Samsung Galaxy S25 512GB (2025)

I'm glad I went a Samsung over the Google Pixel 9. But should I have gone for the S24 instead? – The reason I have only given this phone 3 stars (Ok) rating is NOT because it is a bad phone (it is a very good phone), but because as a $1400 (base) flagship phone I think I feel a little disappointed that I was not blown away considering I was upgrading Galaxy S9 (its 5year old predecessor) and even I felt that a few of the hardware aspects of the S9 were slightly better! I was also disappointed that some of the Samsung apps that, on paper, sounded like game changers for me, such as Samsung Notes, Modes & routines, etc feel unfinished, are not linked to corresponding apps or are near unusable. Having researched the Google Pixel 8&9 and the Samsung S24&25 thoroughly before purchase, I still think I made the right decision to choose the S25 over the latest Google Pixel 9. But I am not convinced I made the right decision choosing it over the Samsung Galaxy S24 which is currently half the price (New). I'm not sure I am getting a whole load more phone for the extra $700 (current price difference between s24 and s25! The Galaxy S25 has a lot of things that I like (listed in more detail below), but I don't know how many features are new and how many were in the previous S24 generation. The S25 also has a lot of things I don't like or find irritating (also listed below) which I suspect will annoy me for years to come!

This review has my first impressions, personal opinions and a bit of a rant on the Galaxy S25 having upgraded last week from my beat-up Samsung Galaxy S9 (2018) with a fractured screen and duff battery - your millage may vary. I purchased this phone with my own money for my own personal use (from Officeworks). I am not a professional tester or review. I have not owned or tested any phones in-between the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S25 nor have I ever used or tested a Google Pixel of any generation! Prior to buying the phone I held the non functional static demo model of the S24, S25 and Pixel 9 in store to feel the weight, look at the size and grump about the camera bezels

I was surprised to find that compared to my old Galaxy S9 from 5 years ago some hardware on the Galaxy S25 feel like a downgrade! These are the; screen, fingerprint sensor, lack of Micro SD card slot, lack of headphone jack and it has no charger included!!! These are big things for me that I will cover in more detail in the 'what I don't like' section below.

Note on battery life: I am currently getting about 12-14 hours between full charges. This is with my normal daily usage of this phone - which includes music player, you tube and web browsing and a minor messaging/phone calls. I spend about 50% of my day on Wi-Fi and the rest on cellular. This battery life is about the same as what I got on my Galaxy S9 when it was new - I find this a little concerning given 5years of battery tech improvements! Camera bezels: The

Critical selling points for me ------------------------------ * Weight - It weighs 36g less than the Google Pixel 9. This was very noticeable holding both phone demo models in store. This seems to have come at the cost of a 17% smaller battery capacity for the Galaxy s25 but the Pixel 9 in my opinion was too heavy and did not feel right in my shirt pocket whereas the S25 does! * Size - I feel that all the (non apple) top end phones are getting too big for me. The Galaxy S25 and Pixel 9 are only just within the upper margin of what I can use one handed and my hands are not particularly small. * Camera Bezel - While the Galaxy S25 camera has a flat edge (that catches on things) that sticks out about 1.3mm, it is no where near as bad the chunky Google Pixel 9 "camera bar" that sticks out 3.8mm (not sure I could cope with that!). * Support - Samsung have committed to supporting the S25 with 7 years of updates! (Hardware warranty would have been nice too but sadly no)

What I liked: ------------- * Currently fast and responsive. (But so was my Galaxy S9 when it was brand new!) * Camera - The camera picture quality is absolutely incredible even with my shaky hands! In my opinion it beats the picture quality I have seen from my wife's IPhone (though she has last years model). * Camera AI - It quickly recognises info within the picture and isolates it. Eg Text, QR codes, etc. It also quickly figures out borders of paper so you can 'Scan' it flat. * AI voice rec - The AI voice rec is working very well for me. It is much better at understanding me (I have a tricky accent) and can do most processing on phone. I love the ability to get a full text transcription of recordings and voice phone calls (including identifying different people speaking). I also like that it has built in facility to generate a text summary. Note: In some parts of Australia both parties must legally be informed when recording calls! Not sure how goes with voice to text transcription but always best to err the side of caution and tell everyone it is recording. * Camera Bezel - The camera bezel is significantly less intrusive than the Pixel 9/8 (This was a biggie when choosing it) * Weight and feel - I really like the weight of this device it is just right for me. It feels sturdy without being to heavy. * Non-curved Screen - I am very glad they have moved back to flat screens (I did not like the Galaxy S9 curved screen) * Google - All the features of Google that I use regularly like Gemini. Thankfully Samsung's offerings can be easily switched off. Eg Samsung Wallet, Samsung Password manager, etc * "Hey Google" Voice assistant - The phone is powerful enough to run it properly. I had to uninstall it on my Galaxy S9 as it just didn't work. * Voice recorder - While I have already mentioned this above I think it deserves its own bullet point. I used this app a lot on my old phone pre AI to take notes for later transcription on my PC. In the Galaxy S25 it has now got a bunch of AI which can not only transcribe the audio (on the phone), it summarise (in the cloud). This has taken the app to a whole new level and means that I can do all the steps on my phone rather than processing it later on my desktop. It would be nice, however, if I could export the pretty AI text formatting out of the app though rather than just plain text!

