The next generation of Samsung flagships is nearly here – we’re expecting to hear official news of the Samsung Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, and S25 Ultra by the end of the month – and I suspect that this year’s most consequential Galaxy upgrade will have nothing to do with the new phones’ appearance.
It’s easy to get excited about the prospect of cutting-edge tech whenever 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 major components and functions of modern smartphones – at least those that you can see.
The Samsung Galaxy series, for its part, has inhabited roughly the same form factor for half a decade; the Google Pixel series has focused on stabilizing performance with each version; and the iPhone 16 is the first truly new-feeling handset from Apple in years.
We’re again expecting to see a slew of marginally improved specs for the S25 lineup this January, particularly so on the base-model S25 and its identically-specced big sibling, the S25 Plus; both will miss out on the highest-end upgrades destined for the S25 Ultra. For the two ‘standard’ models, the latest S25 specs predictions suggest a bit more RAM, a slightly larger screen, and maybe some bumped-up storage options. Cameras and battery sizes are due to stay the same. It’s hardly Christmas, is it?
There is, however, one category where we’re expecting to see much more of an improvement this year, and it’s not one you can see – not without ripping your phone in half, anyway (which TechRadar famously advises against).
Each and every Galaxy S25 model is tipped to launch with the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, the latest in Qualcomm’s line of class-leading mobile chipsets. Put simply, this could be a game-changer for performance and instantly rocket Samsung to pole position in the performance race with Apple. Allow me to explain why.
Elite by name, elite by nature
For those not in the know, the Snapdragon 8 Elite follows up 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 offers vastly improved power efficiency.
When TechRadar’s US Mobiles Editor Philip Berne ran preliminary benchmarks on the 8 Elite, he found that Qualcomm’s latest effort almost doubled the scores attained by the A18 Pro in the iPhone 16 Pro.
Keep 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 with the iPhone 16 Pro. Should these benchmarks translate into real-world performance, the race between Apple and Samsung could end up resembling me chasing after a Dodge Charger on foot (as per our Google Pixel 9 Pro review, Google’s Tensor chipsets aren’t quite in the conversation yet).
What does this mean for the average user? Essentially, an even faster Galaxy handset – speedier load times, smoother app switching, and expanded AI possibilities. “Benchmarks aren’t everything,” Qualcomm told us at Snapdragon Summit last year, and even though, as mentioned, the 8 Elite’s benchmark scores are indeed mightily impressive, Qualcomm is equally keen to shout about the tangible, real-world benefits of its latest chipset.
With rumors swirling of a massive AI push from Samsung this year, we could see the S25 lineup enter our list of the best AI phones thanks to this increased hardware power, which should empower users to make better use of Samsung’s productivity and generative AI alike. 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 headroom for AI and multitasking.
We don’t even need 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 attained a 5/5 score for performance thanks to its exceptional consistency, improved gaming, and excellent graphical performance. It’ll be up to Samsung to optimize around the needs of the everyday 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 most recent 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 truly superlative, and may even offer S24 users a compelling reason to upgrade this year.
All that being said, most of the above is still based on rumors for the time being, so be sure to keep up with our Samsung phones coverage for the latest official information as wear hear it from Samsung.