Watch for an hour Galaxy S25 Unpacked event you’d be forgiven for thinking that Samsung isn’t launching any new devices and instead just announcing new software. Like other new tech events, AI is all the rage and dominates the show.

There are new Galaxy AI features such as “cross app actions” that should allow the phone’s digital assistant to use multiple apps to respond to your requests. A new “conversation search” should make it easier to adjust settings by typing in natural language. In Settings that says, “My eyes hurt,” it might prompt the phone to take you to the brightness and blue light adjustments instead of searching through the individual menus.

And at first glance, the new line of the Galaxy S25 is very similar to last year’s S24, which is like the S23 of 2023.

But for me, one of the most interesting features of this phone is something very simple: the battery life. As people continue to keep their phones longer and show limited interest in AI in general, Samsung’s claim that the S25 series has the “longest battery life” has particular merit

For the S25 Ultra, the company claims 31 hours of battery life, which is an hour longer than the S24 Ultra, although how it fares in the real world remains to be seen.

A new one CNET survey found that US buyers still don’t care about AI in their phones. But they care a lot about better battery life. Camera features are also important, and Samsung has at least upped the ultra-wide sensor to 50 megapixels on the S25 Ultra. (The camera resolutions of the S25 and S25 Plus remain the same as last year’s models.)

Samsung already has impressive cameras and solid software — aside from AI — in its older phones. And although I would like to see a more ambitious design change (which Samsung apparently did in invited the slimmer Galaxy S25 Edge), you can’t really argue that the company should do something radical with its already popular flagship models.

The Ultra getting thinner bezels to move the screen from 6.8 inches on the S24 edition to 6.9 inches on this year’s phone is a small but nice touch. Like the overall thin and light profile that all three models seem to be sporting. These aren’t major needle movers on their own, but they can add a nicer experience if you’re upgrading from a device that’s two years old.

And maybe AI features will be useful in the future. With Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Elite chips and 12GB of RAM now standard across the line and Samsung’s promise of seven years of software updates, perhaps these phones are well equipped to manage at least some of the future functions.

Right now, and for the foreseeable future, the feature that matters most to me is battery life. While it may not be as flashy or sexy as a one-hour keynote, it is, at the end of the day, what pushed me to consider the S25 when upgrading.

Now if only Samsung could finally put up magnet on the phone itself for Qi2 wireless charging instead of users relying on buying a case…