Artificial intelligence is everywhere these days, from the workplace to our personal lives, but for most people the real benefits have yet to be realised,
Step up, phone makers, with your AI-powered features to persuade the rest of us that it really is worth upgrading to get whatever edge AI can offer us.
It’s not that surprising that smartphone makers are pushing heavily on the software side of things to try to sell their latest phones; there is a whole other debate here about pushing hardware to the limits of its development and whether or not the flagship devices have become a bit, well, boring.
That is one accusation that Samsung is probably keen to avoid. The company unveiled its new flagship series of devices last month to great fanfare, and AI is at the heart of the devices. The all-singing, all-dancing device is the S25 Ultra, with a high-powered camera, 6.9-inch display and the S Pen stylus that it inherited from the Note. But does it have anything new to offer?
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On paper, the Galaxy S25 Ultra ticks all the right boxes. It comes with Android 15, seven years of software and security updates, and is powered by a tweaked Snapdragon 8 chip that makes it run incredibly fast.
As you would expect, Samsung has gone big on the camera. The S25 Ultra has powerful levels of zoom – up to 5x on optical zoom, aka the good one, and up to 100x digital zoom if you can cope with extreme levels of close-up (and shake).
Samsung has decided to stick with its previous decision to remove the 10x optical zoom; in between, you have this “optical quality” zoom for 10x, which Samsung says is enabled by Adaptive Pixel sensor it first introduced with the S22. That essentially means you are using software and the large number of pixels captured by the S25 Ultra’s sensor to create an image detailed enough that you can zoom without losing any essential elements.
More useful is the decision to include a 50 megapixel sensor for the ultrawide camera, so you can get better images even in lower light from that extra lens room.
Overall, the S25 Ultra is more of the same from Samsung. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it’s a tried-and-tested format, albeit one with sharper edges that I’d like.
But with the upgrade cycle lengthening to three or more years, the reasons to incur the extra expense of a new device have to be compelling for customers. I’m just not convinced that this will be the one to lure customers away from its rivals.
As previously mentioned, Samsung is more tightly integrating AI into this set of devices, although it still is firmly in the “nice to have” rather than “essential feature” territory, and the most interesting features are not necessarily exclusive to the S25.
The Now brief will give you a run down of what you are doing for the day, when you need to be there and prompt you about what time you should leave. That is a useful feature and one that you quickly get used to.
The other useful addition is the ability of the AI to interact with elements on the screen, for example adding an event to your calendar or creating a note. Again, it’s a small change but something that makes so much sense, you wonder why they didn’t do it years ago.
Samsung’s S Pen comes in handy, but the company has removed the Bluetooth function from the integrated pen
Bixby has been relegated to a background role here, with Google’s Gemini front and centre. That is no loss; I can’t think of a time I ever favoured Bixby over Google Assistant, for example, or simply doing things myself. Samsung is simply recognising what we are all thinking: sometimes you don’t need to create your own.
The latest software also includes audio eraser for videos, something Pixel 9 users will already be familiar with. We have all had those moments where you replay the very important moments you have captured on your phone, only to discover background noise is taking away some of the atmosphere. Audio eraser will help you lessen that annoyance, dialling back the background noise and tweaking things to your preference.
Samsung’s S Pen comes in handy, but the company has removed the Bluetooth function from the integrated pen and made it an optional extra purchase. That means no remote shutter capabilities, for example.
While it may not seem like a big deal, for the price of the Ultra, and given its name, I’d rather not have to spend extra money for all the bells and whistles.
Overall, the phone is good, but is that enough to keep people coming back?
Good
Samsung hasn’t strayed too far from the tried-and-tested design of the Ultra. It has a big screen with a high refresh rate that makes scrolling a smooth process. You still get the S Pen tucked away in the bottom for anything you need, even if it lacks a few features, and the new software updates are useful if not a compelling reason to upgrade.
Bad
If you are hoping for something groundbreaking on the hardware side of things, you’ll be disappointed. Samsung has largely stuck with the same design and capabilities. And the S Pen has lost its Bluetooth functionality, which seems like a step backwards.
Everything else
Samsung offers a choice for logging into your phone, from a numerical passcode and a password to biometrics that include your face and your fingerprint. If you have concerns about facial recognition being fooled by a photo, it might soothe those worries to know that the S25’s system wasn’t fooled by a close-up, severely unflattering photo of my face.
You also get the Knox capabilities for securing your data, which means you can lock down apps and files on your phone to keep prying eyes out of your business.
Verdict
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is a solid, well-designed phone, but it is getting increasingly difficult to stand out in a smartphone market where everyone is upping their game.
