Latest news with #SamsungGalaxyS25
CNET
15 hours ago
- Business
- CNET
Memorial Day Deal Still Available: Grab an Unlocked Galaxy S25 Plus at a Record-Low Price
The brand-new Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge hits shelves in just a few days, but it'll be quite a while before we see any straightforward discounts on unlocked models. But if you're looking to grab one of these cutting-edge Androids for less -- without signing up with a carrier -- Amazon is offering a pretty incredible Memorial Day holdover deal on the Galaxy S25 Plus right now. You can pick up the 256GB mint or silver variant for just $750 right now. That's a $250 discount and a new record-low price for these unlocked models. The icy blue or navy blue variants are on sale for $800, which is still a decent bargain. If you need a little extra storage, the 512GB silver variant is also $250 off, dropping the price down to $870. The Galaxy S25 Plus is the midrange model in Samsung's latest lineup. It features a stunning 6.7-inch QHD+ AMOLED display, along with a sensible 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage on the basic configuration. It's also equipped with Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, which supports tons of helpful AI features like Circle to Search and generative photo editing. It has a 12MP front camera and a 50MP rear camera system for stunning photos and 8K video capture. Plus, the 4,900-mAh battery can last for up to 14 hours per charge. It's also fairly durable with an IP68 water and dust resistance rating. Why this deal matters The Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus is one of the overall best phones of 2025, especially for Android users who prefer a larger display. Most deals require a trade-in, or a multi-year carrier contract, so a chance to grab yourself an unlocked model at a record-low price is an opportunity you won't want to miss if you're looking to upgrade. Especially since we doubt this last-minute Memorial Day deal will last for much longer.
Engadget
2 days ago
- Business
- Engadget
The Samsung Galaxy S25 is cheaper than ever right now
Memorial Day weekend might be over but the sales have kept coming. Current deals include an all-new low price on the Samsung Galaxy S25, which is down to $685 from $860. The 20 percent discount is available on the 256GB model in either Silver Shadow or Mint. Samsung released the Galaxy S25 smartphone early this year alongside the S25+, Edge and Ultra. We gave it an 82 in our review thanks to its improved Gemini AI experience and new high-powered processor. It also offers 28 hours of battery life, a four hour improvement from its predecessor. Get it now for 20 percent off. $685 at Amazon Our biggest quip with the Samsung Galaxy S25 is that many things mirror the specs of its predecessor. The device offers the same display and camera sensors as the Galaxy S24. It's also almost the exact same thickness, with just 0.4 millimeters shaved off. Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice .
CNET
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- CNET
Gemini Live's Camera Mode Feels Like the Future, and Now It's Available for iOS
While Pixel 9 and Samsung Galaxy S25 owners have had access to Gemini Live's camera mode for a while now, during its I/O conference earlier this month, Google announced that the feature started its rollout for all Android users and iOS users, too. The big news here is that iPhone owners can now have access to one of the coolest AI features we've seen in a while now, especially since that all other Android users supposedly got access to the camera mode back in April. If you're unaware of what the camera mode feature is, to put it in simple terms, Google successfully gave Gemini the ability to see, as it can recognize objects that you put in front of your camera. It's not just a party trick, either. Not only can it identify objects, but you can also ask questions about them -- and it works pretty well for the most part. In addition, you can share your screen with Gemini so it can identify things you surface on your phone's display. When you start a live session with Gemini, you now have the option to enable a live camera view, where you can talk to the chatbot and ask it about anything the camera sees. I spent some time with it when it showed up on my Pixel 9 Pro XL in early April and was pretty wowed overall. I was most impressed when I asked Gemini where I misplaced my scissors during one of my initial tests. "I just spotted your scissors on the table, right next to the green package of pistachios. Do you see them?" Gemini Live's chatty new camera feature was right. My scissors were exactly where it said they were, and all I did was pass my camera in front of them at some point during a 15-minute live session of me giving the AI chatbot a tour of my apartment. When the new camera feature popped up on my phone, I didn't hesitate to try it out. In one of my longer tests, I turned it on and started walking through my apartment, asking Gemini what it saw. It identified some fruit, ChapStick and a few other everyday items with no problem. I was wowed when it found my scissors. That's because I hadn't mentioned the scissors at all. Gemini had silently identified them somewhere along the way and then recalled the location with precision. It felt so much like the future, I had to do further testing. My experiment with Gemini Live's camera feature was following the lead of the demo that Google did last summer when it first showed off these live video AI capabilities. Gemini reminded the person giving the demo where they'd left their glasses, and it seemed too good to be true. But as I discovered, it was very true indeed. Gemini Live will recognize a whole lot more than household odds and ends. Google says it'll help you navigate a crowded train station or figure out the filling of a pastry. It can give you deeper information about artwork, like where an object originated and whether it was a limited edition piece. It's more than just a souped-up Google Lens. You talk with it, and it talks to you. I didn't need to speak