Samsung Galaxy S25+ review: this uninspiring update is for a limited audience

Introduction

I’ve long seen the Plus variants as the ugly duckling of Samsung’s Galaxy smartphone lineup: not different enough from the base model to justify its higher price, and not as fully-featured as the Ultra flagship. Even when last year’s Galaxy S24+ broke the mould with its bespoke hardware upgrades, it still felt out of step with similarly-priced rivals. On first inspection, the Galaxy S25+ feels like more of the same.

Hardware changes are at an all-time low, as Samsung decides Galaxy AI is where the action is. The styling is all but identical to last year. And the $999/£999 asking price puts it up against some incredibly tough competition. You still get one of the fastest mobile CPUs around, and there’s some under-the-skin screen magic for the first time, but that’s really your lot.

With way more rivals than the smaller Galaxy S25, and the more capable Galaxy S25 Ultra not too far off on price, does that leave the Plus marooned in a smartphone no-man’s land?

Design & build: put a ring on it

No, you’re not looking at last year’s phone – the black bezels around the rear camera lenses, which tie it neatly in with the S25 Ultra, are the biggest giveaway. The Galaxy S25+ is also the teensiest bit slimmer and lighter than before, but otherwise it’s Samsung’s tried-and-tested design scaled up to 6.7in.

That means a flat metal frame with rounded-off corners and a slab of flat glass on either side – traits you’ll find on virtually every top-tier phone right now. And unlike the smaller Galaxy S25, which has just a few key rivals, this Plus variant is just as palm-filling as any number of alternatives. Samsung might want to shake things up next year, as it’s beginning to look a little generic. An environmental push means at least 20% of the Armor Aluminium frame is made from recycled materials now, which is great to see.

I wasn’t that impressed with the muted colour options available through regular retailers, and the Samsung web store doesn’t have many brighter hues to pick from either. My review unit’s Navy finish is arguably the pick of the bunch, with a dark blue frame and matching rear glass that does a pretty good job at hiding fingerprint muck.

IP68 dust and water resistance is welcome, but no longer class-leading; some phones have tougher IP69 protection, withstanding high pressure water jets as well as complete submersion. Not that I stick my phone in the dishwasher on a regular basis, mind.

Screen & sound: sense of scale

After giving the Galaxy S24+ a panel size and resolution bump last year, it feels a little like Samsung’s display team had their feet up for 2025. The S25+ looks all but identical, with the same 6.7in flat AMOLED, same skinny bezels, and same punch-hole webcam sitting top dead centre.

As before, the phone defaults to FHD+ in order to keep battery drain in check; you’ve got to dive into the Settings screens to get the full 3120×1440, which actually puts it ahead of the pricier Galaxy S25 Ultra for pixel density. New ProScaler tech also lurks behind the scenes to give images a clarity boost using machine learning; 720p content looks a lot closer to 1080p now, but you’d need a side-by-side with last year’s phone to really spot the difference.

This screen is still a treat for the eyes, with fantastic definition, punchy colours, and epic contrast. Viewing angles are ace, and the LTPO variable refresh rate strikes a good balance between power consumption and smooth scrolling.

Brightness hasn’t seen any gains, though. 2600 nits was near the top of the pile last year (with a few outliers) but is now behind the current crop of high-end handsets around the $1000/£1000 mark. It doesn’t cope as well with light reflections as the S25 Ultra and its Gorilla Armor glass, or rivals that can shine brighter. I had no major issues using the phone outside on sunny days, but the competition copes better still.

I didn’t notice any real changes on the sound front, with a down-firing main speaker and front-facing earpiece tweeter delivering a respectable amount of volume and a clear-enough tone. Just don’t expect much in the way of bass, and for the top end to get rather peaky when you crank things up.

Cameras: here we go again

Another year, another Galaxy with the same three rear cameras. While rivals are making high pixel count zooms, macro-focusing ultrawides and massive main sensors the norm for anything above the mid-range, the Galaxy S25 sticks with Samsung’s familiar 50MP lead lens, 12MP ultrawide and 10MP telephoto good for 3x optical zoom. They’ve got the benefit of another twelve months of image processing improvements, sure – but those only go so far.

Having a dedicated zoom lens does give it a hardware leg up over the iPhone 16 Plus, but Google’s Pixel 9 Pro XL and the OnePlus 13 both have the Samsung beat with their larger sensors. The Pixel even gets 5x magnification before sensor cropping comes into play, so takes the win for outright clarity, and holds up better at 10x too. The Galaxy gets digital zoom up to 30x, but there’s a big quality drop-off at extreme magnification.

At least the S25+ nails colour and exposure consistency between its three cameras, while the ample dynamic range and vibrant, saturated images will keep long-time Samsung fans happy. Others that prefer Google or Apple’s approach to colour treatment and tone will appreciate the optional filters, which give your snaps a totally different vibe from the stock setup.

During daylight hours this phone can take clean and clear photos, though it’s the lead lens that comes out on top for overall definition. I wish Samsung could freeze moving subjects half as well as some rivals can, too. Things have improved a little from last year, but not enough to draw level with Apple or Google. OnePlus is now in the conversation at this price, too.

Night mode kicks in quickly in low light, taking pics with lots of noise reduction and sharpening to give the illusion of preserved detail. New processing tech gives it the advantage over last year’s Galaxy phones, but not enough to eclipse rivals. Shadow definition isn’t quite up there with Google’s phenomenal Night Sight, and colours can skew a little unnatural, but well lit city streets and dimly lit restaurants are still captured convincingly enough.

