I continue to talk in detail about the experience of using the Galaxy S25. This time, let’s look at the AI chips: how useful they are and whether they are useful at all. I will also tell you about the impressions of the One UI 7, the performance of the 8 Elite and the insane heating of the smartphone.
Efficiency
Samsung is positioning the Galaxy S25 as the flagship with the” most recent ” Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor. It sounds impressive, but the numbers and tests paint a different picture. We understand why the top-end chip was not as good as promised.
S25 issues in AnTuTu about 2.1 million points – modest for an “elite” processor. For comparison, OnePlus 13, built on the same Snapdragon 8 Elite, is gaining 2.3 million. The difference of 200 thousand points clearly indicates that Samsung “strangled” the frequency of the chip. What for? Perhaps for the sake of energy efficiency or to reduce heating. But this is just the beginning.
The throttling test showed a sharp decrease in power. After three runs of AnTuTu, performance dropped by 20%. In fact, this is the level of last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 or even Exynos 2400. CPU Throttling test shows an almost instantaneous decrease in power, the final result in a 15-minute test for 100 threads is 374 GIPS and throttling up to 49%. The 3D Mark stress test shows 33% stability.
What about games. I played two types of tanks, in Blitz on high graphics stable 110-120 fps. I didn’t notice any frame rate drawdowns. In War Thunder, there is a noticeable decrease in power. If at the beginning of the game the counter is in the range of 100-120, then after a few minutes — 90-120 fps. With ray tracing, the result is even worse — 70-90 fps at the beginning and 50-90 fps after a while.
Why Did This Happen?
There are two versions:
- Cooling tasks. Samsung could limit the frequencies to avoid overheating — a classic compromise between power and autonomy. Although not everything is smooth here, but more on that later.
- Marketing optimization. Perhaps the Snapdragon 8 Elite is “sharpened” for other scenarios (for example, AI tasks), and its potential is not revealed in synthetics.
However, it is worth noting the good. In normal use, without benchmarks or games, the S25 looks like a flagship device. Fast, clear, no questions asked. We also said goodbye to 8 GB of RAM — now the database has 12 GB. For everyday tasks (social networks, videos, light games), the S25 has enough power. For hardcore scenarios, it’s best to look at the OnePlus 13 or Xiaomi 15, for example.
Heating. Hot guy
No matter how hard Samsung tried to make the compact flagship even more powerful, it didn’t turn out very well. Not only is the 8 Elite smothered here, but the cooling system has clearly missed the mark. In games, the smartphone case becomes warm literally immediately. And after a couple of battles in tanks, it becomes uncomfortable to keep it.
The main heating occurs in the area near the camera block, but gradually the entire building becomes a hot beach. This is the same story in games and when recording 4K videos. In everyday use, special heating is not felt. Unless, of course, you arrange long photo and video links.
What’s interesting about One UI 7
Despite the apparent minor nature of the update, there are enough new features. A lot of work was done by designers who redrawn the icons of standard applications. Widgets have become much more beautiful and have different sizes. If memory serves, some widgets were completely absent in One UI 6.
The upper curtain has also been transformed and is now divided into two parts similar to iOS: notifications and radio buttons. In my opinion, it has become better, but for oldfags, you can return as it was. The only thing I didn’t like about the new curtain was the lack of the ability to remove unnecessary blocks with switches.
The Now bar appears on the lock screen. This is a stack of various events like player, stopwatch, and so on. It also shows the “My Day” summary, which contains only the weather forecast. Deleted almost immediately, generally unviable history.
The AI-select function has been added. You can use it to scan content on the screen and interact with it in some way. For example, translate or select text, and cut or redraw an image. It may be useful for some scenarios, but I didn’t find any acceptable ones for myself. Let’s discuss other AI features in more detail.
Galaxy AI
About a year ago, I first tested Galaxy AI on the Galaxy S24. Then everything looked like an experiment : half of the promised “superpowers” were reduced to average results. With the release of One UI 7, the situation has improved — but by how much? Is it worth it now? I tell you what has changed and what remains an unattainable mriya.
Two things that really work:
- Slow down video + improve audio quality. If you’ve ever struggled with editing videos on your phone, please rate this piece. The algorithm adds frames to slow down, and also removes noise — for example, the hum of the wind in a video from a walk. Competitors don’t have this option.
- Eraser for photos. Yes, deleting objects is not new. But it works better here than Apple’s. Removes even small details (for example, wires in the background), without leaving holes. True, you rarely have to use it, but it will help you out when you need it.
What’s left “for an amateur”:
- AI proofreader and text formatting. It sounds cool until you realize that only perfectionists use it on a smartphone. “Optimize a post for a post?” – thank you, it’s easier to make a couple of clicks manually or just don’t bother.
- “Circle and find”. Useful if you need to translate text from a third-party app (for example, from an image to Telegram). But it’s often easier to copy the text manually than to mess with the selection.
- Sketch to drawing. Fun for a Friday night. I drew a cat in my notes and got a” masterpiece ” in the style of Picasso. I played around a couple of times and forgot.
- Online conversation translation. Theoretically cool : you speak your language, the other person hears English in real time. But I couldn’t verify it — there is no suitable company for the test. It may be a must-have for a tourist or freelancer, but I haven’t found it useful yet.
Even with the One UI 7 update, Galaxy AI is still a “decoration” rather than a tool. Yes, a couple of chips help out, but most of the functions are of controversial utility. Perhaps in a year, Samsung will still teach AI to do something really necessary. But for now, it’s just a nice wrapper.