Back in January, when Samsung launched the three main phones in the Galaxy S25 series, I wasn’t shy with my criticism. I openly wondered why the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Plus even exist, and pointed out how the Galaxy S25 Ultra is such a nominal upgrade over the Galaxy S24 Ultra that it’s a wonder Samsung didn’t drop the price.
Surprisingly, at the time, Samsung teased that a significant part of the Galaxy S25 family was yet to come: an ultra-thin, ultra-lightweight phone called the Galaxy S25 Edge. This piqued my interest, as I thought it might be the one upgrade that really elevates the series from ho-hum to amazing.
However, it’s no secret that the Galaxy S25 Edge has landed with a thud. The company has reportedly seen sales nosedive much earlier than expected. Even die-hard Samsung fans have seemingly already forgotten about it, judging by online discourse and Android Authority’s traffic stats on the topic, both here and on YouTube. People just don’t care about a thin and light phone if it lacks the necessary features to make it tangibly good at being, well…a phone.
This leaves me back where I started. It’s been six months since the original Galaxy S25 launch event, and I still think that this is one of the laziest and most uninteresting flagship families Samsung has ever released.
How did Samsung do this year with the Galaxy S25 series? 329 votes Samsung killed it in 2025! 15 % Eh, the phones are fine. 46 % The Galaxy S25 series is bad. 26 % I don't know/don't care. 13 %
Samsung, you can’t just repackage things forever
Lanh Nguyen / Android Authority
There has been plenty of backlash against my comments on how the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Plus seem completely trivial and inessential. The first, and most prominent one, comes from Americans, and it centers on the idea that carrier subsidies, trade-in values, and other discount opportunities make the two phones more attractive over other Galaxy S phones, chiefly because of the processor upgrade to the Snapdragon 8 Elite. The second rebuttal, which comes from mostly non-Americans, is that the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus having an Exynos processor in most areas of the world makes the Galaxy S25 and S25 Plus worthy of existing, thanks to the superiority of Qualcomm silicon.
While these are sound and accurate arguments, they both hinge on the idea that slapping a new chipset into a carbon copy of last year’s phone is a fine strategy for Samsung to adopt. I’m sorry, but I just can’t handle that. From a smartphone fan’s perspective, rehashing the same phone with a slightly better processor is so lazy that it borders on insulting. From an environmentalist perspective, it reeks of irresponsibility towards our e-waste crisis. And from a brand loyalty perspective, it must make at least some Samsung fans feel like jumping ship to any number of more innovative competitors.
The three main Galaxy S25 phones are good, but they are barely advancements over the last three years of Galaxy S devices.
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