After a week with the Galaxy S25 Plus, it's starting to give me Pixel vibes

I’ve spent a little bit of time with the Galaxy S25 Plus this week, and while I haven’t yet gone extensively through the new features and capabilities, I’ve had some pretty good first impressions of the phone. I previously reviewed the Galaxy S24 Plus, so Samsung’s latest model feels both familiar and like a welcome refresh. In fact, with such a strong focus on AI, it's feeling more like I'm using a suped-up Pixel than a Galaxy phone.

Here are a few things that have stood out to me so far while using the Galaxy S25 Plus.

Color is everything

For the past few years, I’ve been pretty unimpressed with Samsung’s color selection. The main hues for the S series phones have shifted toward pastels, and I constantly complain that it makes Samsung’s already boring-looking phones appear even more dull. This year, things haven’t changed too much, as most color options for the Galaxy S25 Plus are still boring, but the standout colorway is the new Navy option.

The Navy Galaxy S25 Plus is the best color Samsung has launched for a phone since the green Galaxy S22. I love blue, so I'm a little biased, but the Navy hue is a deep blue with a very slight shimmer that almost glistens in direct sunlight. Depending on the angle and lighting, the phone almost appears indigo, which was a similar effect to the green Galaxy S22, which appeared blue in certain lighting. The frosted glass on the back is nicely contrasted with the thick black camera rings in the corner, while the flat frame gives off an almost neon glow.

According to Samsung, the color is actually inspired by Galaxy AI, closely matching the hue of the signature sparkle icon that accompanies many consumer-facing features on Android phones. And given how focused the new phones are on AI, it’s a nice way to merge the design with the software. I admit that the phone’s design is still pretty tame, especially compared to other flagship Android phones like the OnePlus 13. However, a great color selection really helps make things pop.

This is something Motorola figured out with the Razr Plus 2024. These phones aren’t offered in simple colors like black, white, or silver; each Razr Plus 2024 color is vibrant and unique, such as the Hot Pink option, which is a result of its partnership with Pantone. The Galaxy S25 series isn’t quite there yet, and many of the other color options retain the bland pastels (I guess someone must like them?), but with colors like Navy and even the Samsung-exclusive Coralred, the Galaxy S25 Plus already looks much more compelling than its predecessor.

One UI 7 is smooth like butter

The Galaxy S25 Plus may look largely the same on the outside, but once you turn the phone on, it’s a different story. One UI 7 feels so good to use, and I already feel like this is the best version of Samsung’s software to date.

I’ve unapologetically been a big fan of One UI for some time, as I think the UI manages its space much better than the Pixel software. With Android 15, Samsung changed plenty of things around that make the software feel somewhat Pixel-like with its more bubbly UI elements while retaining the more efficient Samsung flair I’ve come to love while tweaking it in ways that I find pretty smart.

For instance, there’s now a vertical app drawer. Previously, in order to get a vertically scrolling app drawer, you’d have to install the Good Lock app and go through the modules and settings. Now, you just have to change the app drawer to alphabetical sorting, which will change it from its default horizontal pagination (why it’s still the default is beyond me).

Then there’s the Quick Panel and notification shade. By default, they’re separate, and while many people may not like this iPhone-esque take on the UI, it’s something I’ve gotten used to from other OEMs like Motorola. I already liked Samsung’s revamped take with One UI 6, which retains Wi-Fi and Bluetooth buttons as well as other settings like brightness, media output, and more.

One UI 7 takes it a step further with additional customization, and all the settings you want are more or less at your fingertips with the full-page Quick Panel. Samsung even took after the app drawer by ditching the horizontal scrolling for the customizable quick settings by turning it into an expandable panel.

I also like how notifications are displayed. If you get more than one notification from the same app, they’ll often stack on top of each other so as not to take up too much space from other notifications. This behavior also mimics the new multitasking screen, which also stacks open apps behind each other instead of placing them side by side. It all just makes for a more visually appealing and cohesive experience, and it feels like Samsung really thought this through.

