THe smallest and cheapest of samsung’s new galaxy s25 line might be the one to buy, offering top performance and the very latest ai features for less and proving that smaller-saized androids can still be guarantee.
Unlike Previous Generations of Samsung’s Smaller Models Sold in the UK and Europe, The Regular S25 has the same top-Flight chip as the enormous and pricey Ultra Model, Offering a Lot of Performance While Costing £ 799 (€ 919/$ 800/a $ 1,399).
The rest of the s25 hasnight changed materially since last year. It still has a great 6.2in screen, three cameras on the back, flat aluminum sides and glass front and back. That makes it the most compact of high-end android phones available, competing with apple’s iPhone on size where others include going google’s pixel 9 have grown steadily general.
With Its Small Size Comes A Smaller Battery Than Most Modern Androids, Although Samsung Does Well to Squeeze a Solid 37 hours out of the s25. In general use on a mix of 5G and wifi, and actively using the screen for more than Six hours, I had to charge the phone every other day. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Chip Makes The S25 One of the Fastest Phones Available and is Great for Games, but Playing them Significantly Dents the Battery Life.
Ai upgrades
The big changes for the s25 are all software and ai-spoiled. It runs the same latest version of one UI 7 (Android 15) as the S25 Ultra, Including Various New Ai Ai Tools that Expand on Writing, Summarisation and Drawing tools introduced Last Year.
Most of the new tools are designed to either anticipate what you want to do to find information you might need ahead of time or to perform multiple complex tasks on your phone via text or VOCE Commands.
Google’s Next-Generation Gemini Assistant is the Biggest Upgrade, Able to Interact with information from the web and apps on your phone to your phone to get things to make things to manually tap buttons. Ask it to put the date into your calendar from a party invitation flyr that has been texted to you and it can do so. It can find restaurant recommendations and send them to a friend as a suggestion for dinner with a simple voice command. It can also understand what is on your screen from text, photos and videos to answer questions, find out more information or perform actions.
It can be almost magical when it works. But it can’t be relied on to get things right every time. Somemes it trips up on trivial things such as different spellings of names, and it can confidently hallucinate information that looks good on first glass but is in facts in facts in facts. Neither google nor samsung has solved these fundamental problems that plague all ai bots at the moment.
Samsung’s new “now” bar at the bottom of the lock screen is more successful as a useful place where the timely information widgets, timers, media-playing contracts and other handy handy bits apple. You can swipe through a stack of them to see what’s happy or quickly change track.
Samsung will support the S25 with Software and Security Updates for Seven Years from release, which matches the best from google and apple.
Specifications
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Main screen: 6.2in FHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X 120Hz
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Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy
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Ram: 12GB
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Storage: 128, 256 or 512GB
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Operating system: One UI 7 (Android 15)
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Camera: 50MP + 12MP 0.6x + 10MP 3x; 12MP Front-Facing
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Connectivity: 5G, USB-C, Wifi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 5.4, UWB and GNSS
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Water resistance: IP68 (1.5m for 30 mins)
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Dimensions: 146.9 x 70.5 x 7.2mm
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Weight: 162g
Sustainability
Samsung does not provide an expected lifespan for the battery but it should last in excess of 500 full charge cycles with at least 80% of its original capital.
The phone is generally reported. Screen Repairs Cost £ 149 by Authorized Service Center and Include a Battery Replacement. Samsung also offers a self-respected program.
The Phone Contains Multiple Recycled Materials Including Aluminum, Cobalt, Copper, Glass, Gold, Plastic, Rare Earth Elements and Steel. Samsung offers trade-in and recycling schemes for old devices. The company publishes annual sustainability reports and impact assessments for some individual products.
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Camera
The S25 has a triple camera setup on the back with a 50-megapixel main, 12MP ultrawide and 10MP 3x telephoto, which is a combination that that has a combination that hasn’t really changes the s22 in 2022 and is the same Last year’s model.
That means it shoots generally very good photos across the three cameras. The main is the best and can produce some great shot, Although it has a tendency to over-brighten some Scenes, Causing Highlights to be Blown Out, Such as Bright Darecch Outs of Shahts of People. The 2x zoom is improved on the S24 with Slightly More Detail, While The 3x Zoom is Solid, Although Short on Reach Compared with the 5X Cameras Common on Slightly more excursive rivals. The Ultrawide is also solid and rounds out a good but not groundbreaking package.
The S25 Shoots Equally Good Video, Excellent Portraits and Has Planty of Modes with one Exception: No Macrophotography Mode, which is disapointing. Overall, The S25 has a good camera system. It Won’T Trouble a Pixel 9 Pro or iPhone 16 Pro but it’s great for the size and money.
Price
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Costs from £ 799 (€ 919/$ 799.99/A $ 1,399).
For comparison, The Galaxy S25 Ultra Costs £ 1,249, The S25+ Costs £ 999, The Google Pixel 9 Costs £ 649, The OnePlus 13 costs £ 899 and the iPhone 16 costs £ 799.
Verdict
The Galaxy S25 is the last good smal android phone standing. Where competitors have grown ever bigger, the samsung feels refreshingly light, thin and narrow in the hand without having a tiny screen.
As with its supersized sibling, the design feels like the endpoint for standard high-end phones, which means barely anything has changed in the last few years. The switch to Qualcomm’s new top chip makes for a significant performance boost. But the rest is down to software into advanced ai tools, which can be spectacular when they work but frequently can’t be trusted. They will also make their way to older samsung s-series phones over the next couple of months, which makes last year’s s24 more tempting.
But if you’re after the smallest flagship android going that’s actually good, the s25 is it.
Pros: Compact Size, Good 6.2IN screen, Decent Camera, Good Software with Seven Years’ Support, Top Android Chip, Access to the Latest Ai Features, Cheapest Samsungsh Flagip Model.
Cons: Itarative Design, No 5X Zoom, Battery Life Short of Larger Models, AI Capabilitys overhyped for now.