Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus review: Samsung’s least interesting flagship

Prior to last year, Samsung’s Plus series always felt like it was caught in between two stools, falling well short of the Ultra whilst failing to offer anything extra over the regular non-Plus iteration of the brand’s flagship smartphone. Last year’s Galaxy S24 Plus finally gave us a little something extra on the screen and storage front.

Samsung hasn’t really kicked on with the Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus, offering much the same points of difference as the previous model. Like the Galaxy S25, most of the improvements are internal, with a design that’s only been slightly refined. It’s a better phone than before but by how much?

Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus review: What you need to know

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus is essentially the Samsung Galaxy S25 blown up to a larger size. Its expanded body houses a much larger 6.7in AMOLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, not to mention a far more pixel-packed QHD+ (3,120 x 1,440) maximum resolution.

With a bigger 4900mAh battery and correspondingly higher 45W wired charging, this is a phone that’s built to go a little longer than the Galaxy S25. Elsewhere, however, the specification is exactly the same. There’s the same Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, the same 12GB of RAM, and the same triple camera set-up made up of a 50-megapixel main camera, a 12-megapixel 120-degree ultrawide, and a 10-megapixel 3x optical telephoto.

Samsung supplies more storage as standard on the Plus variant, with no 128GB model and only 256GB and 512GB capacity options.

READ NEXT: Best Android phone

Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus review: Price and competition

Samsung hasn’t messed with the pricing of the Galaxy S25 Plus at all. It still starts from £999 for 256GB of storage, while moving up to 512GB brings that figure to £1,099.

Given that this year’s model represents a relatively minor upgrade, it’s good to see that Samsung has resisted the temptation to bump those prices up. Especially considering the fiercely competitive field in which it’s operating.

For £999, you can buy the Pixel 9 Pro or the iPhone 16 Pro. The Pixel 9 Pro XL and the iPhone 16 Pro Max are both closer in size, but will cost you £1,099 a piece, which makes the Galaxy S25 Plus seem like pretty good value. Conversely, the well-specced OnePlus 13 starts from £899, which undercuts Samsung by a good £100.

As with its little brother, perhaps the biggest problem for the Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus is that the Galaxy S24 Plus can now be had for significantly cheaper brand new, yet supplies an almost identical experience.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus review: Design and key features

Samsung really hasn’t done much with its design this year, having saved the biggest changes for the Galaxy S25 Ultra. That’s not to say that the Galaxy S25 Plus is exactly the same as the Galaxy S24 Plus but it isn’t far off.

It certainly looks the same, with a familiar flat-edged, iPhone-esque design. The three camera modules have a darker fascia than before, with the surrounding housing reflecting the colour of the frame, but that’s about it for visual changes.

Talking of colour, my model comes in a rather low-key Silver Shadow colour, which seemed to show up dirt and finger grease quite a bit more than the Icy Blue tone that I tested the Galaxy S25 in. The other available colours are Mint, Navy, Pink Gold, Coral Red, and Blue Black.

The most consequential design change here relates more to the feel of the phone than its looks. Samsung has slimmed the Galaxy S25 Plus down to just 7.3mm thick (from 7.7mm), and it now weighs a mere 190g (down from 196g). This isn’t a huge difference, but it adds up to make the Galaxy S25 Plus into one of the most manageable ‘big’ flagship phones on the market. It makes the OnePlus 13 feel downright chunky at 8.9mm and 210g.

I’m a sucker for a small smartphone, but the best thing I can say for the Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus is that I wasn’t itching to go back to the compact comfort of the Pixel 9 Pro or the iPhone 15 Pro at the end of the review period, as I often am.

With an Armor Aluminum 2 frame, Gorilla Glass Victus 2 covering the front and rear and IP68 dust and water resistance, the Galaxy S25 Plus feels suitably tough, too.

READ NEXT: Best Samsung phone

Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus review: Display

Choosing the Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus over the Galaxy S25 likely comes down to one consideration – its larger display. It was a smart move for Samsung to upgrade the Galaxy S24 Plus’ screen to a sharper 3,120 x 1,440 ‘QHD+’ resolution and that upgrade holds true with this year’s model. It still irritates that you have to go searching for this maximum resolution in the Settings menu though, with 2,340 x 1,080, or FHD+, set as the default.

