With the Galaxy Unpacked 2025 date now set for January 22, we have a very good idea as to when the new Samsung Galaxy S25 phones are going to go on sale. and that means if you're in the market for a new phone, you're soon going to have to decide whether or not to pre-order one of Samsung's latest flagships.
Any go/no-go decision hinges entirely upon what Samsung shows off at Galaxy Unpacked, as no one should have to commit to upgrade to a device sight unseen. Still, given how much smartphones cost these days — and rumors suggest that Galaxy S25 prices could rise from last year's models — figuring out ahead of time what's going to push you to upgrade can make the whole process of buying a new phone run a lot more smoothly.
Not that long ago, I highlighted the three factors that are most likely to sway potential upgraders toward a new Galaxy S25 model — those factors included the new silicon coming to the S25, the AI features Samsung planned to add and what the phone maker ultimately decided to charge for its latest handsets. There's not much to add on those latter two factors, but this week brought some new insight on the system-on-chip likely to come with every Galaxy S25 model that I think would-be upgraders should take into account as they decide whether or not to grab a new phone when pre-orders open up.
Pro tip: Register for pre-orders no matter what
For the past few Galaxy S releases, Samsung has offered bonuses to people who sign up to pre-order the company's new flagships. Keep in mind you're not actually committing to buy any phone nor are you required to put any money down on a purchase you may not ultimately wind up making. Instead, you're supplying Samsung with your name and email address for a chance to save on a device should you wind up making a pre-order.
For that reason, I think it's a good idea to sign up with Samsung whether you ultimately buy a new phone from the company or not. It means a credit on a potential purchase that you can put toward lowering the cost of your upgrade should you move ahead with getting a new phone.
To that end, Samsung's offer this year looks like it could potentially take a large chunk out of a Galaxy S25 purchase. You're eligible for a $50 credit just by signing up prior to the Galaxy Unpacked event on January 22. Samsung is also dangling a $300 instant credit to anyone who pre-registers and then preorders the phone. You can also trade in a device with your purchase and get up to another $900 in credits. (You'll need an eligible device, and presumably, it will have to be of recent vintage to qualify for the higher end of that trade-in credit from Samsung.) Ultimately, that adds up to $1,250 in potential savings, which would just abut cover the price of a new Galaxy S25 Ultra, depending on what Samsung charges for the new version.
Snapdragon makes the case for an upgrade
So what's changed in the past week that makes me more bullish about a Galaxy S25 upgrade than I was previously? Well, Samsung's new phones are rumored to be running on the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset from Qualcomm, and this week gave us the chance to see that silicon in action — albeit with an entirely different phone.
The OnePlus 13 debuted this week, and that phone does include the Snapdragon 8 Elite just as the Galaxy s25 models are supposed to. While there's a lot to recommend the latest flagship from OnePlus, the benefits of Qualcomm's system-on-chip rank high on the list based on our OnePlus 13 review.
I'm specifically thinking of battery life, as the more efficient Snapdragon 8 Elite helped the OnePlus 13 last for 19 hours and 45 minutes in our battery test, in which phones surf the web until they run of power. That's not just ridiculously better than the average time most smartphones produce when we run that test, it's also the second-best result we've ever seen, landing the OnePlus 13 right near the top of our best phone battery life list.
Samsung phones already last a long time on a charge. The same list that the OnePlus 13 is now on also features the Galaxy S24 Ultra and Galaxy S24 Plus. You'd imagine that a Snapdragon 8 Elte powering those models' successors will have a similarly positive effect on how long any Galaxy S25 model is going to last on a charge.
Besides more efficient power usage, the Snapdragon 8 Elite also promises improved performance, something I saw first-hand in October when I benchmarked Snapdragon 8 Elite performance on a reference device. But now we're seeing how that silicon performs in the real world, first with the gaming-focused Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro and now with the OnePlus 13.
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | OnePlus 13 | Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro |
| Geekbench results (single / multicore) | 2,893 / 9,058 | 3,207 / 10,227 |
| 3DMark Wild Life Extreme (score / fps) | 5,727 / 34.29 | 5,906 / 35.36 |
| Battery life (Hrs:Mins) | 19:45 | 20.34 |
The ROG Phone 9 Pro actually produces much better CPU performance numbers than the OnePlus 13 using Geekbench results as a guide, though the two phones performed similarly in our graphics testing. The takeaway here is that a Snapdragon 8 Elite-powered Galaxy S25 will likely produce an entirely different set of numbers compared to those two phones — but the results should be better than previous generations of Android devices by some measure.
Galaxy S25: What we still don't know
The Snapdragon 8 data provides a bit of a clearer picture on what to expect from the Galaxy S25 and whether Samsung's phone is a good option for upgraders. But we're still waiting on concrete details on other possible improvements. The two areas I'd be looking for more data on involve the camera upgrades and new AI features.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra figures to get the biggest camera upgrades of any S25 model, with leaks suggesting a higher-resolution ultrawide lens and a telephoto camera with variable aperture for improved zooming are both Ultra-bound. It's unclear if the cameras on the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Plus are getting any sort of significant camera upgrades, which would make an upgrade from a current Galaxy S phone a harder sell, particularly if it's a model released in the last couple years.
Samsung is keeping its planned Galaxy AI changes closer to the vest, likely because software updates are developed internally and without a lot of supply chain partners chattering to analysts and leakers about new features. We've mentioned before rumors that the Bixby assistant could see an AI-infused overhaul and that Galaxy S25 owners may get access to Gemini Advance with their phone purchase. But other features involving new photo editing tools, generative editing features and the like have yet to be revealed.
Still, other Galaxy S25 details have emerged in the past week that may influence your upgrade decision. At CES, Samsung pledged its support for the Qi2 wireless charging standard and promised that Qi2-ready Galaxy devices would arrive in 2025 — you'd imagine the Galaxy S25 models would be prime candidates to get that support. It's a small upgrade in the greater scheme of things, but it's another way that the upcoming models could improve upon existing Samsung phones.
Galaxy S25: Upgrade or not?
Given what we now know about the benefits the Snapdragon 8 Elite can bring to smartphones plus other rumored improvements, it seems pretty clear to me that owners of older Galaxy S models — say the Galaxy S22 or earlier — should be giving serious consideration to an upgrade. Even if camera improvements turn out to be ho-hum, they'll be noticeably ahead of what the phones of three to four years ago can produce. And the Snapdragon 8 Elite should provide significant boosts to performance and battery life over what owners of those old models are used to.
It's a trickier question for Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S24 owners. The Snapdragon 8 Elite's established benefits will be less noticeable, and camera improvements may be marginal at best. Given Samsung's tendency to add new Galaxy AI features to recent models via software updates, there may be less incentive to hand over your Galaxy S23 or Galaxy S24 unless pre-order deals add up to substantial savings.
At any rate, with the countdown to Galaxy Unpacked boiling down to days and not weeks before we see new phones, it won't be long before it's quite apparent who should upgrade to the Galaxy S25 and who should stick with their current phone.
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