Pat Pilcher
Samsung’s unpacked event is a highly anticipated tech event that sees gadget bloggers and writers enter into endless speculation about what the Korean tech juggernaut will launch. This year’s unpacked event announced the new Galaxy S25 range and another pleasant surprise, the Galaxy Ring. Sadly, the much-rumoured Galaxy smart glasses didn’t make an appearance.
As with earlier launches, the Galaxy S range consists of several devices, the Ultra, the S25+ and the S25. No slim model was announced, but rumour has it that it might be something that could materialise later this year.
The S25 Ultra is the biggest device in Samsung’s new lineup. Sporting a gloriously vivid 6.9-inch AMOLED display, it also dropped the sharper edges of the S24 range, opting for rounded edges and corners, which should make it more comfy to grip. The Ultra is crafted out of a combination of titanium and Gorilla Armor 2 glass. The sensor in its ultrawide shooter has been bumped up from 12MP to 50MP, and the Ultra is powered by a Snapdragon 8 Elite CPU, which handles many Galaxy AI tasks on the device instead of shunting them to a cloud server somewhere, which is great news for privacy. Along with an AI-friendly CPU, The Ultra comes with 12GB of RAM and 256GB, 512GB or 1TB of storage.
The Galaxy S25 and S25+ got RAM upgrades, moving from 8GB to 12GB. Both are powered by the same Snapdragon 8 Elite CPU as the Ultra. The S25 sports a 6.2-inch AMOLED display, while the S25+ is slightly bigger at 6.7 inches. As per last year’s models, the S25 has 128GB or 256GB of storage, while the S25+ has 256GB or 512 GB.
Much of this year’s unpacked focus was squarely focused on AI and Samsung’s new One UI 7 interface running atop Android 15 rather than hardware. One AI feature that may prove insanely useful is the ability to analyse audio in video recordings and erase specific noise types, be it the irritating person talking loudly beside you as you record, traffic noise or even wind. Image processing has also got smarter, with the Galaxy’s already excellent low-light performance significantly improving. The Zoom capabilities use an optical periscopic zoom up to 10x and digital zoom beyond that. Interestingly, moving between optical and digital zoom is now almost completely seamless.
Other clever and potentially useful AI features abound. These include cross-app integration, which will see Galaxy AI use installed compatible apps to allow the phone to do your bidding. This could make tasks such as booking restaurants much less of a chore. Then there’s AI Select, which suggests context-aware tasks depending on what it sees on your phone’s screen.
Part of the One UI 7 update also involves what Samsung calls the “Now Bar,” which is pill-shaped and sits at the bottom of the lock screen to show reminders and other timely, at-a-glance summarised information. Last but not least, Circle to Search has also been beefed up and offers smartened-up features such as recognising phone numbers or telling you what song is playing in the background.
It wasn’t just phones; Samsung also announced the launch of the Galaxy Ring in New Zealand. It uses tiny embedded sensors to track your heart rate and sleep, sending information back to Samsung’s health app to summarise your current state of health.
While the Galaxy Ring can be used as a standalone device, it can also complement the Galaxy Watch, working in tandem to track fitness and health thoroughly. Interestingly, the Ring also supports a pinch gesture, which can turn off alarms and other useful stuff. Where the Galaxy Watch’s battery is limited to just shy of 48 hours, the Ring will run for up to 7 days off a single charge.
We look forward to writing more detailed reviews as Samsung’s new gear becomes available. Watch this space!
