As delighted as you may have been to hear about the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s potentially massive camera improvements last month, we’re afraid the latest rumor on the humblest member of Samsung’s next (non-foldable) high-end handset family will severely curb your excitement.
Yes, it appears that the “base” Galaxy S25 will continue to feature a… base primary camera on its back, at least according to an extremely well-connected Dutch publication that’s almost never wrong about these types of things (not even six or seven months ahead of a phone’s official launch).
Will the Galaxy S25 take disappointing pictures?
Not at all. We know, we know, you probably expected us to offer you the typical “too soon to tell” answer to that seemingly tricky and evidently premature question. But it’s certainly not too soon to know that the “vanilla” Galaxy S24 puts its 50MP main snapper to good use, delivering an overall satisfying photography experience for most users… who can’t afford the obviously superior S24 Ultra.
The same is thus likely to be true for the non-Plus and non-Ultra Galaxy S25 if
this new report (
translated here) pans out, and the aforementioned 50-megapixel imaging sensor is indeed not upgraded in any way, shape, or form.
The Galaxy S24 is an excellent cameraphone. | Image Credit — PhoneArena
The non-Plus and non-Ultra Galaxy S24, mind you, is unquestionably one of the best Android phones in the world today in all aspects from raw power to build quality, software support, and yes, camera capabilities, and although that list is guaranteed to undergo plenty of changes in 2025, we’re ready to bet the farm that the Galaxy S25 will find a place on said list when it makes its commercial debut.
Besides, it’s important to remember that megapixels are not everything, and just because the S25 is tipped to retain its predecessor’s camera resolution, that doesn’t mean the sensor itself will go unchanged. Obviously, not all 50MP cameras are created equal, so there are still a lot of improvements Samsung could make without necessarily jumping to 108 or 200 megapixel counts.
And that’s before we get into the software optimizations that are often more important for a handset’s real-life photography-taking skills than hardware revisions, not to mention the increasingly sophisticated AI technologies that are all the rage nowadays in the mobile industry. Bottom line, it is in fact too soon to predict how good the Galaxy S25 will be from an imaging standpoint, but it’s probably not premature to expect it to be good at… pretty much everything.
What about all the other cameras?
Unfortunately, there are no words just yet on the Galaxy S25’s secondary and tertiary rear-facing snappers, which may or may not mean that Samsung is preparing more meaningful and obvious upgrades in those two departments. This semi-mysterious report comes after the S25 Ultra was rumored to bump up the megapixel counts of both its predecessor’s telephoto and ultra-wide-angle lenses, which definitely raises our expectations for the S25 and S25 Plus as well.
The Galaxy S24 Plus comes with the same camera system as the S24. | Image Credit — PhoneArena
The Galaxy S25 Plus, by the way, is today explicitly tipped to share a 12MP front-facing camera with its little brother, but it’s currently unclear if the same will apply for that aforementioned 50MP primary rear-facing sensor. History suggests that will almost surely be the case, but you never know when Samsung might decide to change its strategy and more clearly separate the “regular” and Plus members of its Galaxy S family.
Of course, the Galaxy S25 series is still many months away from a formal announcement and commercial release, so all this speculation and guesswork could ultimately prove to be in vain, as Samsung itself has probably not finalized many details, specs, and features at the moment.