Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus vs Galaxy S24 Plus: Swings and roundabouts

The Galaxy S25 Plus is here, and unlike the top-tier Galaxy S25 Ultra, which has scored a new design and a larger screen, the Galaxy S25 Plus is mostly identical to its predecessor, only scoring sparse improvements here and there.

Is that bad, though? Not at all! The Galaxy S24 Plus from early 2024 was already pretty much a perfect mid-sized flagship phone, so little was needed in terms of improvements.

Incremental updates aren’t always a bad thing—sometimes, they’re precisely what a flagship series needs to stay consistent and reliable, and that's what Samsung is doing with the Galaxy S25 Plus. Samsung has been perfecting the "Galaxy S Plus" formula for the past few years, and the latest chapter in the story, the Galaxy S25 Plus, seems like the most polished one yet. 

We get a superfast new chipset, the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, lots of cool new AI features, improved videography, as well as a more efficient display and a more compact design. All in all, a pretty decent set of refinements. 

Here's how the Galaxy S25 Plus fares against its predecessor, according to all the rumors that have slipped through the grapevine. 

Galaxy S25 Plus: Save up to $800 with trade-in!

$319 ⁹⁹

$1119 ⁹⁹

$800 off (71%)

Trade in your old phone to save up to $700 on the exciting Galaxy S25 Plus. Samsung also gives you a $100 instant discount on the 512GB variant, giving you a total of up to $800 off the high-class Galaxy AI phone.

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Galaxy S25: Save up to $550 with a trade-in!

$309 ⁹⁹

$859 ⁹⁹

$550 off (64%)

Trade in your old phone to save up to $500 on the Galaxy S25. There's an additional $50 Samsung credit for the base storage model, while the 256GB variant arrives with a $50 instant discount.

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Save $200 on the Galaxy S24+ at Amazon

$200 off (20%)

Amazon has re-released its Galaxy S24+ sale, bringing one of the best Samsung phones under $800 for yet another time. This is the 128GB model in Amber Yellow, but the model in Marble Gray enjoys the same price cut. This sale will only last for a limited time.

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The Galaxy S25 Plus employs the same general design as the Galaxy S24 Plus, with little to nothing being changed from an aesthetic perspective. If you look at both phones from three feet away, you will surely have a pretty hard time discerning which one's which. 

The Armor Aluminum frame, completely flat and encased between the front and back Gorilla Glass Victus 2 plates, is here again, but what's changed here is the overall size of the phone. The Galaxy S25 Plus is slightly shorter, narrower, and significantly thinner, as well as a couple of grams lighter than the Galaxy S24 Plus without sacrificing anything in terms of ergonomics or hardware specs. 

Both the Galaxy S25 Plus and Galaxy S24 Plus will come with IP68 water and dust resistance. There are no extra customizable buttons on either phone. 

While the Galaxy S25 Ultra has scored thinner bezels all around, which has allowed Samsung to enlarge the screen from 6.8 to 6.9 inches, no such thing has taken place on the Galaxy S25 Plus––it has the same 6.7-inch screen at the front, and that's perfectly fine. 

Overall, the two devices are mostly identical in terms of design and ergonomics. Sure, if you hold either phone in a separate hand, you might notice that the newer Galaxy is slightly more compact and lighter, which is great. But in the grander scheme of things, this is mostly irrelevant to all Galaxy S24 Plus users that were wondering if they should upgrade. 

In fact, the screen on the Galaxy S25 Plus is mostly identical to the Galaxy S24 Plus in terms of specs. Both have 6.7-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X screens with HDR support, QHD+ resolution, and super-smooth 1-120Hz refresh rate. The peak brightness is 2600 nits, and neither has the anti-reflective coating that the Galaxy S24 Ultra/Galaxy S25 Ultra have. 

We tested the two phones, and the differences are marginal at best. The two phones have similar peak and minimum brightness levels, as well as similar gamma and contrast. The color temperature is slightly more accurate on the Galaxy S25 Plus, but both displays are definitely looking gorgeous. 

