In 2021, after a decade of unveiling a new Galaxy S phone in March, April or May, Samsung did something a bit different, releasing the Galaxy S 21 on January 29. In the years that followed, the company has stuck to January or February launches, and it’s long been rumored it will continue this trend into 2025 with the Samsung Galaxy S25.
Now we have a specific date in mind, thanks to the prolific and reliable leaker Evan Blass. On his X account, the leaker published a screenshot of an official-looking Italian teaser poster. It’s private, but you can see it mirrored by another reliable leaker, Ice Universe, below.
From the renderings we see the fourth smartphone, what will it be? source：@evleaks pic.twitter.com/u3cOnBcTKlDecember 18, 2024
The text isn’t exactly degree-level Italian, but if it’s not immediately obvious, “Gennaio” is “January”. So Wednesday 22 January 2025 — which isn’t surprising, as the last three winter Unpacked events have also been held on Wednesdays.
This is, of course, just two days after Donald Trump will have been sworn in for his second spell as President, which makes this something of a gamble for Samsung, as it will have to fight hard for media attention. But perhaps the company wants to release it as soon as possible to minimize the impact of potential incoming tariffs.
Four Galaxy phones?
More interesting than a date that had already been heavily rumored, is the picture to the left of the text. It appears to show the corners of four phones with a light shining through to display something that looks a lot like the Galaxy AI logo.
On its own, that’s a not-too-subtle hint that the upcoming Galaxy phones will come with Galaxy AI — not very surprising, though it may come via Samsung’s much-maligned Bixby this time around. But what’s interesting is that until now we’ve only been expecting three handsets in January: the Galaxy S25, a Plus model and the all-powerful Galaxy S25 Ultra.
Now that might just be because three phones arranged like this wouldn’t make the logo and one is duplicated. Alternatively, the fourth could be the rumored Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim. But that isn’t tipped to arrive until the summer, possibly as an exotic rebrand for the FE line.
This doesn’t mean that’s wrong, of course, and if I had to guess, Samsung will simply tease the Slim at the event, with a promise of a release later in the year. Nonetheless, an appearance would be enough for it to feature as part of the poster and, if correct, that’s exciting as we might soon get an idea of exactly how thin it is, and whether Apple should feel threatened as it continues to work on the iPhone 17 Slim.
While just 35 days away, the Samsung Galaxy S25 won’t be the first big phone of the year to arrive, of course. Just yesterday, it was officially confirmed that the OnePlus 13 will get a global release on January 7. With both of these likely to be amongst the best phones of the year, 2025 will be getting off to a strong start.
