Samsung Galaxy S25 and S25 Plus hands-on review: Rock the Now Bar

If, like me, you still see the emergence of AI in smartphones as just a fancy set of buzzwords, then I have some troubling news to share as the new year kicks off. Samsung has just announced its latest trio of flagship handsets, the Galaxy S25 series, offering our first indication that this AI marketing fluff is going to be even more prevalent in 2025.

Of course, if shiny new AI improvements are your primary motivating factor when considering your next smartphone purchase, then you’re likely going to be a fan of what’s on offer here, since there are quite a few additions to discuss. But if you prefer your upgrades to be a bit more physical, well, you might want to look elsewhere.

Samsung Galaxy S25/S25 Plus hands-on: Specifications, UK price and release date

• 6.2in FHD+ display (S25); 6.7in QHD+ display (S25 Plus)
• 1-120Hz, 2,600 nits Dynamic AMOLED 2X
• 3nm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy processor SoC
• 12GB of RAM
• 128GB (S25 only), 256GB or 512GB of storage
• 50MP main camera, 10MP 3x telephoto, 12MP ultrawide
• Armour Aluminium chassis
• Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 display glass
• 4,000mAh (S25), 4,900mAh (S25 Plus) batteries
• 25W (S25), 45W (S25 Plus) wired charging
• Dimensions: 70.5 x 146.9 x 7.2mm (S25); 75.8 x 158.4 x 7.3mm (S25 Plus)
• Weight: 162g (S25), 190g (S25 Plus)
• Galaxy S25 prices: £799 (128GB), £859 (256GB), £979 (512GB)
• Galaxy S25 Plus prices: £999 (256GB), £1,099 (512GB)
• Availability: Preorder from 22 January, on general sale from 7 February

Samsung Galaxy S25/S25 Plus hands-on: Design and key new features

Let’s talk about those physical attributes first. Both the S25 and S25 Plus have seen a slight reduction in weight compared to last year’s phones, at 162g (6g less) and 190g (7g less), respectively, and they’re a smidge thinner too, at 7.2mm and 7.3mm. In fact, Samsung says they’re the slimmest S-series flagships yet and I certainly didn’t feel the need to challenge them on that when I held them in my hand.

The edges of the phones aren’t curved anymore but are instead completely flat. The grey aluminium rings around each of the three lenses are slightly thicker, too. These changes are so miniscule, however, that you will struggle to tell the new and old models apart – I know I did during my hands-on session.

There are some differences between these two models and the pricier Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, however. Neither the Galaxy S25 nor the S25 Plus have Gorilla Armor 2 screen protection; instead, they make do with Gorilla Glass Victus 2. There’s also no stylus (obviously) and no Titanium chassis – it’s just plain old Armour Aluminium for these two.

Both phones use Samsung’s Dynamic AMOLED 2X displays with a variable 1-120Hz refresh rate and a maximum brightness of 2,600 nits, but the S25 has a 6.2in FHD+ screen and the S25 Plus a 6.7in QHD+ unit. Both models have a 12-megapixel selfie camera embedded in a hole punch notch at the top.

Battery sizes and charging speeds differ, too, with the regular S25 using a 4,000mAh battery, while the S25 Plus comes with a larger 4,900mAh cell. Weirdly, the S25 only supports 25W wired charging, which is pretty woeful in this day and age, although S25 Plus isn’t much better at 45W.

Both handsets share the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chipset as the S25 Ultra, with 12GB of RAM across all three models. As the name suggests, this is a brand-new 3nm chip that exists solely for the S25 series. It has a claimed 30% generation-on-generation improvement in CPU speeds and a 37% uplift in graphics processing power. Samsung also said that the S25 has 40% better ray-tracing capabilities when compared to the S24 – now if only we had more mobile games that support this rendering feature.

Storage capacity consists of 256GB and 512GB offerings for both models, with the S25 also getting a cheaper 128GB variant. Camera-wise, both the S25 and S25 Plus have a 50-megapixel main lens, 10-megapixel, 3x telephoto and a 12-megapixel ultrawide. You can expect even better noise reduction in stills and video, as well as a new audio eraser tool, just like Google’s Pixel phones.

Samsung Galaxy S25/S25 Plus hands-on: AI additions

With a lot of its launch event focussing on AI, it’s no surprise that there’s plenty to get our teeth stuck into in this regard. One of the most intriguing is the Bixby and Gemini integration, allowing you to speak to the phone and issue contextual commands using a single integrated “human-like AI agent”, as Samsung calls it.

Features include searching the gallery app for specific media captured at a specific location, or asking the assistant to “make the text larger” before handing the phone to an elderly relative. You can also search multiple criteria in a single command, such as: “Find me a five-star rated vegan, pet-friendly restaurant in the Soho area of London”, for instance.

I quite liked the AI Select tool, too, which is basically a flashier version of Google’s Circle to Search feature. All you need to do is activate the assistant, draw around whatever it is on-screen that you want to play with, and you’re greeted with a list of commands, including generative AI image edits, text paraphrasing and more.

It’s the new personalised AI integration I’m most interested in, however. Samsung calls these the “Now Bar” and “Now Brief”, providing little summaries of your day via a widget on the home screen and on your lock screen. These little briefings will display how well you slept, upcoming calendar entries and wrap-up of what you did that day, with even more information provided as it learns more about you. This might sound a bit creepy but I think there’s a lot of potential here.

Samsung Galaxy S25/S25 Plus hands on: Early verdict

And that just about sums up how I feel about the Samsung Galaxy S25 at this early stage. It’s a flagship smartphone with loads of potential, especially with the promise of all these AI-driven features at launch, but I simply haven’t had enough time with the phone to form a well-rounded verdict yet.

If it is indeed a handset that becomes smarter and more useful as you spend more time with it, then there’s not a whole lot I can test on a recently factory reset phone during a brief hands-on session.

But rest assured, we will be receiving the S25 handsets for review very soon, and will be sure to put all of these AI-heavy features to the test over the coming weeks. Stay tuned for our full review.