The Samsung Galaxy S25 family marks fifteen years since Samsung started making flagship Android phones, and with that anniversary comes several notable changes for Android's most successful family of phones.
With the Galaxy S24, Samsung addressed several nagging issues and introduced a suite of new AI tools to further enhance the Galaxy experience. With the Galaxy S25, we expect to see Samsung further improve the overall Galaxy experience with more refinements and even better hardware.
So, what do we expect from a 2025 Galaxy S25? Big changes for the Galaxy S25 Ultra, for starters, and plenty of rumors and leaks to use to assemble the full picture of what Samsung has in store for us in the New Year.
And while we wait for the Galaxy S25, make sure to keep an eye out on our Samsung Black Friday 2024 hub so you can keep track of any Galaxy S24 sales.
Samsung Galaxy S25: Price and availability
One of the earliest rumors popped up in October 2023 and directly addressed the question of price. According to the leak, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite likely to power the Galaxy S25 series features "astonishing levels of performance" that may require Samsung to hike the price up a bit. Rumors as recent as September 30, 2024 corroborate this idea, so get your wallets ready.
Samsung has already increased the price of the Galaxy S24 Ultra by $100, making the cheapest model $1,299. The Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus didn't get a base price increase, but this rumor certainly suggests that 2024 may be the last year we see a mainline Galaxy S phone as low as $799.
We fully expect Samsung to unveil the Galaxy S25 in January 2025, as the company has been sticking to an early annual announcement cycle for the last few years.
Samsung Galaxy S25: Design and displays
The Galaxy S23 simplified the Galaxy S series' design language with free-floating camera lenses, flat backs, flat displays, and rounded corners. The exception throughout that time was the Galaxy S Ultra model which, in any given year, featured more rounded side rails, square corners, and a much bigger profile than the other two models.
With the Galaxy S25, Samsung looks to be fully unifying the design language across all three models, including the Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25 Plus, and Galaxy S25 Ultra, according to leaked renders.
As you can see from the images above, all three models look nearly identical in shape. All of them have flat sides all around, completely flat front and back glass, and rounded corners.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra's corners are a bit less rounded than the other two models and look similar to the Galaxy S21 Ultra's corners. I'm personally excited for this as I wasn't a fan of the 90-degree-angle corners used on the last three models of Galaxy S Ultra phones, as I felt they dug into my palms too much when holding the phones with one hand.
All three models look to sport the same style of camera modules as the Galaxy Z Fold 6, which take on a more traditional DSLR camera lens look with ribbed edges and thicker borders. Not everyone likes this style, though, and one leaker says the Galaxy S25 series could see changes from the Fold 6's camera lens design despite what the renders above show.
To prove the point, you might have noticed that there's no S Pen in the leaked render of the Galaxy S25 Ultra above. There's no reason to think that Samsung will abandon the S Pen on the Galaxy S25 Ultra, which means this render isn't of the final product.
According to another rumor, the Galaxy S25 Ultra will see a size shift this year, coming in at 0.5mm shorter, 1.4mm narrower, and 0.4mm thinner than the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Lastly, Samsung looks to retain many of the same colors for the Galaxy S25 as it had on the Galaxy S24 according to several rumors. As usual, though, Samsung.com will likely offer more unique colors not found at other retailers.
- Galaxy S24 Ultra dimensions: 162.3 x 79.0 x 8.6 mm
- Leaked Galaxy S25 Ultra dimensions: 162.8mm x 77.6mm x 8.2mm
There are also rumors that the Galaxy S25 Ultra will be lighter than "all ultra flagship phones" like the iPhone 16 Pro Max and Google Pixel 9 Pro XL. That would put it under 221 grams, which means it'll at least be 12 grams lighter than the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Samsung Galaxy S25: Cameras
The Samsung Galaxy S25 series is rumored to be making a huge change with its camera sensors. Per a December 2023 rumor, Samsung will stop using its own ISOCELL GN3 sensors on the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Plus in favor of using all-Sony sensors.
While we don't know the specs for those camera sensors yet, it would mean the first time we've seen a big camera change since the Galaxy S22. That phone swapped out the 12MP main sensor for a 50MP main sensor, but Samsung hasn't changed too much since then.
The rumor suggests that Samsung will continue to use Samsung ISOCELL sensors for the Galaxy S25 Ultra, which makes sense since the Ultra line has historically utilized different sensors than the other two models.
Traditionally, Samsung seems to swap out at least one camera module (sensor and lens) per year. Samsung just updated one of the telephoto camera modules with the Galaxy S24 Ultra, so it's plausible that we could see an upgraded ultrawide or upgraded secondary telephoto lens on the Galaxy S25 Ultra.
Samsung Galaxy S25: Software
Samsung's Android 15 update is taking a little longer than expected, and Samsung has confirmed it will launch alongside the Galaxy S25 early next year and be called One UI 7.
One of the biggest reasons for the longer than usual development time is that One UI 7 looks to be a complete overhaul of Samsung's UI, including new icons, a new visual style, more OS customization, and big changes to the notification panel and quick settings. Samsung is even working on significantly better animations, per one leak, which showcased a similar enhancement that OnePlus recently debuted called parallel processing.
Additionally, Samsung is baking more AI and new parental control features into the OS, further strengthening the platform it launched earlier this year when the Galaxy S24 family introduced Galaxy AI.
Samsung is expected to launch a beta for Galaxy S24 owners sometime before the end of 2024 with the final release expected in January, pending no further delays.
Samsung Galaxy S25: Specs and performance
With the Galaxy S25 line, Samsung is expected to go all Qualcomm again if rumors are to be believed. That means every Galaxy S25 model — Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, and S25 Ultra — will use the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite.
In a nutshell, the Snapdragon 8 Elite is purported to be the biggest change to Snapdragon processors in over a decade. Qualcomm will officially unveil the new processor at October's Snapdragon Summit, but it's said this new processor utilizes the same custom Oryon cores that Qualcomm built for its very successful line of Snapdragon X Elite laptop processors, meaning this should be one wicked-fast SoC.
Early benchmark leaks from the OnePlus 13 — which is said to be using the Snapdragon 8 Elite — show significant gains in performance over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in the Galaxy S24 series.
The numbers above say just about everything there is to be said. Single-core scores are nearly identical to Apple's A18 chip in the new iPhone 16, while multicore scores put it 14% faster than Apple's best mobile chipset ever. For reference, the powerful Apple M3 processor in the latest Macbooks scores 11959 on the Geekbench multicore test, putting it only 10% faster than Qualcomm's new phone chipset.
That's some crazy speed!
Aside from the upgraded chipset, it doesn't look like Samsung is making too many changes in key areas for the Galaxy S25 family. Many rumors so far point to Samsung slimming up all three models despite not changing the battery size or charging speed for any of the three models.
Samsung is said to be making the Galaxy S25 Plus and Galaxy S25 Ultra 0.4mm thinner, but we have no leaked specs on the smaller Galaxy S25's dimensions yet.
And battery size might not be changing but the Snapdragon 8 Elite inside the Galaxy S25 is rumored to power a new AI battery feature that should help save 10% battery life over a day.
