Aside from the Galaxy S25 potentially getting a larger display, the rest of the design should be a familiar one. Meaning, both the S25 and S25 Plus should be rocking the same armor aluminum frame — while the titanium frame should still be exclusive to the S25 Ultra. But there’s still plenty of time for things to change as new leaks come around.

As for their displays, Samsung certainly made a point of detailing how all three versions of the Galaxy S24 offer 2,600-nit displays. Although, in our own benchmark testing, none of them came close to reaching those claims. But that won’t stop the company from improving this one particular feature with the Galaxy S25.

More importantly, however, Samsung can’t afford to have another display issue — like the Mura effect on the Galaxy S24 that causes a clouding effect when the display’s brightness is set to a low setting. We tested this out ourselves with the Galaxy S25 Plus and S25 Ultra, verifying that both phones produced the Mura effect.

Samsung Galaxy S25: Performance

One of the earliest Galaxy S25 leaks hint at a bigger speed boost, courtesy of Qualcomm’s next chipset. It’s likely that the Galaxy S25 will be powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chipset, which is tipped to reach a new frontier by reaching a clocked speed of 4GHz. This would be new territory and one that could give the Galaxy S25 an edge over its competitors, mainly due to Qualcomm reportedly switching to a 3-nanometer manufacturing process with its next-gen chip.

There’s certainly a lot to be excited about here because we’ve seen the incredible processing power of the Galaxy S24’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, which reaches a clocked speed of 3.3GHz. Not only would we see more muscle power with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, but we suspect even better power efficiency. This is important because we didn’t just see a small step forward in battery life with the Galaxy S24 series, but a giant leap.

Samsung Galaxy S25: Cameras

Samsung has been nearly untouchable in the camera department with its phones, proven by the Galaxy S23 Ultra dominating all other phones throughout 2023 in our best camera phones list. Well, that changed with the release of the Galaxy S24 because of the controversial move of downgrading to a 5x optical zoom camera with the S24 Ultra.

We saw a noticeable difference with our zoom test between the Galaxy S24 Ultra and Galaxy S23 Ultra, so Samsung has its work cut out in redeeming itself with the Galaxy S25 Ultra. So far, the — with it reportedly getting an upgraded main camera, 50MP ultra-wide angle camera (up from the 12MP one on the S24 Ultra), and a new telephoto camera with “variable capabilities.”

The latter was rumored to happen with the Galaxy S24 Ultra, but the S25 Ultra seems like the appropriate candidate. On one hand, it could mean that we could have a variable telephoto camera that could move to different zoom levels, but it could also be something different. Take for example the variable aperture of the recent Xiaomi 14 Ultra, which can dial down the aperture to different levels. Zooming has always been a specialty with the Ultra, so we’re really hoping Samsung delivers in this area to redeem itself.

Meanwhile, there are fewer rumors about the cameras for the Galaxy S25 and S25 Plus. One of the few hints to Samsung switching to a Sony camera sensor, instead of the ISOCELL sensor used previously. Whatever ends up coming to fruition, Samsung can’t afford to come up short against the reigning king in our best camera phones list — the iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Samsung Galaxy S25: Battery & charging

The Galaxy S25 has the potential of breaking records, especially if the power efficiency of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 turns out to be true. All three models of the Galaxy S24 easily boast substantially better battery life than their predecessor, and with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 purportedly being developed with a 3-nanometer manufacturing process, the Galaxy S25 could yield greater endurance.

At the very least, we expect the Galaxy S25 to feature the same battery capacity as the S24. There have been rumors for a while now about Samsung adopting stacked batteries in its flagship series, but there’s no strong evidence we’ll get them yet with the S25.

One area that certainly needs upgrading would be the charging capabilities of the phone. Samsung has kept the same 25W wired charging speed with the Galaxy S24, so it would be a tremendous boost if the Galaxy S25 could get an upgrade. That’s because both the S24 Plus and S24 Ultra feature 45W wired charging speeds. But there’s even more opportunity to improve charging as a whole with the entire S25 series because the OnePlus 12 is proof that you can get a fully charged phone with 30 minutes of charging.

And finally, Samsung will also need to upgrade the wireless charging speed in the Galaxy S25 line because it’s been limited to 15W wireless charging as far back as the S9. An upgrade is long overdue at this point, more so when the OnePlus 12 flaunts a ridiculous 50W wireless charging speed.

Samsung Galaxy S25: Galaxy AI features

After introducing a handful of Galaxy AI features with the S24, Samsung will have to come up with even more for the Galaxy S25. We’ve tested out many of the Galaxy AI features, like Instant Slow-mo, Generative Edit, and Voice Recorder Summaries, proving that many of them have practical applications. Others, however, still hover that fine line of being novel.

There haven’t been any leaks on what new Galaxy AI features we could see introduced with the Galaxy S25. However, the question in everyone’s mind is how long they’ll remain exclusive to the Galaxy S25 — or passed down to older models. That’s because many of the once exclusive Galaxy AI features of the Galaxy S24 are coming to older Samsung phones through a software upgrade.

Samsung Galaxy S25: Outlook

Samsung has a huge challenge ahead of itself with the Galaxy S25. There’s certainly more pressure for its flagship phones because if you remove the processing performance and battery life of the Galaxy S24 out of the equation, the improvements are minor at best — more so when the same Galaxy AI features have been trickled down to the S23. There’s even greater importance to have bigger upgrades with the Galaxy S25 cameras and charging speeds.

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