The Samsung Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Plus offer premium design, smooth performance, and excellent cameras with AI capabilities, making them top Android flagships. They come with a high price tag but provide a classy experience. The phones have a similar design to their predecessors, the Samsung Galaxy S24 series, showcasing elegant and understated aesthetics. Both models boast powerful hardware, including Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processors, and offer impressive camera setups with AI enhancements. The Galaxy S25 and S25 Plus provide flagship-level performance and features, making them solid contenders in the smartphone market.
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The Samsung Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Plus deliver almost similar experiences, but in two very different form factors. They are perhaps the best Android flagships out there for those wanting smooth performance topped with lots of AI magic, although they do come with premium price tags.
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The Galaxy S25 and S25 Plus look like two different-sized peas from a similar (Galaxy) pod. They even look and feel almost exactly like their predecessors, the Samsung Galaxy S24 and S24 Plus. And we do not think that is a bad thing at all, as those were very elegant phones. The S25 and S25 Plus have the same classy, understated elegance designed to earn nods of approval rather than screams of excitement.
Both devices are cut from the same design cloth. The back and front are flat, and the sides are straight, giving very iPhone and Pixel feels, with three cameras with the much-talked-about prominent rings around them arranged in a single column marking them out as Galaxy S25 devices. They are both pretty tough customers, with IP68 dust and water resistance, an armour aluminium frame and Corning Gorilla Glass 2 on the front and back.
Of the two, the S25 stands out for its relatively compact size. At 146.9 mm tall, the Galaxy S25 is smaller than the iPhone 16 as well as the Pixel 9, and is a mere 7.2 mm slim and weighs just 162 grams. In an age of oversized palm stretchers, this is one of the few phones that we could use with one hand most of the time. The S25 Plus is larger, but only in comparison: it is 158.4 mm tall, which makes it smaller than the OnePlus 13 and the iPhone 16 Plus, and at 190 grams, it is surprisingly light for its size.
Within those similar exterior shells beat very similar spec hearts. Both the Galaxy S25 and S25 Plus run on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor (unlike in the past, where the non-Ultra variants had to make do with Exynos chips in some markets), and both have RAM and storage options of 12 GB/ 256 GB and 12 GB/ 512 GB, although the Galaxy S25 also has a 12 GB/ 128 GB variant. Even the camera configurations are very similar - both phones have 50-megapixel main sensors with OIS, a 10-megapixel telephoto sensor with 3x optical zoom and OIS and a 12-megapixel ultrawide. Both phones also have 12-megapixel selfie cameras and come with stereo speakers.
The duo comes with Android 15 out of the box with Samsung's One UI 7 on top, Galaxy AI (Samsung's suite of AI tools), and an assurance of seven years of OS and security updates. There are two major differences, though. Both are related to the difference in the sizes of the phones.
Both the Galaxy S25 and S25+ have exactly the same camera lineups, and the fact that they both come with the same processor and software onboard too ensures that their cameras work similarly and deliver the exact same results - shades of the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus. They might not have the megapixel overload and the shooting variety of the more high-profile Galaxy S25 Ultra, but both phones deliver very good details and those typically slightly bright and oversaturated colours that Samsung is known for.
The telephoto camera helps in portrait mode and also provides not just 3x telephoto, but also lets you zoom in digitally without too much loss of detail till about 8x, which can be very handy for those who love to snap birds and animals. Portraits are sharper than in the S24 and bokeh looks more natural.
With specs that are broadly carbon copies of each other, it is hardly surprising that there is not much to separate the S25 and the S25 Plus in terms of performance. Both phones are awesome at high-end gaming, handling titles like Genshin Impact and the Asphalt series with ease. Both do get a little warm while gaming but never uncomfortably so.
New features like the Now Bar and Now Brief, which provide information on the lock screen and also details of the day, as well as Google Gemini glide seemingly effortlessly. These phones are proper flagship powerhouses.
They are largely united in design, specs, and performance and separated mainly by size. So which of the two flagships should you go for - the Samsung Galaxy S25 or the Galaxy S25 Plus? Both devices come with premium prices and offer different features based on the user's needs.