My biggest gripe about modern smartphones is that they’re too complex. This was true before the chatbots became The New Thing, but generative AI has only accelerated the problem. Samsung is first out of the blocks with its solution: a repurposed Bixby on the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.

Samsung and Google's newest base-model flagships couldn't be more different, despite costing the same amount of cash. Here's how they fare in the real world.

Samsung’s Galaxy S-series is in its software era. Maybe the whole smartphone industry is, too, save for a few phones with hinges (Samsung’s included). But overall, we have exited the hardware-driven innovation cycle and are firmly in the midst of a software-based one.