Review – Samsung Galaxy S25
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Samsung has been one of the few companies that makes small flagship phones. This new Galaxy S25 is continuing that legacy. While it does look basically identical to the previous generation, there are some changes under the hood.
This is going to be a very condensed review since many things from the S25+ and the Ultra are applicable to the small one as well.
Design
Now, looking at the design – I absolutely love this size as it is small, has rounded corners, and I can use this phone and touch most of the screen with just one hand. Seriously, I miss phones that can be used one-handed.
Yet the color options are the same as the S25+ too. They’re available in more muted colors, bold colors like the Navy, or superbly bright color like Coralred. It’s varied and I love it. Still, I got the Icyblue color here and it has an understated look.
Screen
Now, the screen is a bit funky here. It still has the same specs on paper – 6.2-inches with a resolution of 2340×1080 pixels, goes up to 120Hz refresh rate, and has small bezels around the screen.
One might think that the screen is identical to the previous generation but from our tests – it doesn’t seem like that’s the case. The highest achievable auto brightness is around 100 nits lower, measuring at 1290 nits. It’s still a respectable number, but slightly lower than the previous generation nonetheless.
Ever since last year, Samsung introduced a new vividness slider in the settings menu and it functions more or less the same, though the screen is slightly less vivid compared to what we had.
You see, across the board on all vividness levels, the DCI-P3 color gamut coverage is slightly lower – but the ΔE number is also lowered – and that’s a good thing. Overall though, I think the difference in vividness is not going to be noticeable but the difference in color accuracy might be noticeable in certain scenes.
Performance
Okay, now let’s talk about the performance. The entire Galaxy S25 series is running on the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chipset. The end result in our gaming test for the Galaxy S25 is vastly different from the S25+ and Ultra because of its lower resolution. That also lowers the render resolution of games like Genshin Impact and Zenless Zone Zero by around 12%.
That 12% might look like a small difference, it makes all the difference. The Galaxy S25 can maintain frame rates better across the board compared to the S25+ and the S25 Ultra despite having a smaller size and a smaller cooling system.
Unfortunately, even with 12% lowered render resolutions, the GPU is still always pegged at 100%. I do think that Snapdragon needs drastic improvements to the next generation of their chipsets. The CPU is fine as it barely goes over 50% utilization anyway.
Battery life
As for the battery life, this small phone still only has a 4,000mAh battery – but it manages to get the exact same battery life as the S25+ at 1080p mode. 16 hours and 1 minute. I did the test twice and the result is identical – so I’m not sure what’s going on here but this small S25 is just extremely efficient.
If we compare this battery data with the Galaxy S24 that uses the Exynos 2400, then the efficiency improvement is around 13.63%. It’s definitely a big improvement, but nowhere near whatever percentage that Qualcomm claimed on their website.
Charging speed
The charging speed remains unchanged as well, so 25W is the theoretical maximum that we get on the small S25. In our tests, it can take around 20W at most and needs about 68 minutes to charge from 15% to completion.
Software
The software is where I’ll just breeze through because the topic of One UI 7 requires another video of its own. Still, One UI 7 comes with a bunch of new features – most notably being the Now Brief that summarizes stuff across different times of the day, and the Now Bar that brings all the status bars into one single place.
All the usual features like Samsung Wallet, Modes and Routines, and particularly the Edge Panel got an upgrade in terms of its functionality – and we’ll talk about all of them in another video.
Camera
Right, the cameras. The Galaxy S25 comes with the same cameras as before and I really do wish Samsung upgrades them. Unfortunately, I was sick for the past 2 weeks and I didn’t go out to take much pictures.
To have a look at the pictures taken with the Samsung Galaxy S25, watch our video at the top of this review.
A few more things to mention
And a few more things to mention about the Galaxy S25. It has a USB 3 port at the bottom for fast file transfers, has display output via its USB-C port, Samsung DeX is still here too. At least for our region, it also has dual SIM sard slots.
Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy S25?
So, should you buy the Samsung Galaxy S25? I’d say it really depends on you. I do think it’s quite a niche phone because many people think that if we’re paying this amount of money, then it’s more worth it to get a bigger phone.
Still, if you’re looking for a small flagship phone – the Galaxy S25 is a great option. I love it and I’m sure many of you will do too.
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