Samsung Galaxy S25 has arrived, and now you have a decision to make.
Samsung showed off its latest flagship phones at its Galaxy Unpacked event on Wednesday, which means people with older Samsung phones might be wondering whether or not it's worth upgrading. Specifically, if you have last year's Galaxy S24 model, there are some difference between the S25 and S24 that are worth noting.
No more wasting time. Here are the differences between Galaxy S25 and S24.
Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. 24: Price
This one's easy. Last year, the Galaxy S24 started at $799. This year, the Galaxy S25 starts at...$799. It's a wash, in other words. That said, it's possible that Samsung drops the price of the S24 after the launch of the S25, but until that happens, these two phones cost the same amount of money.
Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. 24: Specs
Here are how the basic specs for the Galaxy S25 line up:
6.2-inch AMOLED display with 120Hz adaptive refresh rate
Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy processor
12GB RAM
128GB, 256GB storage
4,000mAh battery
For reference, this is what was inside the Galaxy S24:
6.2-inch AMOLED display with 120Hz adaptive refresh rate
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor
8GB RAM
128GB, 256GB storage
4,000mAh battery
Two big differences stand out: Processor and RAM. The Galaxy S25 runs on a newer Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chipset than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 the S24 runs on. In layman's terms, that means the newer phone has a newer, theoretically faster and more performant engine underneath the hood. Without proper, rigorous testing, however, it's hard to say how performance is impacted by this change.
Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. 24: Design
The Galaxy S25 is available in four colors: Icyblue, Navy, Mint, and Silver Shadow. Similarly, the S24 also came in four colors: Cobalt Violet, Amber Yellow, Onyx Black, and Marble Grey.
Other, smaller design changes are harder to detect without having the two phones side-by-side, but there are some size differences to point out. Here are the precise measurements for both phone, ordered by height, weight, and depth, in millimeters:
Galaxy S25: 146.9 x 70.5 x 7.2
Galaxy S24: 147.0 x 70.6 x 7.6
In terms of height and weight, both phones are nearly identical. However, the S25 is marginally thinner than the S24. In accordance with that, it's also very slightly lighter, coming in at 162g compared to the S24's 167g. These are tiny differences, but they are differences nonetheless.
Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. 24: AI features
With hardware improvements being rather minimal this year, Samsung's increased push into the artificial intelligence zone is the big story with Galaxy S25.
Samsung is leaning heavily into AI agents this year, with new multimodal features that let the AI in your phone do things across multiple apps at once. For example, with Galaxy S25, you can ask the AI to find info about your favorite basketball team's upcoming games online and, separately, add those games to your personal calendar. Or, you can ask it to find recipes and add those recipes to your notes.
There's also an AI-powered morning brief that gives you important info like weather, your personal events for the day, and other things you might need to know upon waking up each day. Circle to Search has also been enhanced to recognize URLs, email addresses, and phone numbers on your screen.
At the time of writing, it's not 100 percent clear how many of these features will be exclusive to the Galaxy S25 series of phones, and which will retroactively come to S24, if any. For now, it's best to assume these are all Galaxy S25-exclusive until further notice, though.
Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. 24: Cameras
Last year, the S24 had three rear camera lenses: a 50MP wide lens, a 12MP ultra-wide lens, and a 10MP telephoto lens. The Galaxy S25's rear camera lineup is exactly the same, at least in terms of megapixel count.
Without big hardware differences to highlight, we once again turn to the realm of AI. For the Galaxy S25, Samsung advertised some new AI photography and videography features. For starters, the generative editing tech in these phones continues to grow, as it can now do things like detect and remove shadows for objects you want erased from photos. In addition, the Audio Eraser tool from previous Google Pixel phones is now here, with the ability to recognize and tune out various kinds of noises in the backgrounds of your videos.
S25 vs S24: The verdict
Without having tested the Galaxy S25, it's impossible to render a final verdict on which phone is better. But, at the very least, if you want all the AI features, it's clear which Galaxy phone is the one to get.