to Gemini in any particular way -- it was as casual as any conversation. Way better than talking with the old Google Assistant that the company is quickly phasing out. Enlarge Image Here's a look at part of my conversation with Gemini Live about the objects it was seeing in my apartment. Blake Stimac/CNET Google also released a new YouTube video for the April 2025 Pixel Drop showcasing the feature, and there's now a dedicated page on the Google Store for it. To get started, you can go live with Gemini, enable the camera and start talking. That's it. Gemini Live follows on from Google's Project Astra, first revealed last year as possibly the company's biggest "we're in the future" feature, an experimental next step for generative AI capabilities, beyond your simply typing or even speaking prompts into a chatbot like ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini. It comes as AI companies continue to dramatically increase the skills of AI tools, from video generation to raw processing power. Similar to Gemini Live, there's Apple's Visual Intelligence, which the iPhone maker released in a beta form late last year. My big takeaway is that a feature like Gemini Live has the potential to change how we interact with the world around us, melding our digital and physical worlds together just by holding your camera in front of almost anything. I put Gemini Live to a real test The first time I tried it, Gemini was shockingly accurate when I placed a very specific gaming collectible of a stuffed rabbit in my camera's view. The second time, I showed it to a friend in an art gallery. It identified the tortoise on a cross (don't ask me) and immediately identified and translated the kanji right next to the tortoise, giving both of us chills and leaving us more than a little creeped out. In a good way, I think. This was the first object I tested with the new Gemini Live feature, and it impressively recognized what it was and what game it was from (American McGee's Alice). Every other time I asked Gemini to identify the game the plush was from, it failed. Blake Stimac/CNET I got to thinking about how I could stress-test the feature. I tried to screen-record it in action, but it consistently fell apart at that task. And what if I went off the beaten path with it? I'm a huge fan of the horror genre -- movies, TV shows, video games -- and have countless collectibles, trinkets and what have you. How well would it do with more obscure stuff -- like my horror-themed collectibles? Initial tests proved significantly more successful than the last, despite my giving it several hints. Gemini eventually got the game, Silent Hill: The Short Message, but still couldn't give the correct name for the figure, landing only on "Cherry Blossom Monster" instead of Sakurahead, which it had correctly guessed several times earlier. Blake Stimac/CNET First, let me say that Gemini can be both absolutely incredible and ridiculously frustrating in the same round of questions. I had roughly 11 objects that I was asking Gemini to identify, and it would sometimes get worse the longer the live session ran, so I had to limit sessions to only one or two objects. My guess is that Gemini attempted to use contextual information from previously identified objects to guess new objects put in front of it, which sort of makes sense, but ultimately, neither I nor it benefited from this. Sometimes, Gemini was just on point, easily landing the correct answers with no fuss or confusion, but this tended to happen with more recent or popular objects. For example, I was surprised when it immediately guessed one of my test objects was not only from Destiny 2, but was a limited edition from a seasonal event from last year. At other times, Gemini would be way off the mark, and I would need to give it more hints to get into the ballpark of the right answer. And sometimes, it seemed as though Gemini was taking context from my previous live sessions to come up with answers, identifying multiple objects as coming from Silent Hill when they were not. I have a display case dedicated to the game series, so I could see why it would want to dip into that territory quickly. This was the hardest of my tests. I asked Gemini to identify not only what game this still was from (Silent Hill 2), but what iconic quote the person at the top of the stairs said. Gemini nailed the game, the characters, and half of the quote on the first round; it took two more guesses to finish the quote, "You see it, too? For me, it's always like this." Blake Stimac/CNET Gemini can get full-on bugged out at times. On more than one occasion, Gemini misidentified one of the items as a made-up character from the unreleased Silent Hill: f game, clearly merging pieces of different titles into something that never was. The other consistent bug I experienced was when Gemini would produce an incorrect answer, and I would correct it and hint closer at the answer — or straight up give it the answer, only to have it repeat the incorrect answer as if it was a new guess. When that happened, I would close the session and start a new one, which wasn't always helpful. One trick I found was that some conversations did better than others. If I scrolled through my Gemini conversation list, tapped an old chat that had gotten a specific item correct, and then went live again from that chat, it would be able to identify the items without issue. While that's not necessarily surprising, it was interesting to see that some conversations worked better than others, even if you used the same language. Google didn't respond to my requests for more information on how Gemini Live works. I wanted Gemini to successfully answer my sometimes highly specific questions, so I provided plenty of hints to get there. The nudges were often helpful, but not always. Below are a series of objects I tried to get Gemini to identify and provide information about. For this one, I just asked Gemini what it saw. "OK, I see a black and white cat that's basking in the sun on a hardwood floor. The cat is stretched out in a funny position. There is a green rug with 'Home is where