The next generation of Samsung flagships is almost here – we expect to hear official news about the Samsung Galaxy S25, S25 Plus and S25 Ultra before the end of the month – and I suspect that this year’s most consequential Galaxy upgrade will have nothing to do with the appearance of the new phones.
It’s easy to get excited by the prospect of cutting-edge technology every time a phone maker announces a new flagship model, but in reality, we’ve generally seen year-on-year progress slow down when it comes to the most important components and features of modern smartphones—in at least the ones you can see.
The Samsung Galaxy series, on the other hand, has inhabited roughly the same form factor for half a decade; The Google Pixel series has focused on stabilizing performance with each release; and the iPhone 16 is the first all-new handset from Apple in years.
We again expect to see a number of marginally improved specifications for the S25 range in January, particularly on the base model S25 and its identically specced big sibling, the S25 Plus; both will miss out on the best upgrades destined for the S25 Ultra. For the two ‘standard’ models, the latest S25 spec predictions suggest a little more RAM, a slightly bigger screen and perhaps some bumpy storage options. Cameras and battery sizes should remain the same. It’s hardly Christmas, is it?
However, there is one category where we expect to see a lot more of an improvement this year, and it’s not one you can see – at least not without tearing your phone in half (which TechRadar famously advises against).
Every Galaxy S25 model is expected to launch with the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, the latest in Qualcomm’s line of class-leading mobile chipsets. Simply put, this could be a game-changer for performance and instantly propel Samsung to pole position in the performance race with Apple. Allow me to explain why.
Elite by name, elite by nature
For those who don’t know, the Snapdragon 8 Elite follows up on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 – already one of the most powerful mobile chipsets ever produced – and improves (by Qualcomm’s own metrics) on that chipset’s single and multi-core performance by 45%; it also provides significantly improved power efficiency.
When TechRadar’s US mobile editor Philip Berne ran preliminary benchmarks on the 8 Elite, he found that Qualcomm’s latest effort nearly doubled the score achieved by the A18 Pro in the iPhone 16 Pro.
Bear in mind that at a predicted price of $799 / £799 / AU$1,399, the baseline S25 will compete with the iPhone 16 and its less powerful A18 chipset rather than the iPhone 16 Pro. Should these benchmarks pan out in the real world, the race between Apple and Samsung could end up looking like me chasing a Dodge Charger on foot (according to our Google Pixel 9 Pro review , Google’s Tensor chipset isn’t quite there the conversation yet).
What does this mean for the average user? Essentially an even faster Galaxy handset – faster load times, smoother app switching and expanded AI capabilities. “Benchmarks aren’t everything,” Qualcomm told us at the Snapdragon Summit last year, and while, as mentioned, the 8 Elite’s benchmark scores are indeed mighty impressive, Qualcomm is just as keen to shout about its tangible real-world benefits. latest chipset.
With rumors swirling of a massive AI push from Samsung this year, we could see the S25 series enter our list of the best AI phones thanks to this increased hardware power, which should allow users to better utilize both Samsung’s productivity and generative AI. What’s more, the S25 and S25 Plus are tipped to launch with 12GB of RAM, 4GB more than the previous generation, giving these new phones even more room for AI and multitasking.
We don’t even have to wait for the S25 series to launch to see the Snapdragon 8 Elite in action – the first globally available phones to sport the new chipset landed in December 2024 in the form of the Asus Rog Phone 9 and Rog Phone 9 Pro gaming phones . In our Asus Rog Phone 9 Pro review, the latter earned a 5/5 performance score thanks to its exceptional consistency, improved gaming and excellent graphics performance. It will be up to Samsung to optimize around the needs of the daily user with the S25 series.
Samsung has never been a slouch when it comes to performance – in our Galaxy S24 review we found the company’s latest baseline flagship to be hot on the heels of the S24 Ultra in the power department – but the gains brought about by the Snapdragon 8 Elite could prove to be truly superlative and may even offer S24 users a compelling reason to upgrade this year.
That said, most of the above is still based on rumors at the moment, so be sure to keep up with our Samsung phone coverage for the latest official information when you hear it from Samsung.
