come on let's go yeah let's [Music] go all right all right okay all right okay all right okay return to the Mac get what it is what it does what it is what it is looking for a better way to get up out of bed instead of getting on the Internet and checking the new hit me get up first shot St walking little bit of humble little bit of cautious some between like Rocky and cos can't hey my name is Pete and I love reviewing the latest tech now I used to own my own IT company until I sold it back in 2020 and I used to only use Apple products until I just I I just got a little bored of them and you know what this year is really no [Music] difference now whatever you think of the s25 Series this year there is no doubt that it's still one of the most popular devices which the majority of people are choosing to spend their hard-earned money on but so so many questions so I've had this phone now 430 days since picking up at Galaxy unpacks and there are definitely some subtle changes good changes to the s25 ultra that makes this well worth considering purchasing if you happen to be in the market for a new phone now in terms of actually switching from Apple to Android I'm going to post a couple of videos soon about well first actually switching and then being how I use an Android phone whilst using like a Mac laptop and other Apple devices still but switching over really isn't as difficult as you might think there are migration Wizards built in where you just plug your phones together for it to transfer most of your data and one ui7 on this year's s25 series acts like so similar to iOS that you can now pick one up and pretty much know your way around the phone already now I will give you a few quick tips for now until I post that full video now use a third party password manager like one password or keeper use a messaging app called beeper to centralize all your messages and then use Google photos to back up all of your photos on both devices uh oh and also use the gboard keyboard because the Samsung keyboard is just really really awful now overall the experience of actually switching has been a pretty good one like I said one ui7 definitely makes the change much less painful generally speaking the s25 ultra is much much snappier than an iPhone I I now see the you know the Beautiful animations are actually kind of what's slowing the iPhone down in a lot of situations like waiting for that you know face ID animation when by then I'm already in and you know in the app on an Android phone it also has better phone reception than my iPhone when in the same place even on the same network and it's better at picking up and dropping connections faster as well like for example when I leave my house each morning and I ask Apple to close my garage door garage door most of the time it hangs whilst it's trying to figure out if it should be you know connected to Wi-Fi or cellular before it just fails whereas it works every single time on the s25 ultra now I'm also currently piecing together a video around using the Google smart home features so again subscribe if you want to see that one now I have had an issue a few times where when I'm walking and using navigation the phone can't figure out which way I'm facing and it's actually a common feature I've seen on the s24 ultra also and it's nothing to do with the case that I've been using because I've tried it with both the case on and the case off and I just kind of chalked it down to a bit of a like a bit of a me problem until I recently saw a a video from zone of tech for some reason right at the start of our journey the s25 ultra just couldn't get my orientation right even after I started walking it just wasn't pointing in the right direction so there's that and also as I've said before but it really takes a while to get used to the NFC and like wallet payment sensor being like further down the back of the phone like as an iPhone user you don't really have to be that accurate at all when you know paying or scanning into places you just you know you just tap the end of your phone and in some cases just waving it nearby the sensor works too but with the s25 again same with the s24 and before that the NFC placement is a little bit more specific which in some cases means you have to hold the phone like out and tap the back not a huge issue again but just like rather than just holding the end out like you do with an iPhone but again worth mentioning [Music] this now of course the display as always absolutely beautiful on the s25 ultra the newly improved victus armor glass as well on the front still with that incredible anti-glare coating is seriously seriously underrated if you haven't used it before look there's such a clear difference here now it's also far brighter than my iPhone 16 Pro even in direct sunlights uh the clip I have here doesn't really show the difference that well but it is very very noticeable in person uh but with that said I would say the auto dimming on the s25 ultra seems to be quite aggressive and sometimes when you're Outdoors you need to manually push it back up again but it is far better than the iPhone which again I tend to find just goes a little bit all over the place especially when you're in a dark place when it can sometimes blind you when checking on your phone at night uh and I'm also for the first time in a very long time I'm also yet to scratch the screen on this year's s25 Ultra which again is something I managed to do on pretty much all of my phones within like days of owning them so there's also that as well and so the brightness is even more Sur uring when the battery life of this phone has once again improved on last year's battery I'm able to comfortably get to the end of each day with 20 30% plus battery life and some days I've even gone like a couple of days of light usage without charging at all it was so so good so refreshing to have a like a decent battery capacity cuz the iPhones really isn't that great uh it's also nice to have faster charging speeds than the