The subsequent era of Samsung flagships is almost right here – we’re anticipating to listen to official information of the Samsung Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, and S25 Extremely by the top of the month – and I think that this 12 months’s most consequential Galaxy improve can have nothing to do with the brand new telephones’ look.
It’s simple to get excited concerning the prospect of cutting-edge tech at any time when a cellphone maker broadcasts a brand new flagship mannequin, however in actuality, we’ve usually seen year-on-year progress decelerate in relation to the most important elements and capabilities of recent smartphones – at the very least these that you could see.
The Samsung Galaxy sequence, for its half, has inhabited roughly the identical kind issue for half a decade; the Google Pixel sequence has centered on stabilizing efficiency with every model; and the iPhone 16 is the primary actually new-feeling handset from Apple in years.
We’re once more anticipating to see a slew of marginally improved specs for the S25 lineup this January, significantly so on the base-model S25 and its identically-specced large sibling, the S25 Plus; each will miss out on the highest-end upgrades destined for the S25 Extremely. For the 2 ‘customary’ fashions, the newest S25 specs predictions recommend a bit extra RAM, a barely bigger display screen, and possibly some bumped-up storage choices. Cameras and battery sizes are attributable to keep the identical. It is hardly Christmas, is it?
There may be, nevertheless, one class the place we’re anticipating to see rather more of an enchancment this 12 months, and it’s not one you may see – not with out ripping your cellphone in half, anyway (which TechRadar famously advises towards).
Each Galaxy S25 mannequin is tipped to launch with the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, the newest in Qualcomm’s line of class-leading cellular chipsets. Put merely, this could possibly be a game-changer for efficiency and immediately rocket Samsung to pole place within the efficiency race with Apple. Enable me to elucidate why.
Elite by identify, elite by nature
For these not within the know, the Snapdragon 8 Elite follows up the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 – already probably the most highly effective cellular chipsets ever produced – and improves (by Qualcomm’s personal metrics) on that chipset’s single and multi-core efficiency by 45%; it additionally provides vastly improved energy effectivity.
When TechRadar’s US Mobiles Editor Philip Berne ran preliminary benchmarks on the 8 Elite, he discovered that Qualcomm’s newest effort nearly doubled the scores attained by the A18 Professional within the iPhone 16 Professional.
Remember the fact that, at a predicted value of $799 / £799 / AU$1,399, the baseline S25 will compete with the iPhone 16 and its much less highly effective A18 chipset, reasonably than with the iPhone 16 Professional. Ought to these benchmarks translate into real-world efficiency, the race between Apple and Samsung may find yourself resembling me chasing after a Dodge Charger on foot (as per our Google Pixel 9 Professional evaluate, Google’s Tensor chipsets aren’t fairly within the dialog but).
What does this imply for the common consumer? Primarily, a good quicker Galaxy handset – speedier load occasions, smoother app switching, and expanded AI prospects. “Benchmarks aren’t every part,” Qualcomm instructed us at Snapdragon Summit final 12 months, and although, as talked about, the 8 Elite’s benchmark scores are certainly mightily spectacular, Qualcomm is equally eager to shout concerning the tangible, real-world advantages of its newest chipset.
With rumors swirling of a large AI push from Samsung this 12 months, we may see the S25 lineup enter our listing of the finest AI telephones because of this elevated {hardware} energy, which ought to empower customers to make higher use of Samsung’s productiveness and generative AI alike. What’s extra, the S25 and S25 Plus are tipped to launch with 12GB of RAM, 4GB greater than the earlier era, giving these new telephones much more headroom for AI and multitasking.
We don’t even want to attend for the S25 sequence to launch to see the Snapdragon 8 Elite in motion – the primary globally obtainable telephones to sport the brand new chipset landed in December 2024 within the type of the Asus Rog Telephone 9 and Rog Telephone 9 Professional gaming telephones. In our Asus Rog Telephone 9 Professional evaluate, the latter attained a 5/5 rating for efficiency because of its distinctive consistency, improved gaming, and glorious graphical efficiency. It’ll be as much as Samsung to optimize across the wants of the on a regular basis consumer with the S25 sequence.
Samsung has by no means been a slouch in relation to efficiency – in our Galaxy S24 evaluate, we discovered the corporate’s most up-to-date baseline flagship to be sizzling on the heels of the S24 Extremely within the energy division – however the features led to by the Snapdragon 8 Elite may show actually superlative, and should even supply S24 customers a compelling purpose to improve this 12 months.
All that being mentioned, a lot of the above continues to be primarily based on rumors in the intervening time, so you’ll want to sustain with our Samsung telephones protection for the newest official info as put on hear it from Samsung.