Samsung's Galaxy S line of phones will be having its sixteenth birthday soon, culminating in the release of the Galaxy S25.
With the Galaxy S24, Samsung addressed several nagging issues and introduced a suite of new AI tools to further enhance the Galaxy experience. With the Galaxy S25, we expect to see Samsung further improve the overall Galaxy experience with more refinements and even better hardware.
So, what do we expect from a 2025 Galaxy S25? We've already seen a handful of rumors crop up for the upcoming flagship series and are assembling them here for you to read about.
Samsung Galaxy S25: Price and availability
One of the earliest rumors popped up in October 2023 and directly addresses the question of price. According to the leak, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 that's likely to power the Galaxy S25 series features "astonishing levels of performance" that may require Samsung to hike the price up a bit.
Samsung has already increased the price of the Galaxy S24 Ultra by $100, making the cheapest model $1,299. The Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus didn't get a base price increase, but this rumor certainly suggests that 2024 may be the last year we see a mainline Galaxy S phone as low as $799.
We fully expect Samsung to unveil the Galaxy S25 in January 2025, as the company has been sticking to an early annual announcement cycle for a few years now.
Samsung Galaxy S25: Design and displays
The Samsung Galaxy S25 series is at least a year away at this point, so there's very little we know about Samsung's Next Big Thing.
Based on what we've seen from the Galaxy S series over the past few years, it's very likely that Samsung will continue to use a shared design language between the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Plus. The Galaxy S25 Ultra is likely to look similar to the Galaxy S24 Ultra unless something huge changes.
The Galaxy S24 Ultra's display is the flattest it's ever been since Samsung changed up the design language with the Galaxy S22 Ultra. If any changes occur, it's possible that Samsung could make the Galaxy S25 Ultra's design more similar to the other models, with rounded corners and a completely flat design, but there are currently no rumors or leaks to support this just yet.
Samsung Galaxy S25: Cameras
The Samsung Galaxy S25 series is rumored to be making a huge change with its camera sensors. Per a December 2023 rumor, Samsung will stop using its own ISOCELL GN3 sensors on the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Plus in favor of using all-Sony sensors.
While we don't know the specs for those camera sensors yet, it would mean the first time we've seen a big camera change since the Galaxy S22. That phone swapped out the 12MP main sensor for a 50MP main sensor, but Samsung hasn't changed too much since then.
The rumor suggests that Samsung will continue to use Samsung ISOCELL sensors for the Galaxy S25 Ultra, which makes sense since the Ultra line mostly utilizes different sensors than the other two models.
Traditionally, Samsung seems to swap out at least one camera module (sensor and lens) per year. Samsung just updated one of the telephoto camera modules with the Galaxy S24 Ultra, so it's plausible that we could see an upgraded ultrawide or upgraded secondary telephoto lens on the Galaxy S25 Ultra.
Samsung Galaxy S25: Specs and performance
For the past few years, Samsung has been using different processors in different regions of the world. The lone exception was the Galaxy S23 family, where Samsung utilized Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipsets in all regions of the world since the company's equivalent Exynos chipset was canceled.
The Galaxy S24 family returned to the split Exynos/Snapdragon distribution, and we fully expect Samsung to continue this strategy with the Galaxy S25 family.
That's particularly interesting as it's rumored that Qualcomm will use TSMC to manufacture the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, while Samsung will move on to its new 3nm fab process. Leaked benchmarks say the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will exceed 10,000 on Geekbench 6's multicore score, a popular benchmarking app to compare mobile phone performance.
For reference, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 inside the Galaxy S24 series scores 7,500 in that same test, while the iPhone 15 Pro Max scores 7,100. A score of over 10,000 would indicate massive performance enhancements for that Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, meaning the Galaxy S25 series would be a far greater speed upgrade than the normal annual cycle presents.
