The Galaxy S25 and S25+ have more RAM and context-sensitive AI

As expected, Samsung used its first Unpacked shindig of the year to officially unveil the Galaxy S25 series. Although the Galaxy S25 and S25+ bring welcome hardware upgrades like more RAM (12GB) and a Samsung-centric flavor of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, most updates revolve around new Galaxy AI features — many of which are on-device and context-aware. Fortunately, you won’t have to pay more: The phones cost the same as their S24 predecessors.

It’s no surprise that Samsung put most of its eggs in the AI basket with this year’s flagships. The phones run One UI 7 on top of Android 15 — a combination the company describes as “a new AI-integrated OS.” Samsung is trying to nudge its collection of features in the direction of a more personalized AI that “understands the context of your needs and preferences,” acting accordingly.

Like the Galaxy S24 series, the new phones’ Galaxy AI features will be “free through 2025.” That sounds like a pretty big catch: Unless Samsung decides to extend the free period, you’ll have to pay for at least some of the phones’ marketed AI features starting next year.

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The long list of AI features includes what the company describes as “a breakthrough in natural language understanding.” For example, Samsung says you can ask the phone to find a specific photo in your gallery or adjust your display’s font size — saving you the time-consuming legwork of sifting through old pictures or drilling through settings.

One UI 7 includes the Now Bar, which hangs out at the bottom of the lock screen (and below the digital clock when unlocked), behaving similarly to the iPhone’s Dynamic Island. The Now Bar’s standout AI feature is the context-sensitive Now Brief, which proactively makes suggestions about your day (like forecasts, playlists or flight times for upcoming trips). Fortunately, this all stays on-device in Samsung’s Knox Vault, a chipset-level security feature (introduced with the Galaxy S21) that separates sensitive data from the OS.

Pressing and holding the side button activates Google’s Gemini — now the default assistant instead of Bixby. It can handle multi-step queries and can work across apps. For example, you can ask it to find your favorite team’s schedule and add their games to the Samsung Calendar app with a single command.

There’s also a new AI-powered call transcript and summarizing feature (something Apple recently launched in iOS 18) and an upgraded version of Google’s Circle to Search. Meanwhile, AI Select is an outgrowth of Samsung’s legacy Smart Select. The AI version is a multimodal series of tools that can recommend context-sensitive actions — like creating a GIF from a YouTube video you’re watching. The idea is to merge multiple steps (from multiple apps) into one quick action.

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The phones’ display specs are unchanged from the S24 lineup: The Galaxy S25 has a 6.2-inch FHD+ screen, and the S25+ uses a 6.7-inch QHD+ panel. (Both are still Dynamic AMOLED 2X panels with a 120Hz max refresh rate.)

Samsung says a new real-time AI upscaling feature called ProScaler can boost the screen’s image quality by 40 percent on the fly. But there’s some fine print: The feature is only available on the Galaxy S25+ and S25 Ultra (not the standard model), and it only works when the screen’s resolution is set to the more power-efficient QHD+, not the phone’s native WQHD+. But if the feature works as advertised, it could offer a nice balance of image quality and battery life.

The Galaxy S25 and S25+ are better equipped to handle all that AI with 12GB of RAM, up from the 8GB in last year’s models. Storage options stand pat: 128GB or 256GB in the standard model and 256GB or 512GB in the Plus variant.

The 3nm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy powers all Galaxy S25 and S25+ versions. The company says it worked with Qualcomm for its custom flavor of the processor. Compared to the S24 Ultra, the chip boosts performance by 40 percent in the NPU (for all those on-device AI tasks), 37 percent in the CPU and 30 percent in the GPU.

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

The phones’ camera specs are the same as last year’s models: a 50MP wide sensor, a 12MP ultrawide one and a 10MP zoom lens. But 10-bit HDR, which can better capture details in high-contrast scenes, is enabled by default on the new phones. Samsung says the Qualcomm chip makes the phones better at reducing noise in dimly lit videos.

Meanwhile, Audio Eraser sounds similar to Google’s Audio Magic Eraser in the Pixel 8. The AI feature can isolate sounds in videos (like voices, music, wind, nature, crowd and general background noise) to make it easier to remove or reduce the volume of those you don’t want.

The Galaxy S25 and S25+ are available now for pre-order ahead of their February 7 ship date. The standard S25 starts at $800 for 128GB of storage, and the S25+ begins at $1,000 for 256GB. Colors include Navy, Icyblue, Mint, and Silver Shadow. If you order from Samsung’s website, you get a few extra options: Blueblack, Coralred, and Pinkgold.

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