The release of the Samsung Galaxy S24 is imminent, but it appears leakers have already begun to set their sights on the S25. @Tech-Reeves, a known tipster for smartphone news, has stated a forthcoming S25 and S25+ will no longer be using the Isocell GN3 camera sensor and will instead move to a Sony model.
While there is no indication of the exact model that will be used it‘s hinted that it may be a custom variant called IMX890. This sensor comes with a 1/1.5-inch size and a 50-megapixel resolution. However, the purported S25 Ultra could continue to use Samsung’s in-house ISOCELL sensor range. This information should be taken with some (alright, a fair bit of) skepticism as the S25 is likely more than a year away.
There has been some concern that the recent push by Samsung to use the AI label may be down to the relatively minor hardware upgrades on the S24. If the information is correct, then it will be quite the upgrade to the Samsung Galaxy hardware. However, some rumored improvements set for the S24 would be a welcome addition too.
A good start would be the inclusion of a better battery and faster wireless charging. There is currently no indication that the S24 will have an improved battery life, but this is an area where Samsung is known to improve. For instance, the Galaxy S23 Ultra still holds the spot on our own best battery life test. This test currently consists primarily of phones that lasted at least 12 hours. The standard S23 posted a reasonable time of 10 hours and 27 minutes but falls short of the iPhone 15 which exceeded the 11-hour mark.
That isn’t to say the Samsung Galaxy S24’s suggested AI improvements aren’t impressive. These upgrades, known as generative AI, have teased multiple features aimed at making users' lives easier. For instance, the AI translate ability will be able to translate other languages into both audio and text.
This all comes down to what the Korean tech giant is calling "Samsung Gauss". It's the company's own generative AI model that'll live on-device. The result is a number of new features like summarizing documents and composing emails to help improve user experience.
There are also indications that the AI will be able to create and edit images and upgrade low-resolution images.
There has been some indication that Samsung could hide some of these features behind a paywall. This seems unlikely due to several reasons especially straight out of the box. The main reason would be Apple’s current push into the same AI market. Apple CEO Tim Cook recently said that the company plans to integrate generative AI into its product line next year.
However, if the rumor does turn out to be true then it could focus more on the cloud-based AI features. This would potentially allow the S24 to be faster as some of the AI processing tasks would be offloaded. It should be stated once again that there is no confirmation if this will be the case.
The S25 is still a long way away, but then developments on future smartphones start long before the prior model. Samsung will likely track the successful aspects of the S24 and make amendments to the S25 as and when it needs to. Hopefully, the integration of a new sensor is just the start of the hardware improvements.
