Samsung Galaxy S25 series: my vlog from the press event

The new Samsung Galaxy S25 series has been unveiled, and I was at the press event. Here I tell you how the day went and what I noticed in my first impressions of the new features. This is a first impression, not a review.

The day: briefing and hands-on

It started at 7:15 a.m.; before that I dropped my dog off at my mom’s. The press briefing takes place at Samsung itself. The nice thing about events like this is that you see colleagues again, and many traveled in for the launch of the S25 series. First we are briefed on all the news in a meeting room, then we go to the hands-on area, where we hold the devices for the first time and can try out the features. We ended the evening in a restaurant with delicious food and interesting conversations.

What’s new

Samsung has once again launched three devices first: Galaxy S25, S25+ and S25 Ultra.

• Hardware on the S25 and S25+: Design, display and camera setup are identical to the predecessor.
• Processor: All three models have the same Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, clocked higher especially for Samsung and optimized for AI. According to Samsung, it brings 40% more performance on the NPU, 37% on the CPU and 30% on the GPU, plus better cooling performance, which is easier on the battery. I never perceived the Exynos as bad in everyday use, but I’m happy for everyone who cared about this topic.
• Display: Gorilla Armor 2, according to Samsung 29% more break-resistant.
• S25 Ultra: The only one with a redesign, with a completely flat frame and somewhat rounder corners. Visually I love the design, and it sits really well in the hand. That it’s thinner and lighter, though, I can hardly see compared to the S24 Ultra. The lenses now have black instead of silver rings; a colleague said it looks like the S25 Ultra has black bags under its eyes.

Camera of the S25 Ultra

New is the 50-megapixel ultrawide camera; the S24 Ultra only had 12 megapixels here. It makes really good macro shots possible. On top comes Log video, which is to video what RAW is to photos, with more information for later editing, such as the color spaces. There is also Best Shot, which we know from the Google Pixel: With group photos, you choose the best shot for each person afterward.

Galaxy AI

The hardware isn’t the really exciting part of these three devices, but rather the further development of Galaxy AI, which according to Samsung becomes more intuitive, more deeply integrated and more natural. I find two features especially impressive:

1. Gemini with multiple tasks: You can tell Gemini to find the best Mexican restaurant in Frankfurt, create an appointment with the address for tomorrow evening at 7 p.m. and send a message to my husband. Despite my skepticism, it works outstandingly well. At launch it works with Samsung Calendar, Messages, Phone, Notes, Clock and the third-party apps WhatsApp and Spotify. I believe that’s where things are headed.
2. Audio Eraser: In videos, the audio part is detected and separated. You can specifically emphasize or reduce voices and singing and remove disruptive background noise. That worked outstandingly well even in the loud hands-on area.

More news: Circle to Search now also recognizes music, you can even hum something, and then you no longer need Shazam. In the settings you can search by voice command. Now Brief summarizes information in the morning and evening, learns along and suggests, for example because of the traffic situation, leaving earlier. On the lock screen there is the Now Bar, which you can personalize, for example with the score of a game or Google Maps. So the biggest updates of the S25 series, with Android 15 and One UI 7.0, are in AI. I don’t find the step gigantic, but relevant, because the smartphone is more and more becoming a personal assistant.

Samsung storage on the go

Ad: At an event like this, I make a lot of recordings. After a data loss at IFA last year, I back them up immediately. I always have Samsung’s portable SSDs with me: the T9 with 4 TB (2,000 MB per second) for all recordings and the T7 with 1 TB (1,050 MB per second) for the archive. In the cameras are the PRO Ultimate (512 GB, 200 MB per second) and PRO Plus (512 GB, 180 MB per second) memory cards. All are protected against drops, heat and moisture or shocks.

Prices and the slim version

The prices have stayed the same compared to last year.

In the end there was a surprise that even we only learned at the last second: There is supposed to be a slim version, similar to what Apple is probably planning at the end of the year. I welcome that very much, even if you probably have to make compromises on the battery. A big display in a lighter smartphone is a direction I really like. We couldn’t see the device beforehand.

Verdict

A successful press event. Whether an upgrade to the S25 series is worth it depends 100% on whether you already own a current Samsung smartphone or an older model, because the new features will probably come at least to the S24 series shortly as well. I’m looking forward to testing the devices and presenting them in individual videos.