Original topic:

The Unpacked 2025 Event, The S25 Ultra, And The Online Discourse

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JimmyA
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Galaxy S
Please note that this is a subjective personal take that reflects my own experience and personal preferences.

UAE. 

The beautiful thing about this year’s Unpacked Event is the, more than usual buzz it created around the world, especially among Samsung fans, who started an online discourse splitting them into 2 categories:The impressed and The Not that impressed.

Remember one important thing before we proceed, at first, there were2 power houses, theS Series (S Ultra starting 2020), and theNote Series that was launched in 2011 (Note Ultra from 2020 till 2021) and had the S-Pen.

Users that don’t care about the S-Pen (big majority) and wanted a flagship phone, always went for the S Series which always sold more units than the Note.

In 2022, Samsung decided to ditch the Note series and combine the S Ultra with the Note Ultra, bringing a design that was dominated by the discontinued Note series, at that time I said: if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then it’s probably a Note.

To be fair, S Series users were not that happy as they were forced to:

  1. Buy a phone with a Pen they would never use (at least it was embedded and not intrusive)
  2. Buy a phone that lost the signature design and just became a squared off Note under another name.
 

The split happening today is not necessarily between those 2 different type of users, but the largest buzz was made around the S-Pen Bluetooth feature that was removed. And with that feature removed, in addition to the design change that brought back the S Series spirit to the Ultra category, on top of the lack of innovation for the S-Pen the past couple of years, raised some concerns and questions to some,did Samsung drop the ball on the S-Pen, is Samsung killing the Note concept and S-Pen eventually, or there will be another“You asked and we listened” phase where hashtags will be launched and features will come back?

As per some sources, very few people are using the S-Pen. That’s the easiest answer to give, and outside the organization, nobody can find out the real reason, is it cost saving, or is it really that only a handful of the Ultra series owners(S23/24 numbers below) are ex Notes users? Was the lack of innovation on the S-Pen what caused the lack of use?

  • Galaxy S24: 12.1 million sold (more than the S23 Base’s 10.46 million) totalling 22.5m.
  • Galaxy S24 Plus: 6.77 million sold (more than the S23 Plus’s 5.39 million) totalling 12m.
  • Galaxy S24 Ultra: 15.8 million sold (more than the S23 Ultra’s 13.56 million) totalling 29m.
But let’s get to the S25 Ultra, the one I’m interested in and bought😍.

Design:

If you follow my posts, you’ll know that the second I get a phone, it goes in a case, and since manufacturers started designing phones with a large screen to body ratio, how the phone looks is the least of my concerns. I personally prefer squared-off designs, and I’ll get that when I put my phone in a case regardless of how it looks.I personally like how the S25 Ultra looks, it didn’t bother me at all.

Hardware (Display, Chipset, Battery, Camera, NPU, etc):

New phone, better hardware, same story every year. Not gonna go over each and every change, but here’s what’s worth noting:

  • Snapdragon 8 Elite, also used in other phones like Xiaomi 15, Realme GT7 Pro, Honor Magic 7 Pro, Asus ROG Phone 9, OnePlus 13, but this one is optimized for Galaxy, and should insure better performance/efficiency.
  • 50MP Ultra wide camera sensor.
  • Slightly larger screen, while keeping the same phone size, by having slimmer bezels and Gorilla Armor 2.
  • The screen is now Samsung’s own improved version of LTPO which is called HOP 3.0 (hybrid oxide and polycrystalline silicon) that will allow even better battery consumption, touch sensitivity and refresh rates.
  • Samsung’s PDE (Personal Data Engine) that communicates with all apps, to collect data privately (Only On Device as per Samsung) in order to personalize the user experience. The concept is that apps will not be communicating with each other, only the PDE will by collecting that data securely in Knox.
  • Improved NPU(Neural Processing Unit) in order to have the AI features work offline on the phone, without the need to connect to the internet, which will make processing faster and more secure, again as per Samsung.
  • 15W wireless charging (QI2)
While the battery remains 5000mAH, there will be no need to upgrade it, as the 3nm chipset, along with the HOP 3.0 screen should bring the consumption down and increase the efficiency.

 

Software / AI:

I mentioned this in one of Unpacked 2023 Seoul meetings, and last year with the S24U launch:

All the phones reached a saturation in terms of revolution, same technology everywhere you look, almost same design, almost same everything. The game changers from now on are Services, and Software. AI is taking over the world at a fast pace, and that will be in my opinion the war of manufacturers moving forward. It’s not enough for you to be the Pioneer, you need to keep on improving every year, because when you’re number 1, everyone will be coming for you, look at Blackberry.

Samsung and Google are taking AI game to yet another level, from the S23U to the S24U and now to the S25U. The improved NPU and PDE are the hardware improvement that will make AI even better.

I was very excited at first to try all the newly introduced AI features, and found myself a year later only using a couple of them, the photo editor mainly, then Google’s circle to search, maybe the AI summary(notes, browser). The rest for me personally are just gimmicks, like the live translator, I just use it to show people what it does, but never had to used it.

I believe in the coming years, all those AI features will be totally integrated in apps, and we will stop calling them AI. Remember 2 years ago, before AI, the photo editor used to give you the ability to erase shadows, objects, and do a lot of pretty awesome and cool things, now, it’s doing them better, and has a name.

This year, there are new AI features (Some new to the world, some new to Samsung but are existing on Pixel phones like the Audio Edit for videos) which will be relevant to some and irrelevant to the rest,I’m excited to see what is new, and how improved are the old ones.

We were told last year that many AI features will be free till the end of 2025, and I’m hoping again that the NPU/PDE combination will not rely on any 3rd party nor internet and will be completely free on device for Samsung users.Oh and one more thing, I was happy to see Google’s Gemini putting the last nail in Bixbi, but it’s only free for 6 months 😊 yep, you heard that right.

Now, it's a waiting game, in a couple of days we will start receiving our devices, and i will post my usual in depth review, what i like and what i don't like.

if you bought the S25 Ultra, congratulations, can't wait to hear your feedback, and if you haven't yet and you're interested, here's how you can:


 

1 Comment
foxonlyy
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Galaxy S
🔥