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When it comes to cameras, I’m hoping the Samsung takes a hard look at the photos the Galaxy S24 phones kick out and makes some tweaks to its computational photography.
While Samsung has curtailed some of the color saturation excess found in yesteryear’s Galaxy models, right now phone photography from Samsung, Apple, Google and perhaps OnePlus, is all a little flat, with processed photos that look very similar and lack the contrast between shadows and highlights to really sing; at least in their default shooting modes.
So I’d like to see Samsung let the next-gen Galaxy cameras sing and not let image processing even everything out excessively,
Throwing the ball back over to Jamie, as we take the specs conversation over to the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra cameras and their rumored upgrades.
A new Ultra ultrawide?
Keen photographers will be looking to the Galaxy S-series Ultra’s somewhat iconic quad-camera system, and if the latest rumors are anything to go by, there is one key upgrade on the way. We’re expecting to see the Galaxy S25 Ultra equipped with a new 50MP ultra-wide camera, up from the 12MP ultra-wide found on the S24 Ultra.
Sure, it’s not a revolutionary improvement, but this should lend well to a more consistent camera experience across the phone’s four optical zoom levels.
From my perspective, I’m hoping the new Qualcomm chipset brings in a big uptick in gaming power for the Galaxy S25, especially the Ultra. Apple’s A18 Pro and the A17 Pro before it allowed for true console-quality games to be played on the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro, so I’d like to see Samsung manage the same, especially since it used to work closely with Microsoft; imagine proper Xbox games on the Galaxy S25 running natively.
In reference to those seemingly leaked specs, it’s over to my colleague and staff writer Jamie RIchards for some context on the tipped Snapdragon chipset.
Snapdragon after all
There’s been some back and forth in the months leading up to Samsung Galaxy Unpacked about which chipset the Galaxy S25 lineup would make use of. Some tipsters pointed to Samsung’s troubled Exynos line of chipsets for the new flagships, but production issues seem to have taken too much of a toll for these proprietary processors to make it into this year’s lineup.
The latest major specs leak (courtesy of noted tipster @MysteryLupin) points to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite for the Samsung Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, and S25 Ultra. As Qualcomm’s flagship chipset, the Snapdragon 8 Elite is one of the fastest mobile platforms on the market, which bodes well for the S25 series’ performance.
So going by those ‘leaked’ specs, it looks like there’s not going to be a lot change with the Galaxy S25 series as a whole. 12GB or RAM for the standard S25 looks promising and should help with snappy AI workloads. And the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy would appear to be a custom version of an already powerful chipset, so there’s scope for that to bring some serious performance grunt to the table,
Right before I muse more on AI and other bits, first dsome new: just about every single Samsung Galaxy S25 spec has been shown up in what appears to be a new leak. Check them out in the tweet below.
Speaking of Galaxy AI, I’ll buy a hat and eat it if there’s no mention of new AI features for the Galaxy S25 series. I’m expecting a host of upgrades and new features, likely an improved Generative Edit being one of the first upgrades out of the gates.
I’d also like to see Galaxy AI better integrated across the One UI operating system, as my colleague and Senior Editor Philip Berne noted in his Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review, Galaxy Ai feels somewhat fiddly to access and use.
There’s no murmur on any wearables at this Galaxy Unpacked. But as we had the Galaxy Ring launch mid last year, alongside the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6, there’s already enough wearables from Samsung to keep us ticking over for now.
I’d predict osme AI upgrades for the Galaxy Ring and Galaxy Watch series, though how these will manifest isn’t clear.
So what’s all the fuss about? Well as mentioned, this Unpacked is very likely be one that’s fully focused on the next-generations Galaxy phones. We’re not expecting much else in terms of hardware.
This could be disappointing to some as the Galaxy S25 family as a whole has been tipped to be somewhat of an iterative upgrade over the Galaxy S24 lineup, which brought in Galaxy AI.
Good afternoon or morning or evening, depending on where you are, I (Roland Moore-Colyer) am here to chat about the Galaxy S25 rumors so far and what we can expect to see at the first Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event of 2025, which takes place on January 22.