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Is the Samsung Galaxy S25+ Smartphone Worth The Upgrade?
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May 29, 2025
The Samsung Galaxy S25+ shares quite a bit of hardware with its immediate predecessor, the Galaxy S24+. The big update is a newer, faster processor, intended to power all the new AI features in Android 15 and OneUI 7. But does that make it enough of an update to justify the purchase? It might just depend on how old your current phone is, as tech expert Dave Taylor explains in this review. Included are a lot of camera demos and samples, along with a hands-on AI test using Gemini on the S25+. Phone courtesy of AT&T. Check it out at: https://www.att.com/buy/phones/samsung-galaxy-s25plus.html Visit Dave's Q&A Web site at: https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ #samsung #samsungGalaxy #samsunggalaxys25plus #android15 #askdavetaylor
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0:00
it's the latest smartphone from Samsung
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but is it the latest and greatest let's
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check it
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[Music]
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out Dave Taylor here and I'm checking
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out this this is the Samsung Galaxy s25
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plus smartphone and if you've been
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watching Samsung has four different
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versions of the s25 just to maximize our
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confusion
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I'll explain the differences in a minute
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but for now this one is the plus which
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means it has a 6.7 in AMOLED screen at
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120 htz it supports HDR 10 plus and its
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resolution is 3120 by 1440 with 2600
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nits of Max brightness so it is suffice
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to say a beautiful screen now what makes
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this interesting is that it is a
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upgraded processor from the s24 Plus in
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fact most of what's in this is the same
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Hardware as the s24 plus including all
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the cameras but the processor is
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significantly faster this is the
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Snapdragon 8 Elite it is an octacore as
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they all seem to be nowadays but this
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has two processors at 4.47 GHz and six
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at 3.5 GHz wasn't so long long ago I
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remember that the octacore would have 1
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point something gigahertz so these are
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significantly faster and what Samsung's
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doing with this additional processor
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speed is adding lots of AI we'll come
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back to that for sure but it features an
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adreno 830 GPU 12 gig of RAM 256 or 512
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gig of storage there is no card slot so
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unlike earlier Samsungs you get what you
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get in terms of storage the battery it's
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a nice setup here this is a 4900
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milliamp battery gives you approximately
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2 days of runtime and it's ch2 ready and
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ch2 means that it has faster wireless
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charging and it should have some
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magnetic capabilities to keep it on that
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wireless charger so this kind of what
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the iPhone is had but it's finally
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making it into the Android World which
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is great and so Android 15 the Samsung
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one ui7 wifi up to AC Wi-Fi 6 and Wifi 7
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and it's one of the very
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first um I have a call coming in that
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really doesn't want to not be cing in
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that's interesting so um it's one of the
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first devices I've tested that actually
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has Bluetooth 5.4 so it's the very very
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latest version of Bluetooth which is
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really nice and the front front and the
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back have Gorilla Glass victus 2 and
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there's a fingerprint scanner that's
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actually hidden underneath the front
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screen I think it's really cool that
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they're doing that which is nice but I
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know what you really want to see is how
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the cameras work so let's actually
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switch to me explaining all the
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different cameras and how they work but
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first let me tell you that there are
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three cameras on the back they are a 50
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megapixel f1.8 24 mm wide a 10 megapixel
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f2.4 67 mm telephoto and a 12 megapixel
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f2.2 13 mm Ultra wide on the front
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there's a tiny little Dot and that
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little dot hides its own camera and that
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camera is a 12 megapixel
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f2.2 26 mm selfie camera now let's
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actually look at what I've taken
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pictures of I went out in the cold to
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take some videos and photos and we're
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going to start here with a 6 Zoom so
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this is a wide angle photo and you can
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see as we go to
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1x and then 2x that it really just does
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a beautiful job with these photos and
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when you're getting into the more
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digital Zoom then things break down a
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little bit so this is a 10x Zoom
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and this is a 20x zoom and it's an
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interesting picture but it's not very
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crisp or
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detailed when we get to selfies there's
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actually the portrait mode and so
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portrait mode here has blurred the
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background versus if I just take a
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selfie without portrait mode the
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background is also crisp and in Focus
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we'll see that again when we get to the
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video
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examples and then I waited till it was
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very late at night and again it was
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really
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cold but here are a couple of night
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photos and this one's particularly
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impressive look how it captured all the
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stars these are more stars than I saw
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with my naked eye so it really took
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about um 8 to 10 seconds and captured a
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decent amount of light and then finally
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on the photo side it did an
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extraordinary job with the macro
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photography this is some of the best
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macro pictures that I've seen from any
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smart
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phone so let's get into video and first
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off here's 1X
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video and 2x
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video
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3x 6x
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and slow
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motion and I think this is really
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exceptional footage it did a fantastic
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job with
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this and time
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lapse finally a selfie in portrait mode
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I'm using the selfie camera with this
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right now so this is the camera that
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would be facing you when you're holding
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the phone and as you can see it does a
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really nice job with the video and you
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can hear the audio pickup so let me move
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out of the way and you can see It'll
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refocus and you can see the background
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and then when I come back on frame then
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it will actually automatically choose me
