Watching a one-hour Galaxy S25 Unpacked event you'd be forgiven for thinking Samsung isn't launching new devices and instead just announcing new software. As with other recent tech events, AI was all the rage and dominated the show.
There are new Galaxy AI features such as “cross-app actions” that should allow the phone's digital assistant to use multiple apps to respond to your requests. The new “conversational search” should make it easier to adjust settings by typing in natural language. In Settings, saying, “My eyes hurt,” can prompt the phone to lead you to brightness and blue light adjustments instead of having to search through the individualized menus.
And at first glance, the new Galaxy S25 lineup looks a lot like last year's S24, which looks like 2023's S23.
But for me, one of the most interesting parts of this phone is something much simpler: battery life. As people continue to keep their phones longer and show limited interest in AI in general, Samsung's claim that the S25 series has its “longest battery life ever” holds particular value.
For the S25 Ultra, the company claims 31 hours of battery life, which is an hour longer than the S24 Ultra, although it remains to be seen how it will perform in the real world.
Recent CNET poll found that American consumers still don't care about AI on their phones. But they 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 camera resolutions of the S25 and S25 Plus remain the same as last year's models.)
Samsung already had very impressive cameras and solid software — beyond the AI – on its older phones. And while I'd like to see a more ambitious change in design (which Samsung seems to be doing with tease a slimmer Galaxy S25 Edge), you can't really argue that the company needed to do anything radical with the already popular flagship models.
The Ultra gets slimmer 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 overall slimmer and lighter profile that all three models seem to sport. These aren't great needle drivers per se, but they could add a nicer experience if you're upgrading from a device that's a few years old.
And maybe AI features will come in handy 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 features.
For now, and in the near future, the feature that matters most to me is battery life. While it may not be flashy or sexy enough for an hour-long keynote, at the end of the day, it's what makes me consider the S25 for an upgrade.
Now if only Samsung could finally put it magnets in the phone itself for Qi2 wireless charging instead of users relying on buying a case…