A bowl of Oreo cookies never looked more tempting. Slowly, the new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra moved towards the cookies and so did macro magic on the new phone’s camera. The South Korean company has once again introduced three new phones as part of Galaxy S series — Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25+ and Galaxy S25 Ultra. And the updates are meaningful.

“The strong partnership with Google on the GenAI experiences and Qualcomm to optimise them on the device at scale is pretty unique to Samsung versus the competition which has limited scale in the premium market. Further, Chinese brands have to follow two separate ecosystems for AI — one is in China and the other is outside China which puts immense pressure on profitability as the research and development is almost doubled,” said Neil Shah, partner, Hong Kong-based Counterpoint Research, told t2.

The camera setup on the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra has been improved, especially on the ultra-wide front. Mathures Paul

Better cameras

Every year, Samsung focuses on at least one aspect of the camera system. In the last few years, we have seen improvements in night photography. The Galaxy S25 series delivers highly detailed shots at every range with high-resolution sensors and ProVisual Engine. With a new 50MP ultra-wide camera sensor upgraded from the previous 12MP, Galaxy S25 Ultra offers top-notch clarity and vibrancy without failing a shot.

We pointed the phone at a bunch of flowers. The close-up shots had a high level of clarity as well as details without destroying the colour profile.

Another helpful update — 10-bit HDR recording is now applied by default, offering four times richer colour expression compared to 8-bit. Plus, a big bump in night photography. Thanks to the powerful processor, Galaxy S25 analyses movement and time to reduce noise more effectively. This integration allows the detection of both moving and static objects with greater precision, ensuring sharper, cleaner footage in any scenario.

The popular Expert RAW mode has been enriched. Galaxy S25 introduces depth-of-field control with Virtual Aperture, integrated into Expert RAW. When it comes to videos, the phone has improved cinematic creativity with Galaxy Log, enabling precise colour grading options for more professional video production.

Powerful processor

Channelling power through the new Galaxy S25 series is the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy. The processor has been customised to ensure all Samsung-related features work perfectly.

On the chipset front, there is a performance boost of 40 per cent in NPU, 37 per cent in CPU and 30 per cent in GPU compared to the previous generation. All the power is required to ensure AI features work seamlessly and the ability to process more AI experiences on-device, including previously Cloud-based AI tasks such as Generative Edit.

The series also comes with advanced, efficient AI image processing with ProScaler to achieve a 40 per cent improvement in display image scaling quality, while incorporating custom technology with Samsung’s mobile Digital Natural Image engine (mDNIe) embedded within the processor using Galaxy IP to enable greater display power efficiency. Since the chip is equipped with Vulkan Engine and improved Ray Tracing, you should be able to enjoy more realistic mobile gaming.

Better security

One of the biggest threats of the year is more attacks on devices. To make your smartphone secure, Galaxy S25 has introduced post-quantum cryptography, safeguarding personal data against emerging threats that could increase as quantum computing evolves.

One UI 7 already has the framework for a fortified layer of device safety designed for the age of AI and hyperconnectivity. Additional updates include Maximum Restrictions settings, enhanced Theft Protection, and a new Knox Matrix dashboard to monitor the security status across a connected device ecosystem.

Durability and sustainability

This time around, every external component of Galaxy S25+ and S25 now includes at least one recycled material, as their metal frame has recycled armor aluminum for the first time.

Further, every Galaxy S25 series device uses a minimum of 50 per cent recycled cobalt for its battery while Galaxy S25 will be the first Galaxy smartphone to feature batteries made with recycled cobalt sourced from previous Galaxy devices or batteries discarded during the manufacturing process.