STACK #245 March 2025

TECH REVIEW

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One “Find pictures of yellow cars” later, and we had the image onscreen. Time for part two – holding down the home – or circle – button at the bottom of the screen to invoke the Circle to Search functionality. We drew a little ring around the car and… It’s a Suzuki Twin. Just

like that. Brilliant! Zippiness All Galaxy S25 models feature 12GB of inbuilt RAM – up from 8GB in the standard S24. Wow! Everything just runs smoothly with no stuttering, and, best of all, we could run more than a couple of apps simultaneously without any of them closing down. In these days of multitasking, we don’t need to tell you how handy that is. Not that we were taken completely by surprise, for Samsung claim that the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 processor delivers 45% faster CPU processing, 48% GPU, and a whopping 68% NPU – the brains behind AI’s efficiency.

Having been eagerly getting acquainted with our shiny new Galaxy S25, here are five things that have really impressed us about Samsung’s latest super-powered smartphone. Words Amy Flower 5 THINGS WE LOVE ABOUT THE NEW SAMSUNG GALAXY S25

Getting snappy You want your phone camera to be a good one. Comparing a bunch of test images that we snapped with our new S25 to those from our old phone – an S22 – we were super-impressed. Without touching the settings, the shots taken were clearer overall, and night shots particularly had a new pop to them, likely thanks to the upgraded Nightography functionality. Then there are the zoom pics – Samsung have really nailed this for clarity, with the new 5x digital zoom delivering impressive results. Feeling safe and future proof Your phone contains so much of your life, and feeling it’s secure is a critical requirement. So, knowing that Samsung’s Knox security encryption has been bolstered to include coverage of the on-device AI functionalities without being connected to a server is huge. Plus, you can selectively opt out of AI features. Meanwhile, with a flagship smartphone being a relatively sizeable investment, knowing it’ll stay up to date for years to come is a vital factor when considering what model to purchase. With the S25 offering seven years of Android, One UI, and security updates, we’re confident that we’ve made a smart choice.

Now Brief Now Brief is a new daily summary that’s compiled by Galaxy AI to let you know where you’re at in your day, with morning, commute time, and bedtime bulletins. So, when you hurl yourself out of bed you can tap the Now Bar on your home screen, the widget if you’ve added it to your main screen, or from the Edge Panel, and it will update you with such info as the weather for the day,

what’s in your Google Calendar, even suggested playlists for the day. Playing music? Just tap your screen without logging in and the Now Bar will tell you what’s playing, complete with cover art, plus pause, forward, and back controls. There are oodles of types of content that can be included, even traffic updates and YouTube shorts. AI assistance We’re now well and truly in the artificial intelligence age, and the S25 harnesses it with several really helpful features.* One that we really love is the ability to voice search our rather sizeable photo gallery. Just pop into the Photos app, tap search then the microphone icon, and ask. On a recent trip to Japan, we spotted a super cute yellow car in the backstreets of suburban Tokyo. It had nothing to indicate what make it was and had remained a riddle ever since. So, it was time to solve this mystery, using two of the S25’s great AI features.

36 MARCH 2025

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*Fees may apply to certain AI features at the end of 2025.