What the Galaxy S25 Needs to Be the Android Phone to Beat in 2025
Samsung's current Galaxy AI features show promise, but I want the next iteration to have a bigger impact on the overall phone experience. The current features feel very targeted at specific use cases that may not come up all that often, such as language translation and photo editing.
Otherwise, I'd like to see faster charging and other optimizations to core elements of the phones such as the camera and display.
Read more: Why Google's New Android VP Says 'People Don't Want to Hear About AI'
More impactful Galaxy AI features
Right now, Galaxy AI and other non-Samsung generative AI features feel like just the beginning. Samsung started by applying generative AI to obvious and practical use cases, such as erasing objects from photos, translating text conversations and real-time phone conversations, generating polished images from rough drawings, and previewing videos in slow motion and saving the results.
What I really want is a more dramatic rethinking of how basic tasks get done on our phones that makes using them feel easier and faster. Of all the AI features available on Samsung phones so far, Circle to Search embodies this idea the best by cutting out the middle step of launching Google to search for an object. More of this, please!
I want new AI tools that help manage the endless stream of notifications, data and media on my phone. The Pixel 9 lineup's new Screenshots app, which lets you search for content within your screenshots, is a good example of this, as are the notification and text message summaries in Apple Intelligence, which just launched as part of the company's iOS 18.1 update. Although they're far from perfect, message summaries ended up being one of my favorite new features in Apple Intelligence .
Sally Hyesoon Jeong, Samsung Electronics' executive vice president and head of the framework research and development team, hinted that Samsung's next mobile software update could align with this theme. During the company's developer conference, she said One UI 7 would be better equipped to understand your intention and "minimize complexity," although she didn't divulge specific details about the software.
That direction also falls in line with previous comments that Patrick Chomet, Samsung's executive vice president and head of customer experience, made to CNET about the company's approach to software.
"[You'd] never have to go to the settings, or you never have to look for the next action," he said in a previous interview when discussing how the company wants to make the software on Samsung phones smarter. "You may not need to open [an] app."
As I wrote in my review, I think Samsung missed an opportunity and should have given the Galaxy S24 Ultra exclusive Galaxy AI features that aren't available on the cheaper models. This would not only help justify its high price but reinforce the Ultra in the phone's name. We'll see if it takes a different approach next year.
Changing the way we use our phones is no small feat. Given how much we rely on them for basic tasks, asking consumers to adopt a new way of doing things could be more disruptive than helpful if done the wrong way. I don't expect Samsung to change the entire operating system in a few months, but I'd like to see a step in a new direction, similar to Circle to Search.
Faster charging
I'm glad Samsung boosted the Galaxy S24's battery life. Now, it just needs faster charging. The Galaxy S24 supports 25-watt wired charging, while the Galaxy S24 Plus and S24 Ultra support 45-watt wired charging. It's been that way for years, at least since the Galaxy S20 generation .
With companies like OnePlus offering blazing-fast charging speeds, I'd like to see some improvement from Samsung. The OnePlus 12 , for example, offers 80-watt charging in the U.S. and 100-watt in the UK, which enabled my colleague Andrew Lanxon to replenish the battery fully in just 26 minutes.
Samsung, it's time to step up.
Glare reduction on the entire lineup
One of the Galaxy S24 Ultra's most underrated features is the screen's Corning Gorilla Armor for reducing glare and reflections. With the screen arguably being the most important part of the phone, any improvement is welcome. My colleague Lexy Savvides was particularly taken with the S24 Ultra's antiglare screen, finding that it was easier to see than the iPhone 15 Pro, Pixel 8 Pro and Galaxy S23 Ultra on a sunny San Francisco day.
This coating is only on the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Since screen quality is so essential on a phone, there's a strong case to be made that Samsung should expand this to all Galaxy S25 models. The Ultra's giant screen, S Pen and more sophisticated camera are more than enough to separate Samsung's super high-end phone from the rest of the lineup.
Read more: Don't Buy a New Phone Just for AI. At Least Not Yet
Camera upgrades
Samsung made a splash with the Galaxy S23 Ultra's 200-megapixel main camera when it debuted in 2023. Megapixels only tell one side of the story when it comes to photography. Factors like sensor size, pixel size and aperture, along with the chip's image signal processor, are just as important as the sheer number of megapixels when it comes to determining how good of a camera your phone can be.
Samsung has made improvements in these areas too over the years, but now that it's facing fresh competition from Xiaomi, it has to work harder if it wants to truly be the king of smartphone photography.
The Xiaomi 14 Ultra has a massive image sensor that's larger than the ones you'll find on the Galaxy S24 Ultra, enabling it to achieve impressive shots with a wide dynamic range that CNET's Andrew Lanxon called some of the best images he's ever seen from a phone. A larger sensor enables a camera to capture more light for improved image quality, lessening the need for noise reduction.
I'd also like to see more practical editing features. I was enamored with the iPhone 16's Photographic Styles feature, which applies an effect to an image customized to the scene. I'm not saying Samsung should launch its own version of Photographic Styles , but I'd like to see new tools that elevate the aesthetic of your photos that don't have anything to do with using generative AI to alter the photo's content.
Overall, I'm hoping Samsung levels up the camera, display and charging speeds, all while introducing new software features that make its phones feel more intuitive than before. Samsung typically releases new Galaxy S phones in the first quarter of the year, so we're expecting to hear more in the coming months.
