Samsung eye-catching event unpackedEarlier today, it started with a talk about AI, coming directly from its head of mobile business. Throughout the event, AI was a recurring theme, diverting the conversation from interesting hardware innovation.
One of my colleagues even joked about not knowing the phone’s screen size even though the event entered its second half. It was simply a sign of certain unpleasant things to come, along with large amounts of “inspirations” from Apple.
And now that I’ve seen the starting price of the phones, which start at about $1,000 and go up to $1,920 in my local market, I understood why the focus was less on the hardware and more on the AI.
Good AI, not single AI
There’s certainly not enough substance to thoroughly analyze every aspect of all three phones. There just aren’t enough updates to talk about. And Samsung knows it. But here’s the worst part. Even the Galaxy AI innovations that Samsung talked about, well, they’re not really “Galaxy innovations,” anyway. The best example of this non-exclusivity came while Unpacked was in progress.
Google announced that Gemini Live goes multimodalmeaning it will make sense of images, YouTube videos and files.. He Galaxy S24 The series will also receive the same update. And so will Google Pixel 9 series smartphones.
“We will be expanding to more Android devices in the coming weeks,” Google says. The other update (support for multiple app extensions in the same command) will even come to the iPhone app and the Gemini desktop client. This kind of cutting-edge browsing is the name of the Galaxy S25 game.
The personal data engine, which aims to keep most of the AI processing local to the device, is a desirable feature. Apple also does this with Apple Intelligence. And I’m pretty sure that when it comes to privacy and security, any smartphone buyer will choose a Galaxy over an iPhone.
Writing Assist on the Galaxy S25 series will let you perform the same set of tricks as… wait… Writing tools on iPhone. And iPad. And the Mac.
Circle to search Now you can identify songs. Well, Google Assistant has had that feature for a while now. And so has the iPhone, thanks to its integration with Shazam.
The Galaxy AI stack will be able to read the content on the screen and have conversations about it. Siri already does that courtesy of Apple Intelligence, just like Gemini on other phones.
Features like AI Select look good in action, but they don’t stray too far from what Apple’s Visual Intelligence stack is trying to achieve.
Drawing Assist can turn your sketches into great images thanks to generative AI. That facility is now available on iPads under the Magic Wand label, powered by the OpenAI stack.
The Now Bar and Now Brief systems are great, but they don’t stray too far from the iPhone’s Live Activity system. Plus, saying the magic words “Hey Google, catch up on today’s show” will also work fine on your non-Galaxy phone. You can see the problem here. There are AI features on the Galaxy S25, but they don’t move the needle.
Updates. That?
. However, that’s not the most disappointing element.
The Galaxy S25 and its Plus version only switch to new Qualcomm silicon and the niceties that come with it, along with a jump in RAM figures to 12GB, compared to 8GB. The storage capacity remains at 128 GB for the base model. The nearest Samsung store is selling me that version for a staggering $930. Luckily, people in the US have it easier with $800.
The camera hardware remains identical. A measly 10-megapixel telephoto camera with a modest 3x optical zoom on the $1,000 Galaxy S25 Plus? Go Samsung! Even Apple offers better value than that, which in itself is a surprisingly bad precedent when it comes to making the most of your smartphone splurge.
He OnePlus 13At $900, it offers a fantastic trio of 50-megapixel sensors with more advanced zoom optics. It does a better job in design and in many other aspects as well.
Let’s talk about the battery, which is once again stagnant from an innovation point of view. Silicon carbide batteries that offer better density, greater capacity and greater longevity? Not in the house of Samsung. No, sir! The Galaxy S25 will offer you a 4000 mAh battery, with 25W wired charging. No magnets inside, like Apple’s MagSafe. Also, you won’t get the charger in the box if you want a little more sand in your face.
The Galaxy S25 Plus is a saving grace, achieving 45W wired charging. For comparison, the OnePlus 13 It offers 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging support, plus a $100 lighter in your wallet and a charger in the box.
The display stack doesn’t change either. Yes, a 120Hz OLED screen isn’t a bad deal, but that benefit has now extended to phones that cost half as much.
These are the fundamental aspects that define the character of a phone. Not only is Samsung facing us with a bad non-upgrade situation with the Galaxy S25 series, but it is also giving us a bad competitive image.
let’s talk about the Galaxy S25 Ultraa bit. The stylus is here to say it, but Bluetooth gesture support is gone. The battery situation remains identical to that of its predecessor, and equally behind when it comes to charging capabilities.
In the camera department, this $1,300 phone upgrades to a 50-megapixel ultrawide camera, but the rest of the hardware remains the same. In terms of capabilities, Apple is once again the inspiration.
Say hello to Galaxy Log, which arrives almost two generations late (according to the iPhone calendar) to challenge… apple log. Like Apple, Samsung also showcased the work of a filmmaker to show the magic of record capture. The company conveniently left out how complex color grading can be, with expensive editing software no less.
Magic Audio Eraser It’s already available on Pixel phones, but Samsung’s implementation doesn’t stray too far from the goal of Audio mixing on iPhone 16 Pro. There’s a little more specificity to Samsung’s approach, but nothing too original.
Make others look good
Overall, I find it very, very difficult to buy the Galaxy S25 series. Even if we go by the sticker price for the US market, there is little innovation to see here.
Samsung is, in fact, on the losing end against ambitious Chinese brands on the one hand, and Apple’s excellent reputation (and its hype-driven execution) on the other. There is little respite for mediocrity in a year that is about to see some fantastic developments in the smartphone segment. Samsung is not close to any of them.
Instead, it’s conveniently selling a trio of phones that will make any savvy shopper wonder how they stand out from the competition. For bargain hunters, there is hardly any practical reason to look beyond last year’s range, which is cheaper and almost as competitive.
As far as I’m concerned, well, I’m not going to waste a minimum of $1,000 on a phone that offers nothing worth getting excited about on its own unique merits.
With a little luck, the next Galaxy Edge It’s pretty exciting, but I’m more cautious than optimistic about th