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as the subject and do it using that
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portrait mode so it's pretty nice video
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and a selfie not in portrait mod by
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comparison this is just a regular video
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also using the selfie camera but I'm not
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in portrait video mode so you can see
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that the background is still crisply in
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focus and when I move off
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camera nothing really changes and then
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when I move back on camera it has a wide
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depth of field so it's a very different
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video effect while we're at it let me
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show you some of the processing
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improvements so let's go into Gemini and
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you can see that was a blindingly fast
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launch so I'm going to go ahead and just
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say create a picture of a cat paint
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painting a
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painting we'll see what it does with
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that and so now it's doing image
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processing using Ai and it's using
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Gemini's imen 3 image model and let's
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see what it comes up with this is a
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pretty tough task picture of a cat
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painting a painting there we go so
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that's pretty slick now let's see let's
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ask at something a little different
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um how many teams have won the World
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Series on even numbered
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days unfortunately I can't give you a
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precise number of World Series wins on
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even numbered days here's why no readily
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available data while there are well
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we're going to stop it but suffice to
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say that I know really weird query but
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how quickly it processed and came up
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with an answer was really nice and you
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can hear that voice is very very um
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Pleasant to talk to and then in terms of
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other tasks you can see it's just super
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fast if we go into the Play Store
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everything just launches really quickly
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and that's really where this faster
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processor comes in handy now I'm going
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to tell you just a little bit because
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what I want to talk about is I want to
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talk about the differences between the
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four different s25 models from Samsung
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so this as as I said is the Samsung
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s25 plus so that means it has a 6.7in
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display at 3120
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x440 the smallest of the four is the
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s25 with a 6.2 in display running at
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2340 by 1080 so that's 1080 instead of
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1440 so it's a lower resolution but it's
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a smaller screen The s25 Edge is a 6.
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6-in display also at a slightly
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different resolution at 2400 by 1080 the
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plus we already covered and then there's
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the s25 ultra which is the largest of
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them with a 6.9 in display running at
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the same resolution as the s25 plus 3120
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x440 so suffice to say they have four
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different models of s25 that you can
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choose from and different memory
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configuration and of course different
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colors and the hardware for the most
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part is the same as the s24 lineup so
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it's really complicated to say who
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should be paying and getting this
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upgrade if you have an s24 unless you
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want to go to a larger form factor you
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probably don't need to upgrade to the
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s25 if you're back at like an S21 or an
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s22 or even an a15 or something one of
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the lower-end Samsung phones and you
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love Samsung and you love the one UI
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layer on top of Android this could be a
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great upgrade if you're using a lot of
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AI and I don't find a lot of people are
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really hard leaning hard into AI at this
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point but if you are and you're doing it
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on a mobile device then this could be a
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good upgrade simply for that CPU boost
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but all in all the cameras and
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everything are beautiful Samsung does
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such a good job overall with these
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phones that I think what we're really
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seeing here is we're seeing the
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challenge of trying to figure out what
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the heck do we upgrade this year so that
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people buy a new version of our device
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and I think we're going to see that more
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and more because those incremental
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updates aren't going to be very
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interesting to people that already have
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last year's top-of-the line or two years
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ago topof the line and I can get 11%
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faster but I don't even notice how fast
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it is because I'm just used to my device
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so there's lots to like with this
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Samsung Galaxy s25 plus but in terms of
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whether this is the upgrade for you
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that's a little more of a nuanced issue
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now I am going to invite you to
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subscribe to my channel click or tap on
11:41
that subscribe button hit that Bell icon
11:43
for notifications of new content give me
11:46
a thumbs up if you found this in value
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hopefully you did and let me tell you
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about the price because this is one that
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AT&T kindly sent me to review so this is
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the Samsung Galaxy s25 plus and it comes
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in icy blue which is this actually this
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might be mint it's a little hard to say
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it's
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nuanced so it comes in icy blue or Mint
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or Navy or Silver Shadow from AT&T if
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you buy it direct from Samsung you have
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a couple more choices of color which is
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pink coral red or blue black either way
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it is
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$999.99 at
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att.com and if you want to get it
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through payments with AT&T if you have
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an account then you can get it down at
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2779 a month times 36 months that works
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out to be like 4 cents more than if you
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just buy it at 99 or $9.99 but hey now
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You' broken it into three years of even
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payments so that's pretty nice either
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way there's lots to like here there's
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lots to enjoy and appreciate with this
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newest model from Samsung but I'm really
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waiting to see big lead forward and
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significant improvements so maybe
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that'll be the s26 anyway that's what I
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got hope to catch you in my next video
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[Music]
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a
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