Display Measurements:

Another feature borrowed straight from Samsung's TV division is the ProScaler upscale feature, which aims to upscale low-res content you watch on your phone. We didn't notice any major quality differences between the Galaxy S24 Plus and the Galaxy S25 Plus, though. 

The Galaxy S25 Plus comes in Navy, Silver Shadow, Icy Blue and Mint, while Pink Gold, Coral Red, and Blue Black will be sold exclusively on Samsung.com. The Galaxy S24 Plus, on the other hand, was available in Marble Gray, Onyx Black, Cobalt Violet, and Amber Yellow, while Jade Green, Sapphire Blue, Sandstone Orange are Samsung.com exclusives.

Biometrics-wise, both the Galaxy S25 Plus and Galaxy S24 Plus come with an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner built right into the display, though facial unlock is also available for your convenience. Either one is very fast and accurate, though rely on the fingerprint scanner if you care about security. 

Just as expected, a custom, top-of-the-line Qualcomm chipset has been reined in to bolster the performance for the whole Galaxy S25 series. That's the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, a tuned-up and slightly overclocked version of the regular chip. 

Interestingly, this year Samsung's isn't relying on its own Exynos chips, and there's a perfectly good reason for that: a ton of proprietary Samsung tech has been integrated straight inside the bespoke Qualcomm chip. And that's perfectly fine: by using the same chip in all regions, Samsung ensures uniform performance and a feature set common for all its Galaxy S25 phones. 

Samsung claims a 37% increase in CPU and 30% GPU performance compared to the Galaxy S24 Plus, while the NPU responsible for on-device AI-processing has scored a massive 40% increase in potential performance. 

All of that power usually leads to, well, lots of generated heat that could potentially lead to thermal throttling, which is undesirable. The size of the vapor chamber on the Galaxy S25 Plus has been increased to help dissipate all the heat away in comparison with the Galaxy S24 Plus, which is promising to hear. 

Meanwhile, the Galaxy S24 Plus comes with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, which is by no means a slouch in early 2025, but will most certainly get beaten by its 3nm successor. That's just the law of the digital jungle. We're talking about synthetic benchmarks here, while in real-life use you might not spot a major difference between the two chips. 

In our tests, it's the Galaxy S25 Plus that pulls significantly ahead! The newer phone scores beats its predecessor in both the single- and multi-core Geekbench 6 tests, as well as in the "high" 3DMark Extreme graphics test, which depicts the initial burst of performance. The only test in which the two perform similarly is the "low" 3DMark Extreme test, which showcases the throttled performance.

In real life, you're unlikely to notice a major difference between the two devices, as both are plenty fast. 

Both the Galaxy S25 Plus and Galaxy S24 Plus come with 12GB of RAM, while the on-board storage is either 256GB or 512GB. 

One UI 7 comes preinstalled on the Galaxy S25 series, but the Galaxy S24 Plus is getting it soon as well. One UI 7 comes with lots of visual and functional changes; we've already previewed the One UI 7 beta here. While the latter did not come with any new AI features, the Galaxy S25 Plus does. 

The coolest feature is called Cross App Action, and it lets the Gemini AI on your device access multiple apps and do things across them with just one simple request. For instance, you may request your Galaxy to verify the schedule of your preferred sports team and add each entry separately to your calendar so that you never miss a match. 

Sounds relatively familiar to what Apple's revamped Siri might be able to do soon as part of the Apple Intelligence suite. The Galaxy S25 Plus' Cross App Actions feature reportedly has access to all the apps you have installed on your phone and is capable of tinkering with the settings of each so that you always achieve the desired effect.

Another novel software addition is the Now Brief, which summarizes different aspects of your day-to-day activities depending on the time of day and presents you with a neat summary. 

There's also the so-called Now Bar, which appears at the bottom of the lock screen and could display live activities, charging information, now playing and other mini widgets, similarly to the iPhone's Dynamic Island widgets.

