With Android manufacturers promising longer software support, the question of whether to get the most recent but more expensive flagship phone instead of last year’s is ever so intriguing. If you have a hard time choosing between the Samsung Galaxy S25 and the Samsung Galaxy S24, we are here to help.
Despite the rather modest hardware upgrades that the Galaxy S25 brings over the Galaxy S24, it is asking for around €200 more than its predecessor. We take a deeper dive into these two top-end compact flagships from 2024 and 2025 to see whether the price difference is justified or you will be better off with last year’s S24.
Table of Contents:
For starters, you can compare the complete specs sheets or directly continue with our editor’s assessment in the following text.
Size comparison
When it comes to dimensions and build quality, both devices are pretty much identical. The only difference is that the newer Galaxy is 0.4 mm thinner now. It may not sound much, but it’s noticeable in the hand feel.
The thinner profile makes the S25 feel slightly smaller, but it’s definitely not something your decision should be based upon.
Display comparison
There’s absolutely no change in the display department. The Galaxy S25 and S24 share identical OLED panels with the same features and maximum brightness, so there’s nothing to dissect here.
Battery life
Even though there’s no change in the battery capacity either, the newer Galaxy S25 shows a small improvement in the overall Active Use Score, mainly due to the higher talk and game runtimes. The web browsing and video playback scores are near-identical.
At the end of the day, if you choose to go for the S25, you will be getting marginally longer battery endurance thanks to the more power-efficient chipset.
Charging speed
Since there’s no change in the charging capabilities, we weren’t expecting a different result in our charging test. The differences you see are minor and within the margin of error for this sort of test. Either way, the 25W wired charging rate replenishes the battery’s full charge for around 1 hour and 15 minutes, regardless of the device.
Speaker test
Samsung didn’t highlight any upgrades to the loudspeaker, but we found them to be tuned better on the Galaxy S25 compared to the S24. The bass is slightly more prominent, giving music tracks much-needed fullness because small handsets struggle to deliver loud and full sound.
However, according to our tests, the S24’s speakers are slightly louder, but we doubt you could spot the difference even if you listen to them side by side.
Performance
Unlike last year, this year’s Galaxy S25 comes with Qualcomm’s latest and greatest for all regions. The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy is present on all Galaxy S25 members, while the Galaxy S24 has either Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 or Exynos 2400.
In either case, the Galaxy S25 delivers considerably higher raw performance.
There’s no change in the memory variants except that the Galaxy S25 runs 12GB of RAM, regardless of the storage version. The storage type used by both phones is the same, and we advise going for at least 256GB as it uses the faster UFS 4.0 storage.
Benchmark performance
When you pit the Galaxy S25 vs. the Exynos 2400 Galaxy S24, the former wins in every aspect by a landslide. In combined scenarios like AnTuTu, the S25 outpaces the S24 by almost 30%, while in CPU-heavy benchmarks, the SD 8 Elite for Galaxy pulls ahead of the Exynos 2400 by almost 50%. The gap widens in the GPU
Camera comparison
The Galaxy S25 and S24 feature identical camera hardware – 50MP main camera joined by a 10MP telephoto shooter with 3x optical zoom and a 12MP ultrawide without autofocus. The front holds a 12MP selfie cam with autofocus.
This means differences are likely due to tuning or the ISPs, as the two devices have different chipsets.
Image quality
Even though the camera samples we took are taken at different days, it’s obvious that the two phones deliver near-identical stills with comparable quality. At least during the day, that is.
The 2x zoom mode makes a small exception, as the newer Galaxy S25 seems to have a slight advantage with less noise and slightly more detailed photos.
Galaxy S25: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x
Galaxy S24: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x
The nighttime photos are also very close in terms of quality, but the S25 is tuned slightly differently. It tends to go for warmer color temperatures and a tad darker shadows, giving the scene a more natural look.
Galaxy S25: 0.6x • 1x • 3x
Galaxy S24: 0.6x • 1x • 3x
Video quality
Below we have a few framegrabs from the videos taken by the two phones at each focal length so it’s easier to compare to one another.
The same goes for the video quality. It’s hard to spot any meaningful difference, but strangely enough, if we are hard-pressed to pick a winner here, we would go for the Galaxy S24. Its videos seem to handle highlights and light sources better and are generally sharper.
Galaxy S25: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x • 0.6x • 1x • 3x
Galaxy S24: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x
Verdict
With Samsung promising long software support, buying an older Galaxy flagship becomes much more sensible, especially with the rather modest hardware upgrades of the last few generations. Let’s be honest here, the only reason to go for the more expensive Galaxy S25 is the chipset. It’s considerably more powerful than before and seems nominally more efficient in certain aspects, judging by the small battery life gains. You also get slightly better-tuned loudspeakers and a 0.4 mm thinner profile, but those are unlikely to tip the scales.
On the other hand, you have the cheaper Galaxy S24 that delivers about 99% of the user experience the S25 offers, and it’s bound to get major software upgrades for years to come. All in all, it seems like you’d be better off saving a few bucks and grabbing one of those S24s while they are still available.
- The thinner design.
- The marginally longer battery life.
- The slightly better sounding speakers.
- The higher performance.
Get the Samsung Galaxy S25 for:
- The lower price tag.
- The near-identical user experience.
Get the Samsung Galaxy S24 for:
