Samsung Unpacked preview, and a new home for AI Inside (video)

Week ending January 20, 2025

Jan 20, 2025

Howdy padnahs! I’m getting over a nasty cold just in time to make it down to San Jose over the course of the next few days for Samsung’s big hardware event, Samsung Unpacked. I’m excited for that, excited for the newly launched DTNS Briefing, and excited for… well, should be something cause things are always more impressive in threes. I’m sure I’ll come up with something. How about this… “And I’m excited to get this newsletter underway!” (That’ll do for now)

Samsung Galaxy S25: Everything You Need to Know Before Launch

The Samsung Galaxy S25 is less than two days away from its official unveiling at Galaxy Unpacked 2025 on January 22. I was invited to attend in person and I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity! San Jose isn’t far from where I live in Petaluma, so it’s not much of a stretch to make it happen. I regularly was invited to attend the event while I worked at TWiT but was never given the green light to attend.

So I’m amped for the experience and see yet another opportunity to fire up the DJI Osmo Pocket 3 and make an experiential vlog out of it. What is it like to attend one of these announcements? Not just the announcements themselves, but the EXPERIENCE? I’ll attempt to encapsulate that in a video this week, wish me luck.

Now having said all that, there have been numerous leaks and rumors circulating about the new hardware, so today I have a comprehensive look at what to expect from Samsung's latest flagship lineup. Here's my attempt to organize everything you need to know, from the release timeline and pricing to design, performance, cameras, and more.

Event and release date

Galaxy Unpacked 2025 takes place on Wednesday, January 22 in San Jose, California, at 10 AM PT (1 PM ET/6 PM GMT). The event will be live-streamed on Samsung's YouTube channel.

Based on previous trends, the Galaxy S25 series will likely hit stores around February 7, about two weeks after the launch event. Rumors have suggested a possible appearance of the Galaxy S25 Slim, but that is now looking unlikely and more certain to appear later in the spring.

Price

As for pricing, it’s important to look at last year’s crop first. The Galaxy S24 series launched at $799 (S24), $999 (S24 Plus), and $1,299 (S24 Ultra). As for the S25 series, it appears that Samsung will likely keep prices for each variant locked into the same point as last year’s models, at least according to leaks regarding European pricing. The same pricing strategy is expected in the US, where the S25 will reportedly start from $799.

On one hand, this is great because it’s refreshing to finally see an upgrade stay in the same pricing structure. However, some of the design and specs of this upgrade might have suffered because of the expensive inclusion of the Snapdragon 8 Elite. So keeping the price the same may have come with the unintended consequence of holding the phone back from more meaningful upgrades.

Design

The Galaxy S25 series is rumored to adopt a slightly more refined design compared to the S24 series. The S25 and S25 Plus will likely retain an aluminum frame, while the S25 Ultra may feature a titanium frame. Color options for the S25 and S25 Plus include Moon Night Blue, Silver Shadow, Sparkling Blue, and Sparkling Green. The S25 Ultra may come in Titanium Black, Titanium Blue, Titanium Gold, and Titanium Silver. Leaked renders suggest the Ultra model will have a wider display with rounded edges, tighter bezels, and concentric circles around its camera lenses.

Display

The Galaxy S25 series will reportedly use M13 OLED displays like their predecessors. Here is one possible corner-cutting measure to make up for the Snapdragon 8 Elite inclusion. Samsung’s best OLED panel, the M14, being left off its flagship smartphone is a notable departure.

Performance

The Galaxy S25 lineup is set to deliver significant performance upgrades with the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset on all variants. Early benchmarks show impressive results for the Ultra model with single-core scores of ~3,148 and multi-core scores of ~10,236 on Geekbench 6. Standard models also show improved performance compared to previous generations. Enhanced vapor chambers will improve thermal management across all models. A minimum of 12GB RAM is expected across all devices, optimized for AI processing, while the Ultra model may feature faster UFS 4.1 storage.

Camera

As for the cameras, Samsung doesn’t seem to be changing much with the Galaxy S25 Ultra over last year’s offering except for a big upgrade to the ultrawide camera with a 50MP sensor and f/1.7 aperture for better low-light performance. That’s up from a 12-megapixel sensor in last year’s model. Expected video features include high-resolution capture with LOG format support and seamless focal length transitions during recording.

Battery

Thanks to the Snapdragon 8 Elite’s efficiency gains, some battery life improvements are anticipated. Battery capacities are expected to remain similar: ~4,000mAh for the S25, ~4,900mAh for the S25 Plus, and ~5,000mAh for the S25 Ultra. Wired charging speeds will likely remain at up to 45W for Plus/Ultra models; however, wireless charging speeds may increase to up to 25W on the Ultra model with Qi2 magnetic wireless charging support.

Software

The Galaxy S25 will debut with OneUI 7 based on Android 15. Enhanced AI capabilities powered by on-device processing via Snapdragon's AI engine are expected alongside generative AI upgrades for Bixby assistant and new sketch-to-image tools with added functionality. Galaxy AI is expected to get more agentic, according to a Samsung promo video.

Lot’s to look forward to. And I haven’t even touched on what OTHER devices might be shown off: Possibly a Galaxy Ring 2. Possibly the Project Moohan XR headset that I got to check out first hand last December. And while we’re at it, what about a pair of smart glasses from Samsung? Ok, maybe that’s more of a hail Mary but I’d love to see it. Literally.

AI Inside gets its own YouTube channel

I finally did the VERY LABORIOUS legwork to move the AI Inside video podcast to its own YouTube channel.

So, RIGHT NOW, head to youtube.com/@aiinsideshow and subscribe! Otherwise, you will not know about new episodes and live streams!

It will take a while to get this new channel up to speed for monetization, but the first hurdle is getting it to 1000 subscribers. I’m at a quarter of that right now, so the more the merrier!

Oh and speaking of AI Inside… Here’s the most recent episode (now on the NEW channel) with Author Greg Epstein where we make some interesting comparisons between tech worship culture and religion.

DTNS Briefing

Week one is in the books! I joined Tom Merritt last Monday for the launch of the new show. Then on Tuesday, Tom joined me (I was the writer on Tuesday) and Huyen Tue Dao joined me on Thursday! My normal schedule with be Tuesdays and Thursdays so definitely subscribe so you don’t miss em!

More CES wrap-up

I published a total of four articles from my time in Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show. Holy cow, am I officially a writer? You be the judge:

Android Faithful with some junk for your trunk

That’s all I got this week. See you on the other side of Samsung!

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