There’s a raging debate online on whether to get the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, the headline device of the 2025 Samsung flagship smartphone series, the Galaxy S25 series.
You see, with the Galaxy S25 Ultra, Samsung made some upgrades to the hardware, the ones you can expect like a better chipset and some others like some tweaks to the design and a some step ups here and there. While that is so, it did take away something that core Samsung Galaxy Sxx Ultra fans have come to love: the Bluetooth functionality of the device’s stylus, the S Pen. Then it doubled down on a trend it has been on since last year: making software, particularly Artificial Intelligence (AI) a key part of its new device reveals.
While the fans’ reaction to the omission of the S Pen’s Bluetooth functionality is understandable, so is Samsung’s reason to do so: that not many of us out here (writing as a Galaxy S24 Ultra user and owner) make use of that functionality. Per Samsung’s internal figures, there’s barely 1% of us out there.
Where am I going with this?
You see, for over a month, I had with me a review Galaxy S25 unit from Samsung’s Kenya office. No, it was not the standard Galaxy S25. Neither was it the hero Galaxy S25 Ultra. It was the middle child. The Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus.
For this particular device, there’s no S Pen, obviously. This has been the case since Samsung introduced the Plus to accompany its standard offering almost a decade ago. In recent years, it has become the device that many even forget that it exists. You see, it gets caught up between the appealing starting price of the base model standard S device and the all-you-can-eat feature approach of its bigger sibling, the Galaxy S Ultra. It’s the forgettable middle child.
This year, maybe that will not be the case?
After spending nearly a year with the larger Galaxy S24 Ultra from last year’s flagship lineup and another 2 months with the standard Galaxy S24 last year, getting to use the Galaxy S25 Plus completes my experience with Samsung’s flagship smartphone family – albeit across two generations.
Looks and design
From my assessment, it’s the sweet not little and not large thing that may just be the perfect compromise: it won’t as much as the Galaxy S25 Ultra from your pockets and won’t feel as ungodly huge as it and it’s not as tiny as the standard Galaxy S25 for those of us who have a thing for slightly larger displays (it’s 2025, dah). It will make you forget the S Pen and start appreciating the Galaxy S25 series, and, generally, the Galaxy S series, without the shadow of the famed stylus it took over from the defunct Galaxy Note series.
The hardware
The device’s biggest selling point is its size relative to its siblings in the Galaxy S25 series. By not having to carry the baggage of a 4mm stylus, it manages to stay razor thin (by a whole millimeter compared to the S25 Ultra) while, seemingly, packing it all. You get a larger display than the standard Galaxy S25 that feels just as large as the Galaxy S25 Ultras even though its smaller body and weight will give you a different impression. And, it has most of the S25 Ultra’s good stuff – like the same peak brightness on the display, the same display and display tech, the same custom Snapdragom 8 Elite chipset, the same network radios, the same water resistance, etc. Of course, it also gets the same AI features that Samsung is placing the Galaxy S25 series as being a leader in – more on those later.
What it misses out on are the better optics on the S25 Ultra because, well, Samsung needs a reason to upsell you on that one. If it’s any consolation, it shares its 12-megapixel front-facing camera with its two Galaxy S25 series siblings. And, from a user’s perspective, I cannot decry the photos and videos I was able to take with this device. They were sharp, vivid and good. In sufficient lighting conditions and in low light situations.
The display’s protection is also different.
Something you will appreciate greatly, however, is the bigger battery unit that Samsung manages to put in the device’s bigger frame. This brings a lot of difference as there’s a lot more juice that can be squeezed out of the 4,900mAh battery than on the standard S25’s 4,000mAh unit. I was able to get a day’s use out of the Galaxy S25 Plus regularly, sometimes, when I wasn’t stretching it, even more!
The software
If you nerd out on Android and features and whatnot like we do here at Android Kenya then you will appreciate what Samsung has done with the Galaxy S25 Plus – and, hopefully, with the entire Galaxy S25 series. At least this is what I experienced on my review unit Galaxy S25 Plus: less and less Samsung and other apps were pre-installed. Instead, Samsung is letting users make more decisions regarding how their precious onboard storage is being used. For instance, the Samsung Calendar (remember when it used to go by the ‘S Planner’ moniker?) isn’t installed by default. Neither is the Samsung Internet app (one of the best browser apps by the way). 
Since Android’s way of operating is such that all licensees (who are device makers like Samsung and its competitors) have to ship their devices with some Google apps and services pre-installed in order to guarantee the experience Google wants on devices running its mobile operating system, Samsung is deferring to those apps and services and moving away from its old way of working where it provided duplicate apps and services. That era of two messaging apps, one from Google and another from Samsung, two calendar apps, two mobile browser apps and so on? It’s gone! Good riddance!
Before we dive into the AI features, it’s also such a breath of fresh air that Samsung also took care of the minute details. Like allowing for better search functionality on the settings app. You don’t need to remember where a particular setting is found anymore. Just search for it and, voila! There it is! Nice.
While Bixby is not exactly gone in the Galaxy S25 series, as seen from the Galaxy S25 Plus I had with me for review, its reach has been largely curtailed. Where you’d hold the middle navigation (home) soft button to bring up the Circle to Search feature and the likes, with the S25 series, you can long-press the side-mounted power button to bring up either Samsung’s in-house digital assistant, Bixby, or Google’s AI-powered Gemini. The two alternate on-demand depending on which one is best suited to provide whatever answer or context that the user requires. Way to go!
There’s a lot to play with when it comes to the Galaxy AI features that are front and centre of the modern Samsung Galaxy smartphone experience. Users of Galaxy AI from the Galaxy S24 series and even those who are upgrading to the Galaxy S series from the Galaxy A series that also got some of these features last year, will appreciate the upgrades they have received.
Some of them, like the call translate feature, will become a lot more useful to Kenyan users when what Samsung has under testing – Kiswahili translation – becomes available to the masses. For now, they’ll be helpful to anyone who alternates between various international languages or, when one travels. Picture yourself holidaying in Sardinia or Antalya and hailing a cab while not speaking any of the local dialects but your phone can detect the cab driver’s tongue and provide you some translation. Even if the said cab driver also has a Galaxy smartphone because now that functionality can go both ways.
The Now Bar feature, which takes advantage of the camera cutout up top (tiny notch) in an Apple iPhone “Dynamic Island” way of doing things is nice to have. One of those things you never realized you needed. Want to keep in touch with how your team is faring in the English Premier League? The Now Bar will make sure you’re on top of things. As is the case with whatever teams you follow in the NBA (hello Dub Nation) and so on. Here is also where whatever is playing (music) will show up. The Now Brief feature, which is what you interact with on the lock screen, isn’t of much use, I found out. At least at this time. Maybe it will grow to be useful in the future. Maybe.
The Galaxy S25 Plus, just like the entire Galaxy S25 lineup, could’ve used some bumped up fast charging numbers. That is the only gripe I have with the device – and its siblings. We are in a time where competing devices go from flat out to 100% in the span of a quarter of an hour. Spending an hour tethered to a wall charger has become stale.
The lowdown
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus does a good job of delivering the flagship Samsung experience, getting users in tune with the many offerings of Galaxy AI and being at the bleeding edge of tech while not packing an oversize body frame. If anything, it manages to stay calmly in your hands in a way you’d expect its smaller standard sibling to while offering more battery life and a level of performance that’s only second to the Galaxy S25 Ultra.
