Samsung's TM Roch took to the stage to show the new S25 phones, holding them in his hands. This, for me, was a mistake because it was nearly impossible to see what was different, except for a slight color change.
Apparently the positioning of the antenna might have moved, and the base memory is now 12GB but no significant specs have changed. What does an increase in RAM mean? These days it generally seems to mean a lot of AI software is being added.
So what happened? Has Samsung simply stopped trying now?
iPhone 16 v Samsung Galaxy S25
I thought the point of Samsung phones was to provide a significant rival to Apple. Personally I wasn't likely to change because I'm somewhat embedded into the Apple universe, but I did, grudgingly, respect some of the tech that Samsung seemed to get out there first. Better camera specs (at least on paper), that kind of thing.
If nothing else, historically, Samsung kept Apple on their toes. The first periscope zoom camera was in the Galaxy S20 Ultra – that's a long way before Apple finally got the tech into the iPhone 15.
So, even as an Apple user with a still-very-new iPhone 16 Pro Max, I was a little excited by the launch of Samsung S25 because, if nothing else, I reasoned it might herald the future of my phone. It's odd for long-time Apple-users like me that Apple no longer aims to "Think Different." Then again, this is a market it has the lead in, so perhaps Tim Cook is being sensible!
Not this time though. The S25 Ultra simply looks like an S24 (near-identical camera layout) but the edges have been tweaked so they give off an thoroughly iPhone vibe – flat edges, curved corners – rather than the distinct (if rather drab in my view) Samsung look from before with the sharp corners.
How else, has Samsung distinguished the new devices? OK, to be fair the identical looking camera has had a spec bump on the wide to 50MP, but the most visually obvious thing – they've done something very Apple. Yes, they've gone with different colorways.
Oh, and something else – some AI. Which, to me anyway, isn't as exciting as they think it is.
Why not? Because AI is always a series of specific potentially very useful tools which might look very good in a presentation but you won't actually use very much and in day-to-day life. If you want to take clips of videos and make GIFs within the OS, or search on images, great. But it's hard to get excited about.
Worryingly, too, those features are only definitely free until the end of 2025 when an as-yet unspecified charge may (let's be realistic; almost definitely will) come into play, at least for cloud AI, which is most of it.
If that weren't enough, the S25's Samsung-enhanced variant of Android seems to have deliberately styled itself to look as much like the most recent iteration of iOS as possible.
Indeed if the point wasn't clear enough, Samsung goes out of its way to highlight the fact they've switched into a kind of Apple following mode with their Smart Switch features to 'make it easy to switch' from iOS.
For me, at least, it has the opposite effect. It leaves me unexcited. Personally, if I'm going to ditch a platform that works for me and I trust, I want a reason – not just to know Samsung's design team are inspired by it, which leads me to the real battle...
iPhone 16 v Samsung Galaxy S25 v Google Pixel
What I think has really happened here is that Samsung has quietly accepted that the Galaxy phones have ceded the ground of 'best Android phone' and 'the iPhone alternative' to the Google Pixel 9.
For one thing a lot of the AI in the S25 phones is essentially driven by Google's Gemini anyway, with some extensions into Samsung's Bixby AI to interact with Samsung's calendar and the like (more useful if you actually use Samsung's software – which I suspect I wouldn't).
It even says 'ask Gemini' in the dialog box. Though, given Samsung clearly want to charge their own fees in the very near future, you can see why they've also spent time integrating their own features.
The result? A disappointing mess from the perspective of someone who – admittedly – isn't that tempted to jump ship for AI anyway. Give me an impressive camera (that doesn't just fake a moon) and I might be a lot more tempted!
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Perhaps it'll be more exciting next time – there is talk of a 200MP S26. In the meantime, check the best camera phones and the best iPhone for photography.