I also can’t go without talking about how good it feels to use One UI 7. Everything you do feels so smooth and buttery without feeling like you’re stuck waiting for transitions to finish before doing the next thing. The lock and home screens feel like they’re floating up at you when you turn on the display, the Quick Panel and notification shade have a nice kinetic bounce to them, and animations between apps and screens are slick.

The experience is a stark contrast to One UI 6 on my Galaxy Z Flip 6 or even the Galaxy S24 Plus, which feels stiff by comparison. And while Android 15 on my Pixel 9 is admittedly very fast and fluid, even that feels like a half-step behind One UI 7. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed the feeling of a UI this much.

It's giving Pixel

But enough about how the software feels; what is it actually doing for me? Well, a lot, it turns out. Or, at least, it’s trying to. Samsung didn’t make hardware changes this year, which I’m still a little bummed about. However, with all the focus on AI, it now feels like Samsung is trying to turn the Galaxy S series into its very own Pixels.

Out of the box, the Gemini is just a click away with a long press of the power button. While I don't care for this method of evoking an AI assistant (it's a power button, let's keep it that way), it emphasizes Samsung and Google's strong partnership to bring the latest and greatest of Gemini first to the Galaxy S25 series.

One thing I appreciate about the Pixel is that it seems to want to make your life easier by putting the AI features you might want right at your fingertips. That's what I feel Samsung has been working towards since debuting Galaxy AI on the S24 series, and it's even more prevalent with the S25 Plus just how much it wants to be a Pixel.

Drawing Assist got an upgrade, which basically turns it into Pixel Studio, allowing you to create or alter images from drawings or text. AI Select is essentially Circle to Search without the search, letting you extract content from your screen to perform various actions like editing an image, translating text, creating a GIF, and more.

Audio Eraser is Samsung’s version of Google's Magic Audio Eraser, which analyzes a video to let you remove certain sounds. In my limited use of Audio Eraser on some videos I took over New Year's Eve with another phone, the feature works shockingly well, removing very loud music so that I could only hear my voice in the clips.

Then there's the Now Bar and Now Brief. These two features I'm most intrigued by, and I feel like there's quite a bit of potential there, even if they don't quite live up to it yet. Now Bar acts like a bottom-mounted Dynamic Island, which shows music controls, timers, live sports scores, and even Google Maps directions. It should act as a pretty handy way to interact with apps directly from your lock screen, although so far, my interactions with it have been limited, and it's not quite as useful a feature as I had hoped.

The same goes for Now Brief, which also appears in the Now Bar during certain times of the day (or you can set a widget on your home screen). It's basically a summary of your morning, afternoon, and evening, which should recall various information based on your health stats, calendar, and more, almost like Morning Brief on the Pixel Watch 3.

Unfortunately, while I get some of that info, the briefs aren't as insightful or informative as I would like, showing me the weather, upcoming calendar events, and suggesting Spotify songs to me. I still have not seen any health stats appear in my brief despite actively using Samsung Health. I also wish it was more proactive at showing me my briefs outside of the lock screen, perhaps with a notification.

Still, I see where Samsung is going with these features, and they have a lot of potential. I imagine the Now Bar will feel more useful when it gains more support from third-party apps, and I'm hoping I'll get more out of Now Brief after I use the phone more.

More to come

While I couldn't be less impressed with how little Samsung upgraded the Galaxy S25 Plus hardware, I'm surprisingly enjoying the phone more than I expected to. It’s nappy, the software feels quite polished, and the Navy hue is the only color worth getting. So far, it feels like the Pixel phone I've always wanted.

I don't love everything, from unnecessary changes with lock screen notifications to the seeming removal of the swipe gesture to evoke the assistant. Samsung also has some odd choices for default settings that I find a little questionable.

That said, there's still quite a bit that I want to test out more thoroughly, including the cameras, battery life, overall performance, and the Qi2 MagSafe charging (provided I get my hands on a Galaxy S25 Plus case that supports MagSafe). You can look forward to all of this and more in my full review of the Galaxy S25 Plus.