iPhone so even if you are you know low on battery you can charge it up relatively quickly in a pinch if you need to now there is support for for this new like ch2 wireless charging standards up to 15 WS but unfortunately there's no magnets built into the phone itself apparently it's too difficult to make space for those magnets so you have to use a separate case now the one I have been using on all my phones for a few years now is a case from magbak who kindly agree to sponsor this video who have an all round awesome case for the s25 ultra now not only does it have magnets so like mag safe accessories work but those magnets are so strong you can literally stick your phone to any metal surface again it's like sounds like a gimmick I know until you realize that it isn't gym equipment whilst working out metal rails for selfies whilst out and about or even just around the kitchen when cooking and you know on the phone or watching video or just keeping the phone out of your kids reach you can even spin their mag safe wallet around without it flying off because the magnets are so strong and there's magnetic shielding so the magnets don't interfere with the S Pen either there's also a magnetically attached kick stand a tuck away finger Loop and a pinky pillow to make it comfortable for day-to-day use and it you know it does all the usual raise Edge protect the screen the cameras and it even comes with an easy to apply screen protector in the box so you can get a 15% discount use the link down below and once again huge thank you to magb back for sponsoring this video uh also just a note here I get asked a few questions because apparently I keep talking about magb back in my videos generally I like the products and also if you're going to spend like what £ 1,300 on a phone then paying a decent amount for a case I feel is really really valuable and worthwhile for a case that genuinely I've used in all my phones and I haven't damaged one of them since using their cases but anyway of all the things with the s25 ultra the one thing that has really really impressed me has actually been a usable assistance like AI or kns most of the time most of the time it works and it works really really blooming well like look up the halterm dates for schools in Hampshire and add them to my calendar okay you want to create these three events do you want to go ahead and create them right now sure but then other times not so much look up the halterm dates for schools in Hampshire and send them to James on WhatsApp sorry I couldn't find anyone called James in your contacts do you use another name for them James aslet sorry I couldn't find James asler in your WhatsApp contacts do you use another literally James asler and I'm also sure you've all seen by now how insane it is with the generative edit feature in photos you can literally cover half of your face with your hand and it can literally reconstruct your face using Ai and do a pretty damn good job on it I've got a beard yeah it must have seen a little bit of beard down there and put it on but wow but compared to apple the world's most valuable company seriously ly and I love how Gemini actually reads the answers out to you when was One new i7 released Samsungs 1 ui7 was initially released with the Galaxy s25 series on January 22nd 2025 rather than Apple which just still does the whole like when was One ui7 released here's what I found online or alternatively shall I ask chat GPT just like give me the answer and whilst I don't really find myself using Circle to search much at all on a daily basis I don't personally use translation features because well most countries I visit speak English anyway the AI features are good to know that they are there and they work I mean last year I did genuinely use a combination of the s24 ultas insane camera to like zoom in and circle to search this guy's shoes which worked great but again just day-to-day aside from the new Gemini features I don't really use the AI features much at all [Music] so next up let's talk about the cameras now this year the s25 ultra does get a new 50 megapix Ultra wide which adds to the already incredible lineup of cameras from last year's s24 Ultra and we are very very firmly in the age where you'll be pretty hard to push to buy a bad phone in 2025 let alone a phone with a bad camera in 2025 but Samsung as always is one of the favorites and it's quite simply regarded as one of the very best when it comes to photos now look I'm I'm a random dude on the internet who reviews phones I'm my dad's or my husbands your camera is really nice that's what she said and I just need to know that the camera in my pocket is the best that it can be like good enough to capture those moments when kids do silly things from you know midday with the Sun in the sky to at night when there's like little to no lights now I'm not the guy who puts phones like side by side and talks about like Edge detection and colors representation and how it compares to like a practically identical phone playing games of which phone took which identical photo just I don't know the internet seems to go crazy for these things when in reality most people again most people they buy a phone they snap some photos of their kids or fun events they've been to and then probably forget about it maybe they'll throw it up on a you know wallpaper on a TV or post it online but you can take incredible photos with anything an iPhone a Samsung a pixel a OnePlus all of them take great photos now all I care about are things like are shots in Focus are they clean and are they not too bright or too dark and the Samsung's cameras this year are a yes to all of that video quality is also really really good on the Samsungs this year like generally speaking I don't really have any issues with the Samsung video quality now I know a lots of people knock it compared to the iPhone but it is really really damn close now now I am going to leave the Spen discussion until a little later on in the video but what I will