Video has arguably seen more attention this year, with Log recording now an option for creators that want to colour grade their footage after filming. The smooth zoom slider is a bit more universal, cleanly transitioning between the different lenses rather than with big jumps. Resolutions and refresh rates are comprehensive, with 8K/30p and 4K/60P HDR recording, plus 1080P/240 slow motion.

I can’t ignore the S25+’s image editing abilities, either. Generative AI lets you expand tightly cropped shots rather convincingly, as well as delete unwanted distractions and remove reflections. I like being able to doodle on a shot and have it create something far more convincing, like adding a boat to an empty river or a plane in the sky, even if Sketch-to-Image won’t always get the perspective and scale quite right.

There’s no one area that lets the side down, then – but if phone photography matters most, you’ll still want to shop around now that rivals have the edge on picture quality.

Software experience: AI additions count for a lot

If everything up to this point has felt like a repeat of 2024, you’ll be hoping software can give the Galaxy S25+ its raison d’être. That’s a bold move on Samsung’s part, seeing how the firm has conditioned owners to expect this year’s features as updates for last year’s phones in double-quick time.

You’re getting OneUI 7 here, running on top of Android 15. It’s a mostly visual shake-up for what was already one of the most comprehensive Android skins out there, with no shortage of in-house apps preinstalled. The redesigned Quick Settings screen makes it easier to share with nearby devices and control any connected smart home kit.

The biggest change is Now Brief and the Now Bar. The former summarises sports scores, weather reports, calendar appointments and commute traffic onto a single screen, and the latter is essentially an AI-infused spin on Apple’s Live Activities. This pill lives at the bottom of your lock screen, flashing up playback controls when streaming music, directions when commuting, and sports results as they happen. It’s very reliant on you using either Samsung or Google’s services right now, with little third party support.

Other AI upgrades for 2025 include AI Select, which might be the sole reason I kept the pop-out Edge panel enabled after I set up the phone. It lets you highlight or circle any onscreen text or image, then have Galaxy AI’s most useful tools presented automatically. Being able to generatively rewrite text in a more professional tone, translate foreign languages or summarise articles without relying on Samsung’s stock apps is a surefire way to get more people using the tech.

I’m also happy to see Circle to Search make a return, and Gemini being the default voice assistant – though Bixby is alive and well, handling device-specific settings using natural language. Saying “My screen is really dim” and being taken straight to the display brightness slider will surely help those who aren’t familiar with Android’s labyrinthine settings menus.

Samsung’s seven year update promise sticks around for another year, meaning you can expect new Android versions and security patches until 2032.

Performance & battery life: the new generation

Europe let out a collective sigh of relief when Samsung confirmed every S25 model was getting a Snapdragon 8 Elite For Galaxy chipset; with no weaker Exynos on offer this year, you’re getting the same performance and power efficiency no matter where you live in the world. There’s no memory disparity either, with all three phones now getting 12GB of RAM.

With a little more room inside to dissipate heat than its baby brother, I was expecting the S25+ to put in a slightly stronger showing on the performance front, but fall short of the S25 Ultra and its much larger vapor chamber. That largely bore out in benchmarks, with scores comfortably up there with the best phones on sale right now. Qualcomm’s under the hood upgrades don’t give it a massive advantage over rivals using the standard silicon, and you’re unlikely to notice the difference in daily use, but there’s no denying this is a mighty powerful phone.

That translates to brilliantly smooth frame rates in games, even demanding ones with flashy effects like ray tracing. A screen full of enemies and spell effects in Diablo Immortal, with the details cranked to their highest? No problem, at least with the screen’s default FHD+ resolution. Yes, things do hot up when you’re giving it the beans, but never so much the phone became uncomfortable to hold, and not enough to truly hamper performance.

As for battery life? The chipset being made on a 3nm process helps it sip power compared to last year’s silicon, but ultimately the S25+ still makes do with a 4900mAh battery. That would’ve been below average twelve months ago, but now it looks positively prehistoric against phones with silicon-carbon batteries. A OnePlus 13 squeezes 6000mAh into a body that’s barely any bigger. Samsung’s unwillingness to repeat the Galaxy Note 7 battery fiasco is on full display here. In reality this phone can comfortably manage a full day of use – but you shouldn’t expect much more unless you cut back your screen-on time.

At least wired charging is on par with the pricier S25 Ultra, even if it’s still less than half what the current class leaders can manage. Wireless charging tops out at 15W, and technically there’s support for Qi2 magnetic refuelling too – though only with a compatible case. None of which Samsung make in-house, meaning you’ve got to go third-party.

Samsung Galaxy S25+ verdict

The Galaxy S25+ was always going to be a hard sell. It has far more direct rivals than the smaller S25, and isn’t really that far removed from the flagship S25 Ultra. It’s also essentially a retread of last year’s model, with just a new chipset and the mildest of design refreshes with to coax upgraders.

That means it’s a consistently good phone – great, even – and the Galaxy AI additions are very slick. But they’ll almost certainly head to older models in an OTA update over the coming months, so if there’s an S24 Plus in your pocket right now, I strongly advise holding onto it for at least another year. And if you’re not wedded to Samsung’s wider ecosystem, the longer lasting, faster charging OnePlus 13 is seriously tempting for similar cash. A Pixel 9 Pro XL and its superior snappers can be had for an equal amount now, too.

It still holds some appeal for Samsung super fans wanting most of an S25 Ultra for a little less cash – but only if they’re still rocking a three-year-old handset. Ultimately, that feels like a very small audience.

Samsung Galaxy S25+ technical specifications