Immersify and in spite of Instagram’s purported compression. The 12-MP ultrawide camera is also noteworthy, and we saw firsthand how images stay looking crisp without that reduction of quality and vignette that ultrawide lenses are typically known for.
There is also a post-editing tool that we loved: Audio Eraser. It removes unwanted noise in videos, simplifying our content-creating processes especially where there are celebrity soundbites involved.
The AI
As with the previous generation, the Galaxy S25+’s range focuses heavily on its AI capabilities. While we have not fully attuned ourselves to relying on AI with every swipe of the phone, some features are more useful than others, making life just a little bit easier. Our picks? Circle to Search sits pretty high on the list, having been upgraded and now recognises phone numbers and emails on the screen. Of course, trying to find that item that a particular celebrity wore is also a lot easier with this function.
Gemini is also available on most apps you use in the phone, making cross-app usage quite seamless. For example, you can summarise an email on Gmail, pick out important events within that email and immediately put it in your calendar—all with the help of Gemini.
For us journalists who often get our interviews done via calls, the Call Transcript is an extremely useful feature doing double duty. Even if you’re not a journalist, we imagine being able to transcribe any important calls is a useful element to have in today’s technology.
The Samsung Galaxy S25+ is now retailing at RM4,999 for the 256GB and RM5,599 for the 512GB version. Purchase the Samsung Galaxy S25 series online now.
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