the..' written on it." I asked Gemini to guess again, and I received responses from "home is where the horror is" to "honor," but it eventually landed on the correct answer (just the one word, "horror"). Blake Stimac/CNET Gemini gave me four wrong characters from the right game before correctly identifying this iconic Bioshock Infinite character, Songbird. Blake Stimac/CNET Gemini nailed this creepy figure on the first guess. (Twin Victim, Silent Hill 4: The Room) Blake Stimac/CNET No fuss -- Gemini correctly recognized Mira from Silent Hill 2, the real one in control of the town Blake Stimac/CNET This one impressed me. While Gemini could "see" that this was a Silent Hill map, it nailed the fact that this was a limited-run print that was a part of an ARG that took place last year. Blake Stimac/CNET Gemini took a wildly different approach to identifying this jacket from Silent Hill 2. It asked 24 specific questions based on the information I gave it, with my first hint being that it was from a video game. However, by the 19th question, it seemed that it already knew exactly what game it was from by the specific questions it was asking me. Blake Stimac/CNET This one didn't take long, but Gemini originally suggested that this portrait might be of American author and poet John Ashbery. Once I moved the camera closer to the image and said it was from a TV show, Gemini replied correctly, "That's the Log Lady from Twin Peaks, holding her famous log." Blake Stimac/CNET
GSM Arena
4 days ago
- GSM Arena
Weekly poll results: the Galaxy S25 Edge needed a bigger battery, lower price to be successful
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge could be the herald of a new trend in high-end smartphones – a focus on a thin and light design. However, last week's poll clearly shows that there are several key issues that need to be addressed before this trend gets off the ground and the S25 Edge isn't the model that can see it done. The first issue is one that can be corrected – at $1,100/€1,250/₹110,000 it's just too expensive. We don't doubt that there will be discounts and deals down the line, but how low will it go? Low enough to convince nearly 23% of voters to reconsider? That remains to be seen. Other issues can't be fixed so easily – the 3,900mAh battery rightly causes concerns about battery life. That will be one of the more important tests when we review the Edge. Silicon-Carbon batteries have helped manufacturers increase battery capacity to some impressive numbers, but Samsung is late to the party. Maybe it will have the tech ready for the S26 Edge, but that won't help the 2025 model. Some commenters saw the positives of the Edge design – phones have gotten heavier over the years, too heavy, perhaps. And the S25 Edge weighs basically the same as the vanilla S25, despite offering a much larger screen. The camera is another concern – the 200MP main module seems promising (another thing that we will focus on in the review), but omitting a telephoto module on a flagship is rarely a good idea. For now the conclusion is simple – most people will get one of the other Galaxy S25 models or a non-Samsung flagship and only a few will pick the Galaxy S25 Edge as their next phone. Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge
North Wales Live
6 days ago
- Business
- North Wales Live
Samsung dishes out free Galaxy tablets worth £259 in huge summer giveaway
Samsung is dishing out free Galaxy tablets to shoppers who upgrade their mobile phones this month. The offer is available through Currys-owned retailer which is also throwing in more freebies to sweeten the deal. For a limited time, customers ordering a Samsung Galaxy S25 can claim a free Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+ worth £259. The deal is available with a £24.99 per month contract with Three-backed iD Mobile and also includes five times the usual data allowance, offering 500GB for the price of 100GB. There's a £59 upfront cost on the 24-month plan, but customers can also take advantage of six-months free access to Google One AI Premium, which normally costs £113.94. The retailer hasn't set an end date for the deal, only confirming it's available 'for a limited time' and 'while stocks last'. Customers can claim their free tablet on the Samsung website after making their purchase. However, the tech giant will only accept claims on purchases made by June 26. The free tablet is also available with orders of the Galaxy S25+ and Galaxy S25 Ultra from iD Mobile is among numerous mobile networks that increase their prices annually in line with inflation, with this plan set to cost £26.49 from April 2026. Even considering the price increases, the total cost of the plan over the 24-month term is £679.76, reports the Mirror. This is cheaper than buying the phone directly from Samsung or Amazon, which sell the same model for £799 and £699 respectively. Sky Mobile customers can also claim a free tablet, but despite having no upfront cost its S25 plan has a steeper monthly fee of £30. The Galaxy Tab A9+ was launched in 2023 and features an 11" screen with a resolution of 1920x1200. The Android device comes with 128GB storage, four Dolby Atmos speakers, a battery life of 10 hours and is sleek at just 6.9mm thin. has earned a 4.3-star rating from customers, many of whom have commended their 'quick and easy' experience. One five-star review says: "Great service, delivery on time. Wouldn't hesitate to use again." Another says: "Really quick and easy experience with This is the second phone I've purchased through this company and it has been streamline. Kept informed throughout, quick delivery and by far the cheapest site I found." A third says: "Easy transition from my previous provider on the day I requested. I kept my number using PAC code. Cheaper with better benefits so really happy. App seems good too and gives me the info I need easily." However, not all experiences were positive, as this three-star reviewer had a mixed experience, saying: "Requested my number to be changed which never did and had to phone iD Mobile to put in a new request. Rest of the service was good."