What I did not like -------------------- * Screen - While I like that the screen is flat. This actually feels like a downgrade over my Samsung Galaxy S9 screen in terms of colour range! Side by side, the Galaxy S25 looks washed out and my S9 screen looks vibrant with very dark blacks and bright whites (except where the sticky tape is holding it together)! The blacks on my S25 are not going completely black (as far as I can tell). It is probably more colour accurate than the S9 but the S9 screen for most though the S25 is slightly more readable in bright sunlight and probably higher resolution (but I haven't checked). Note: I suspect the issues here are settings issues I haven't figured out yet! (But I shouldn't have to put this much effort in on a $1400 phone!) * Finger print sensor - The finger print sensor is now located behind the screen and it never fricking works for me. The Galaxy S9 sensor on the back worked great nearly every time in the last 5 years. I have trained and retrained my S25. When it does recognise fingerprints it takes longer to do so than the S9, but I only occasionally get a match within the 5 chances and then have to unlock with a pattern! * Micro SD card reader - Gone! My Galaxy S9 had one - It was really useful for downloading movies for offline viewing on streaming apps that allow it when traveling! Or when recording really long videos like my kids school play that I didn't want to offload via my cellular data! There is no good excuse for not including a micro sd card. This should be a standard feature in all phones and should be available without having to pop the sim slot! * Battery life - I am getting the same battery life as I got with my Samsung S9 when it was brand new (Just over 14h of normal day to day reasonably heavy browsing usage). This is a real worry as it won't be very long before my battery does not last between daily charges. I have set the battery saver to 90% to try to make my battery last a bit longer. * Charger - NONE! There is no charger in the box. For $1400 I feel they could/should include a nice charger capable of safely charging the phone at max power! * Battery Charging heat - This thing gets toasty when it goes on charge! * Always On Display - This worked great on the Galaxy S9 but has issues on the Galaxy S25. By default the Always On Display on the S25 in lock screen has a bright, light coloured background. Even when switching the background to plain colour "Black", it settles on a vivid 'lcd backlight glow gray' which beamed at me all night. Eventually, I figured out how to set it to actual black, but even then it is does not seem completely black like the S9! When I got my S9 this was one of the features they promoted that it would display a clock and key details but not bathe you in light at night when you are trying to sleep! * AI text export - When you use the AI to create summaries there seems to be no way to preserve the (Lovely and helpful) markdown formatting it generates, not even when transferring to Samsung's own apps like note. All you can do is export as plain text. This is really irritating as it is right there on the screen! * Samsung apps - It feels like many of the Samsung apps are either not finished or not ready for primetime! For example: The Modes & Routines - If it worked it would be fantastic but it is practically useless/unusable. The 'Send to Note' feature, which also has a lot of potential, is clunky and doesn't appear available in all of Samsung's own apps. * Bixby Voice Assistant - It is inferior in almost every way to Google Voice Assistant. When turned on, it triggers all the time with background speech and it doesn't seem to be locked to a single voice, so, for the brief period it was enabled, my children took great delight in using it to make my phone do stupid things while we were driving. Fun! * Permissions on core apps - Many of the core apps (not all) required numerous trips to obscure settings to allocate permissions. Some apps that I would probably want to question did not! I shouldn't have to go through settings to give the 'phone dialer' permission to make fricking phone calls or give the 'Alarm clock' permission to ring an alarm! The whole permissions thing was one of the many factors making me feel like this was rushed out the door. * Transfer app - While it transferred most of my stuff it didn't get all the settings (including settings that have direct corresponding settings in the new phone) or files. I am also wondering if this is why some of the post transfer settings were a bit messed up? It also only transferred permissions settings for about half the apps. * Lock screen Voice assistant - Okay so this is an Android issue not a Samsung issue. But Gemini keeps requiring me to unlock my phone before it will allow me to access any apps other than play music. When I am in a position to fondle my phone I don't need the Voice assistant! There should be a setting to allow it to access certain apps without unlocking the phone (such as my calendar). * 2 year Warranty - They have committed to support 7 years of software updates but are only willing to cover the hardware for 2 years? Come on Samsung show a little confidence in your products! * Samsung Care+ - I almost took this out assuming that it was like Apple care and would cover loss, theft or accidental damage. It is not like Apple care! It is an expensive swap program for nearly new phones! Read the T&Cs before taking this out! You pay ~$130 for a year (or ~$250 for two years) to get the opportunity to pay a further ~$150 to swap (twice for 2 years once per year) your existing phone for a refurbished phone of the same model! While you can request a swap for any reason including damage, If your phone is damaged you can be charged an extra fee or your swap can be rejected. If your phone isn't unlocked (or can't be unlocked due to damage), won't power on, etc then you may/will be charged even more. While I am not saying this is a scam a great many people on ProductReview.com.au are!