When I started writing this story about the Galaxy S25+, the first time I typed the name of the phone, I accidentally wrote the Galaxy S24+, which I feel perfectly captures my thoughts about the device. After using the Samsung Galaxy S25+ for over a month, I can confidently say this is a great phone that offers a lot of value. However, it’s also fair to say that Samsung played it extremely safe with this year’s refresh.

On the outside, if you said this was a Samsung Galaxy S23+ or S24+, I would believe you — the main difference between the S25+ and its predecessors isn’t really on the outside; it’s on the inside. The phone is powered by Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, specifically customized for the Galaxy S25 series.

The S25+ is just a powerhouse. Never once did I experience a hiccup or slowdown when playing a game, multitasking, or browsing. It’s the smoothest experience I’ve ever had using a Samsung device, and I can’t praise it enough. But, chipset aside, compared to the Galaxy S24+ or even the S23+, there isn’t much new happening here.

Samsung Galaxy S25+

Brand

Samsung

SoC

Snapdragon 8 Elite

Display

6.7-inch

RAM

12GB

Storage

256GB, 512GB

Battery

4,900mAh

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The definition of a refresh

Small refinements do make a difference

Samsung’s big focus this year with the Galaxy S25 series was its new Galaxy AI features and One UI 7, so when I first saw the spec sheet for the Galaxy S25 series, I wasn’t surprised to see how similar it was to last year’s models. The Galaxy S25+ shares the same screen, cameras, and overall design as the S24+, a flat frame with rounded corners. However, there are two small but noticeable improvements the S25+ has that make the in-hand experience much better.

The S25+ is 7 grams lighter and 0.6mm thinner than the S24+, and I found the device very comfortable to hold and use for long periods. I’m usually a fan of smaller handsets, but my experience with the S25+ impressed me, and in the future, I can see myself opting for larger handsets if they’re lighter and thinner like the S25+.

Focusing on the display, what makes this a plus phone is its larger 6.7-inch Dynamic OLED 2X display, which has a 3120 x 1440 pixel resolution, a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate, and a peak brightness of 2600 nits. I have spent every night for the past month watching TV shows and YouTube videos on it, and there’s no question that it is a beautiful and vivid display. While the S25+ has the same display as the S24+, given its high quality, it isn’t much of a bummer that it hasn’t changed. However, it is disappointing that the anti-reflective coating the S25 Ultra features hasn’t trickled down to the S25+. Hopefully, the S26 series corrects this mistake.

The S25+ has the same battery as the S24+, a 4,900mAh battery that is slightly smaller than the S25 Ultra’s 5,000mAh battery. I never had any issues with the device’s battery life, which continuously impressed me. After a full day of use, including texting, doomscrolling social media, browsing the web, taking photos, and watching YouTube videos, I always found myself with 20-30 percent charge left.

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One UI 7 and Galaxy AI

Useful but not earth-shattering

Another out-of-the-box enhancement this year for the Galaxy S25 series is One UI 7 based on Android 15, which introduces a host of improvements, including cleaner animations, a revamped notifications center, redesigned app icons, and an overhauled user interface. So far, a month into using the Galaxy S25+, I have no complaints about One UI 7, and I like how its design philosophy resembles iOS 18 — coming from an iPhone 14 Pro, it made switching to the S25+ much easier.

One of my favorite new features is the Now Bar — Samsung’s version of Dynamic Island, essentially — which lets you display live notifications and music on your lock screen. I found this particularly handy for managing Spotify playback controls on the fly. I also liked how, if you follow any sports teams on Google, the scores for their games are displayed live on the Now Bar, which I used for keeping up with the Toronto Maple Leafs when I couldn’t watch a game.

Now Brief is also prompted in the Now Bar, letting you quickly open your briefing. I was excited about Now Brief when the Galaxy S25 series was announced. However, after using it now for a month, I can say it’s pretty useless. All it did for me every day was tell me the weather and my calendar, two things I was already very aware of. Sometimes, it would recommend me a random Spotify Playlist, too, but I never found any of them worth listening to.

The only other Galaxy AI feature I played around with was Magic Eraser in the photos app, and I was genuinely impressed with how good it is at editing objects and people out of photos. You can’t even tell that some of the pictures have been edited.

One UI 7 will roll out to older Galaxy S series devices beginning in April, meaning it won’t be a significant selling feature for the S25+ for much longer. However, it’s worth noting that the phone already includes it right out of the box.

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The Galaxy S25+ is a great phone

Playing it safe wasn’t that bad of a thing after all

Compared to the Galaxy S25 Ultra, the S25+ does not get enough of the spotlight it deserves. If you can live without the S Pen and the better camera array, I’d argue the S25+ is a smarter buy over the S25 Ultra. For $1,000, you get a fast smartphone with a vivid screen, excellent battery life, good cameras, and modern AI features that will only improve with time.

If you can snag the Galaxy S25+ on sale, it offers even better value. I’ve already seen the phone go on sale for $800. That’s $200 off already, and the phone has only been out for just over a month. While that deal has ended, I’m sure more great deals will come in the future.

The Galaxy S25+ might not be the most revolutionary smartphone available, but it represents a consistent evolution of Samsung’s innovations in the Galaxy S series in recent years. This year, Samsung played it safe with the S25+, resulting in an effortlessly solid yet unremarkable smartphone that reliably gets the job done. If you have an S23+ or older, in my opinion, the jump alone in performance is worth it. The Galaxy S25 Edge is rumored to launch in mid-April, so I’m also really curious to see how the S25+ compares to it.

This device was provided to Pocket-lint by Samsung.