The Samsung Galaxy S25 series is official and if we are all being honest with ourselves, the three phones look a lot like (and cost the same as) the Galaxy S24 range. Save for the slightly more curvaceous S25 Ultra, most people would be hard pressed to tell the S25 devices apart from the ones that preceded them, which in turn looked a lot like the S23 phones.
If you’ve got an S24 I’d say you have little reason to upgrade. This particularly applies if you have an S24 Ultra. This excellent phone is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy, a specially overclocked version of 2024’s flagship Qualcomm chipset that Samsung claims has more oomph than the 8 Gen 3 found in rival phones from last year such as the OnePlus 12.
That special treatment from Qualcomm towards Samsung continues with the S25 Ultra, which has the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy.
“With unique customisations by Galaxy, this is the most powerful chipset ever on Galaxy S Series, delivering a performance boost of 40 percent in NPU, 37 percent in CPU and 30 percent in GPU compared to the previous generation”, Samsung said. “This power fuels the Galaxy S25 series’ ability to process more AI experiences on-device without compromise, including previously cloud-based AI tasks such as Generative Edit.”
Though those percentages are compared to the S24 Ultra, the boosted 8 Elite chip is reportedly zippier than the regular 8 Elite found in the OnePlus 13 and Honor Magic 7 Pro.
But UK buyers have previously been a little shortchanged. In the US and other parts of the world, the S24 and S24 Plus, the two ‘regular’ and cheaper phones in the line up also got the 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy chip. Not so for Brits, who were instead only able to get these devices with the Samsung Exynos 2400 processor inside. This was no slouch, but benchmarks showed it was not as powerful as the Snapdragon alternative.
Samsung has chosen to offer its own Exynos chips in Galaxy phones in the UK for years, never fully explaining why this is the case. Oddly, the firm sells its Galaxy Z Fold and Z Flip phones in Britain with Snapdragon chips, leaving the Galaxy S series to straddle the line.
Happily, Samsung has confirmed the Galaxy S25 and S25 Plus ship globally, including in the UK, with the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, meaning these could be the phones to go for if you want a non-folding Samsung phone with as much power as possible, but don’t want the pocket-busting dimensions of the enormous S25 Ultra.
The Galaxy S25 starts from £799, hugely undercutting the S25 Ultra’s mammoth £1,249 price tag, as well as costing less than the £899 OnePlus 13 and £1,099 Honor Magic 7 Pro, making it the cheapest way to get your hands on a phone with the latest 8 Elite chipset in the UK.
We are glad to see Samsung has straightened out this admittedly minor complaint we had with previous Galaxy S phones, though only time will tell if this is a blip in strategy. The Galaxy S26 could well revert to Exynos, as Samsung has flip flopped on this matter in past years. The Galaxy S23 series all ran the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 before the S24 went back to Exynos in the UK. Make your mind up, Sammy.
