The Galaxy S25 phones will probably look a lot like the S24 and S24 Plus. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge
I take no pleasure in saying this, but if the rumors about the Galaxy S25 series are true, then these phones look boring as hell. That would be fine, except that Samsung is asking us all to get very excited about them by hosting a big, loud launch event. And I think it’s time for Samsung — and honestly, the industry as a whole — to look in the mirror and ask: do we really need this?
I’m not saying Samsung or any other tech company should throw a bunch of spaghetti at the wall and cram some questionably useful stuff into their phones just for the sake of it. That helps nobody. It’s just that getting up onstage and declaring that these phones are fundamentally different and new should be a truly special occasion. And that used to be true! But now, it’s just a thing we do every year that feels a lot like the thing we did last year.
Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge
This year’s Ultra will probably look a lot like last year’s Ultra, give or take some rounded edges.
In this particular season of mobile innovation, hardware just isn’t as important as it once was. Take the iPhone 16; the launch event centered so much on software features that Apple called…