There’s a fluid 120Hz maximum refresh rate here, though unlike other manufacturers, you can’t force this to be active all the time. It’s either the default Adaptive (anything up to 120Hz, depending on the task) or a less power-intensive Standard (up to 60Hz) mode.

You get the same quoted peak brightness of 2,600cd/m2 in HDR situations as the previous generation. With autobrightness turned off, I recorded a maximum brightness of 664cd/m2, which is broadly in the same ballpark as the Samsung Galaxy S25, and just a little dimmer than the Galaxy S24 Plus on 718cd/m2.

Also like the Galaxy S25, I wasn’t blown away by the colour accuracy of the Galaxy S25 Plus. It looks nice and vibrant in general use, and a 100% sRGB gamut coverage against a volume of 106.3% in Natural mode sounds decent. However, an average Delta E colour variance score of 2.13 stands as merely OK. We’d ideally be looking for a score of close to 1 for a modern flagship phone.

I’d be tempted to dismiss this as an issue with my individual review unit, if it weren’t for the fact that both the Samsung Galaxy S25 and the Galaxy S25 Ultra scored similarly. This is clearly how Samsung is tuning its top smartphones in early 2025. It means that the displays of the OnePlus 13 and the Pixel 9 Pro XL are bigger, brighter, and more colour-accurate than that of the Galaxy S25 Plus.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus review: Performance and battery life

As with the Galaxy S25, I’m glad to report that Samsung has stuck with Qualcomm power for every territory in which the Galaxy S25 Plus is being sold. Not only does this mean that performance is consistent no matter where you buy the phone but also that this performance is consistently outstanding.

We can thank the fabulous Snapdragon 8 Elite chip for that, which continues to impress, regardless of the phone we use it in. In our usual CPU-focused Geekbench 6 tests, the Galaxy S25 Plus scored about the same as the Galaxy S25 and the Galaxy S25 Ultra, which is roughly a 45% performance increase over the global Galaxy S24 Plus.

The difference is a little more variable in the GPU department but the S25 Plus is still a good chunk better than its predecessor. The GFXBench results here are broadly in the same neck of the woods as the OnePlus 13, with the S25 Plus comfortably beating the Pixel 9 Pro XL and even surpassing the iPhone 16 Pro Max.

Samsung’s latest still tends to throttle back quite a bit under load, much like the Galaxy S24 Plus before it, with an underwhelming 3D Mark Solar Bay Stress Test score of 56.6% only marking a fractional improvement. It’s not a problem in general running but this isn’t the flagship phone to go for if you’re planning on lots of lengthy 3D gaming sessions.

Samsung has kept with the same 4900mAh battery as before, which continues to be a little smaller than most of the Android opposition and is way smaller than the 6000mAh cell of the OnePlus 13. However, with that more efficient Snapdragon 8 Elite chip at its core, the Galaxy S25 Plus will still last you a little longer than S24 Plus in between charges.

In our regular looping video test, the Galaxy S25 Plus lasted an impressive 33hrs 29mins. That’s about five hours longer than the Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus, four hours longer than the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL, and a whopping six hours longer than the OnePlus 13. Sure enough, I was able to get through a day of moderate to heavy usage (including four hours of screen-on time) with 50% left in the tank.

The Galaxy S25 Plus supports the same 15W wireless and 45W wired charging as last year and, once again, Samsung doesn’t pack a charging brick in the box. Using an appropriate 65W Samsung laptop charger, I managed to get the Galaxy S25 Plus from empty to 100% in just over an hour, which is well in excess of the 36 minute mark that can be achieved with the OnePlus 13.

READ NEXT: Best phone battery life

Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus review: Software and AI

If you’re getting the impression that the Galaxy S25 Plus doesn’t represent a whole lot of hardware progress over the Galaxy S24 Plus, you’d be right on the money. Samsung seems more interested in its software – and in particular the AI side of the equation.