Of course, Google's Gemini is fully on board (you get six months of free Gemini Advanced), and so is an enhanced Circle to Search functionality. It now comes with what is known as Action Chips, which are basically intelligent shortcuts to relevant features when you circle-to-search something. If you circle-to-search a phone number, Action Chips will let you make a phone call quickly; if you circle-to-search an address, you will be able to quickly use Google Maps to get there, and so on.

And here's the kicker––none of these features are exclusive to the Galaxy S25 Plus, they are not even exclusive to Samsung phones. They are rolling out to many current-gen Android devices, so a much wider selection of people will be able to benefit from them.

In terms of software support, the Galaxy S25 Plus will get supported for seven years––until 2032. That same policy applies to the Galaxy S24 Plus, which will be supported until 2031.

With the Galaxy S25 Plus, we get the same triple camera setup as the one gracing ye oldeGalaxy S24 Plus. Brace yourselves, as the familiar and surprisingly agile combo of a 50MP main camera, 12MP ultrawide, and 10MP 3X telephoto is making a comeback. No major changes on the hardware front!

However, Samsung has done what it does best: changed up the "backend" of the camera, the image-processing algorithms and software. The Galaxy S25 Plus scores a new ProVisual Engine that's integrated into the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset and delivers updated image-processing algorithms, which promise photos with less noise and motion blur, as well as better details. That's what we like to hear. 

Video has also got some crucial updates. Instead of 8-bit HDR video, we get 10-bit HDR video capture on the Galaxy S25 Plus, as well as Galaxy Log video capture for a flexible color-grading post-processing experience.

PhoneArena Camera Score:

In our bespoke camera test, the Galaxy S24 Plus serves a surprise and actually comes on top of the Galaxy S25 Plus. The main reason for that are the revamped image quality algorithms, which now favor more natural and true-to-life photos with no oversharpening or overprocessing. However, all of this comes at the expense of slightly inferior details with all cameras and in all shooting modes, which leads to this significant difference. 

 

No changes on the battery front: both phones come with 4,900mAh batteries. Still, we expect better battery life on the Galaxy S25 Plus due to the more efficient display and chipset, which is the second-best option for improved battery life after a pure battery capacity increase. 

How has this affected the battery life of the two phones?

PhoneArena Battery Test Results:

As per our tests, the two are unsurprisingly on par with one another in terms of battery life. The Galaxy S24 Plus pulls ahead in the browsing test, but the newer Galaxy S25 Plus achieves higher results in both our video and 3D gaming tests, where it beats the older device. The difference is especially significant in the gaming test, where the Galaxy S25 Plus lasts an hour and a half extra. 

The 45W wired and 15W wireless charging are common on both the Galaxy S25 Plus and Galaxy S24 Plus. As a result, there's no difference in terms of charging speed––it takes a little over an hour to charge either device, which is adequate in terms of speed. 

Here's how the Galaxy S25 Plus vs Galaxy S24 Plus specs compare:

Despite the lack of revolutionary changes to the mix, the Galaxy S25 Plus refines the essentials of its lineup, delivering premium design, strong performance, and robust software support. Priced at $999 (256GB) and $1,119 (512GB), it offers excellent value as a reliable flagship alternative to competitors like the iPhone 16 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro.

Should you get the Galaxy S25 Plus over the Galaxy S24 Plus?

Judging from all the data at hand and the results of our tests, it doesn't seem like this is the case. On the contrary––if you have a Galaxy S24 Plus, the last thing you should do is upgrade to the Galaxy S25 Plus… or try to take over the world. 

Surely, the Galaxy S25 Plus refines the formula with a slightly improved design and better performance, but the battery life and camera performance of the older phone prove that newer might not always be better. 

If you plan to get into the Samsung ecosystem soon, the Galaxy S25 Plus is probably the phone you should be looking at: it's a great device and Samsung will give you numerous ways to save, making it a great buy for first-time Samsung phone users. 

However, if you've got the Galaxy S24 Plus, then you should abstain from upgrading.