say here is that I personally don't ever use the SP pen however my kids love absolutely love the S Pen like every time we're out at a restaurant or you know something like that they always ask if they can draw on my phone even if I've not got the drawable phone with me and it's a great distraction a lot of time you know when you you just want to sit there and have a quiet meal together with your husband or wife so yeah still still very very good for that now they have removed Bluetooth and the battery from the Spen though which means no more using it as a remote shatter button for taking photos but again more than that in just a moments now I've also found myself using the quick briefs less and less over time but I think it has the potential to be really useful like currently it only tends to show just the weather my calendar some photos in a playlist but the morning is useful as it shows me you know how much sleep I got the night before from either the Galaxy watch or the Galaxy ring now it would be great if third party apps could hook into this like eight sleep my fitness app so it knows you know what workout I'm doing today uh my to-do app but again not yet maybe this will come some in future and also just to cover this off I've never really used decks either which is where you can just either via a wire or wirelessly beam this like semi- desktop operating system to a supported monitor or even a TV screen which can be great at times you know if you want to watch a movie from your phone but beam it to a TV but again personally I just I don't find myself using it because well if I need a laptop then I'm not normally too far away from my actual laptop but I can see why it is useful to those who do regularly use it it now in terms of switching over to Android I know a lot of people who watch YouTube are sensitive to that like that word switching because you know a lot of us reviewers just spend our Liv switching honestly it's like every other week for me at the moment but I will tell you I've switched to this from the OnePlus 13 that I was using before that I also do carry around an iPhone in sort of like a a work phone versus personal phone kind of situation and how I felt after just a week with this phone is still how I feel 30 days later I absolutely love this phone and with the abysmal launch which has been the iPhone 16 this year and the fact that you know Apple intelligence was literally literally the thing they used to market the iPhone 16 and it's still still to this day not fully available and yet here we are Samsung s25 Ultra with Galaxy AI doing everything right out of the box like no weight lists it's available pretty much everywhere I believe and like I said before it is miles better than um she who Shan be named I don't know what you mean I've also been wearing a Samsung Galaxy watch Ultra and the Galaxy Ring which Samsung auth gave to me at Samsung unpacked along with the phone and both of them both of them are really really great like I can't really find fault with the ultra watch right now but I've just come to realize that I just prefer Garmin watches at the moment now last week I was sent this Phoenix 8 to review so I've been wearing that for the past week and there is so much to love about it over a Samsung watch or watch Ultra but if you must have a smartwatch then it's a great option now I do really like the Galaxy Ring they've actually hit a good one with this product the the data that it gives you how it works with the watch and disa sensors so that it doesn't double up to save battery life uh the battery life is good and I absolutely love the charging case on this thing like how you can close it throw it in your bag and just not worry that your ring is just you know flung around on the inside of your bag I I genuinely don't know why other ring manufacturers haven't copied this design yet because they all just have the same style right now now I've also been using the new Power Beats Pro headphones with this phone zero issues whatsoever they've actually replaced my Beats fits Pro for now so they are now like two pairs of headphones that stay in my ears without falling out the beat fits pros and the new Power Beats Pros 2os although I will probably replace the Silicon ear tips with some memory foam ear tips when they're available just cuz they they just fit so much better with those in and my laptop at least for now will still continue to be a Macbook although I am just about to review a new Asus zbook so look out for that video on the channel and perhaps even maybe even a new Macbook Air will be out by the time this video gets posted so overall my experience has and really will with Samsung always be good and reliable but like I said before there are some issues which especially especially this year I'm really struggling with uh like the S Pen for once like I said isn't really a problem for me because I didn't use it but you literally remove Bluetooth and the battery from the S Pen then change the design just enough so the s24 S Pen won't click in all the way it kind of feels a bit mean and pointless but not even that they didn't even remove the charging coils from inside the phone which either means they're going to upsell you a Bluetooth S Pen later for an additional cost or they're just plain lazy uh you've also got uh ch2 wireless charging they support the standards they're you know Chu ready but don't add the magnets into the actual phone because apparently there's not enough room so how has Apple done this since the iPhone 12 and then the new Gemini SL Bixby AI assistance firstly still no support for it in Android auto it is coming in some point in the future but still not yet secondly still doesn't work reliably enough for it to you know actually be reliable and it all came down to like this moment like I was in a restaurant and the bill came to us I thought like ah the moment's come I can use like a Galaxy Ai and like I was at the Snapdragon Summit and they showed us how this you know awesome feature