The most obvious addition this time around is the new Now Briefing widget, which appears on the main home screen and the lock screen. It provides a rundown of the day’s weather, as well as any upcoming calendar entries. If you’re invested in Samsung’s wider ecosystem of smart devices, you’ll also get things like your sleep tracking data here. It’s all very easy on the eyes but, as someone who’s not particularly entangled in the Samsung web, I personally didn’t find much value in it.

Samsung’s suite of AI tools outside of the Now Briefing is extensive, and it’s getting better all the time. The ability to remove people and objects from the background in images feels almost spookily effective at times. Elsewhere Google Gemini is seeping into everything, dislodging Bixby from the power button and taking pride of place in Gmail and Google Messages (which has replaced Samsung Messages).

More generally, you’re getting Android 15 with Samsung’s own OneUI 7 layered on top, with Samsung’s industry-leading (alongside Google) promise of seven years of updates. This is a slightly sharper, cleaner interface than we’ve seen from Samsung in the past, though the decision to split the notification menu in two won’t be to everyone’s taste.

Samsung’s UI is certainly a little busier than I would like, and it proves somewhat awkward to someone who tends to go all in with Google services. I didn’t appreciate having to download Google Wallet as my preferred payment service, nor having to figure out how to get Google Password Manager to surface the necessary login information for my usual apps and websites. I’m not sure why I still have to dive into the Settings menu to switch to a gesture-led UI, either, and the way in which the app tray is organised is downright weird.

Of course, if you’re accustomed to Samsung’s way of doing things, as many people are, none of this is likely to be an issue. At its core, this is a fast, fluid, modern UI.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus review: Cameras

The Galaxy S25 Plus offers exactly the same camera system as the Galaxy S25, which also happens to be the same set-up as the Galaxy S24 Plus before it. That means a 50-megapixel (f/1.8) main camera, a 12-megapixel (f/2.2) 120-degree ultrawide, and a 10-megapixel (f/2.4) 3x telephoto camera.

Such stasis is a tad more disappointing to see when you’re spending £1,000 on a phone. Suffice to say, the provision of a dedicated telephoto camera isn’t as noteworthy in a phone of this price and size, either.

Unsurprisingly, the results I obtained during my week with the Galaxy S25 Plus turned out to be of the same standard as the Galaxy S25, so any comments I made about that camera apply equally here. It produces vibrant shots in most lighting conditions, with perhaps a little too much punching up of colours. There’s bags of contrast and decent handling of dynamic range, though.

Night shots reveal the camera to be a little less capable than its rivals. It brightens things up nicely, with OIS enabling the main camera to achieve decent clarity. However, there’s a little more grain in those night time skies than with some others around this price.

The telephoto camera captures strong 3x shots that broadly match the tone of the main camera and you also get nice 2x cropped shots from the main sensor. Noise starts to encroach at 10x, while 20x and 30x snaps are way too grainy to be worthy of much serious attention.

The ultra-wide camera is quite clearly the weak point here. Contrast and detail simply aren’t up to the levels of the other two, though Samsung does good work applying its signature vibrant colour science evenly across its cameras.

The 12MP front camera is decent too, with a dual pixel autofocus system supplying locked-on selfies and reasonably natural skin tones. Portrait shots also look nice and convincing, with plenty of separation between subject and blurred out background.

Video shoots up to 8K at 30fps or 4K at 60fps, just like the standard S25. Shooting with the latter, the Galaxy S25 Plus produces sharp, stable footage and smoothly transitions between different focal lengths.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus review: Verdict

Neither as charmingly compact as the Galaxy S25 nor as flat-out impressive as the Galaxy S25 Ultra, it’s tempting to question the purpose of the Galaxy S25 Plus’s existence. It doesn’t make any meaningful advances on the Plus formula, while its value proposition is questionable in the wake of the OnePlus 13.

However, Samsung’s slimmed-down design makes this a large phone that’s unusually easy to live with, while its performance and battery life are stronger than ever. There’s virtually nothing here that a brand new Galaxy S24 Plus can’t do for less money, but the Galaxy S25 Plus remains a highly competent phone regardless.