with the new snap Dron 8 Elite chip was again Samsung unpacked they showed us how epic this feature would be same feature but to my not I guess really surprised face this is what actually happened so I took a photo of the bill and I asked Galaxy AI how much I needed to pay I had the burger and a coke how much do I owe you explain but it couldn't realize there were two burgers on the bill that's the price for two burgers I only paid for one 30 you are absolutely right quti and this is really where the issue is with AI right now like why go through this whole process then battle trying to get AI to give you the right answer only for it to still be wrong like you may as well just you bring up a calculator just like everyone else on my table was doing around me and get the right answer the first time in a much faster time and this isn't exclusive to Samsung this is kind of where we at with just AI in general at the moment when it works it's amazing but it just doesn't work like 80% of the time like check out this conversation I had with chat GPT I have a custom GPT designed to help generate wallpapers for my thumbnails so I need a teal and orange themed wallpaper for an LG 45in Ultra gear monitor cool here's the wallpaper hm that looks good but please can you remove the image of the Monitor and just give me the wallpaper sure but the wallpaper doesn't have a monitor in it look can you just try again there is a picture of a monitor in the wallpaper oh okay sure yeah I can remove the Monitor and provide just the wallpaper here you go cool okay this looks much better like can we have a different design on the right it kind of looks a bit too much like there's a problem with the image due to this like line and the design on the right hand side oh yeah sure I see what you mean here you go um I just need the wallpaper please this one has an image of like a monitor and a desk and speakers oh my bad let me fix that for you and this is what's next like seriously oh so is the s25 ultra a great phone absolutely like if you are coming from an S21 s22 or even s23 then I think you will love this phone and I think the gap between iPhone and Samsung and well just Android in general now is kind of non-existent it really is just a case of personal preference but I think the issues for me with the s25 ultra is whilst it is a great phone it's also being a bit of a Miss at the same time like cameras like are they great sure are they the best no the battery life great sure the best no this phone overall good yes but great I don't think so this year like you see the first phone I picked up this year actually wasn't even this year it was November last year was the OnePlus 13 and the first thing I noticed with the OnePlus was how incredibly thin and light it was with Incredible battery life that also fast charges up to 100 Watts which is more than twice as fast as the s25 ultra because it's using this new battery technology so when I've been using that phone for 2 months and then Samsung hands me this s25 Ultra honestly my first thoughts were wow this is this is heavy it's bulky it charges slowly there's just lacking Innovation we've got Brands now like Vivo with the X200 Pro with an insanely high quality set of cameras so I guess I just can't really complain with Samsung who already has one of the best sets of cameras out there just tweak it slightly with a you know upgrading to a 50 megapixel ultrawide but just all of this like combined like removing the Spen features for seemingly no other reason than cost cutting and the biggest like the biggest warning sign I saw that also makes me think that others are also thinking the same this year is when uh as a content creator various affiliate programs start offering absolutely insane commission for anyone they can persuade into using their affiliate links to buy an s25 now one email I received said I was one of their top Affiliates and do you know how many people have bought one using my link two I would say that Samsung has gotten very very comfortable this year it's quite obvious when you get to be in my position getting to try out all of the you know the latest and greatest for what all the other brands have to offer you know the advancements we're seeing with Brands like Huawei and Oppo and OnePlus and Vivo when most of the world just thinks there are three phone brands Apple Samsung and Google Now we all know Apple has gotten comfortable they've you know refined their iPhone as much as they can until the huge huge fle with apple intelligence Samsung is most definitely comfortable and in their like refinement age right now like the S Series the flip the fold broadly speaking are the same every year but that's because they are good phones like the pixel is the only one I think really smashed it out the park this year with their you know pixel Pro fold 2os and pixel 9 9xl designs not to say that a you know a huge redesign is needed every year for a phone to be good but the competition the competition is definitely coming out to competes here now what I will say to anyone who is considering this phone this year is are you currently bored of using an iPhone then try the Samsung it's a great phone you're going to love it now if you are using an s24 don't upgrade to the s25 unless you must upgrade every single year um something I didn't mention this video but pretty much all of the AI features on the s25 ultra are coming to previous devices along with one ui7 so there's that to consider but if you are kind of where I am I was bored with the phone so I picked up a Samsung now feeling a little not bored but just disappointed with Samsung this year try the OnePlus 13 for a phone that came out last year it is very very impressive we go back this is the moment tonight is the night over so we brought our hands up like the ceiling can hold us like the can hold us over this is the moment Tonight is the Night We'll bite till it's over so we brought our hands up like the ceiling can hold us like the ceiling can hold us