I reviewed the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge and it’s a slim sensation with one fatal flaw

Introduction

The ‘thin phone’ revolution has been a long time coming. All the major names are rumoured to be working on one, but it was Samsung that was first out of the gate. At a Lilliputian 5.8mm, the S25 Edge is considerably slimmer than its Galaxy stablemates – and a whole lot lighter, too.

Samsung hasn’t had to make too many cutbacks to achieve those size zero proportions, either, putting it in good stead to challenge today’s best smartphones. You’re getting the same Snapdragon CPU as the rest of the range, a titanium frame and 200MP lead camera to match the S25 Ultra, and all the usual Galaxy AI gubbins fans have come to expect.

Battery capacity has taken the biggest hit – and at a wallet-bothering $1099/£1099/€1249 (pre-orders are open from Samsung US or Samsung UK ahead of the May 30 launch date), that squeezes the S25 Edge awkwardly between the cheaper S25 Plus and more capable S25 Ultra. Can it possibly be worth paying extra to go skinny?

Design & build: the case for no case

There’s no denying the S25 Edge looks like a modern Samsung phone. Straight sides, flat glass, individual camera lenses out back… Except here the dimensions are significantly skinnier. At a mere 5.8mm (not including camera bump) this is as thin as a flagship phone has been in what feels like decades. Some foldables are even thinner, but only when unfurled.

OK, that’s only 1.4mm thinner than the standard Galaxy S25 and 1.5mm thinner than the S25+. But it does make a difference. Other phones feel that bit chunkier after using one of these.

Even so, it was the phone’s weight that made the bigger impression on me; this is a seriously light handset for its size. No phone with a 6.7in screen should feel so feather-like. A 6.3in Galaxy S25 is only a gram lighter. The S25 Edge feels wonderfully balanced as a result, so I never felt the need to use two hands to keep it secure. That’s crucial, seeing how putting one in a case would almost defeat the object of buying such a thin phone.

The counterargument is that the three colour options – Titanium Icyblue, Titanium Jetblack, or Titanium Silver – aren’t all that exciting, and don’t do an awful lot to make it stand out from the rest of the S25 line-up. The rear camera island and its two rather than three (or five) lenses s the only visual distinction other than thickness.

A frame made of titanium (just like the S25 Ultra) helps keep the weight down, and guarantees the phone can take a knock or two. IP68 protection is also pretty standard for a Galaxy flagship, even if Chinese rivals are now claiming IP69 as the new standard. Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 protection up front is unique at the time of writing, and is apparently more drop-proof than before – though I didn’t risk my review unit to confirm. It help up perfectly against the rigors of daily use during my testing.

The ultrasonic under-display fingerprint sensor proved as effective at recognising my digits as it did on the S25 Ultra, though I do wish Samsung would also work on secure face authentication; the face unlock here can’t open your banking apps, like it can on a modern Pixel phone or iPhone.

Screen & sound: A familiar face

There’s very little here that you won’t also find on the Galaxy S25 Plus – but that’s not a bad thing, given that phone had a rather tasty display indeed. The 6.7in AMOLED panel used here has the same 3120×1440 resolution, same adaptive 1-120Hz refresh rate, and same 2600 nits peak brightness.

Samsung’s preference for vivid colours continues here, with superb contrast, epic viewing angles, and the sort of definition I’d expect from a flagship phone. It’s of course still a crying shame that Samsung and Corning continue to reserve Gorilla Armor glass and its phenomenal anti-reflective properties for the S25 Ultra, but the screen’s brightness is usually able to make up for any distracting light reflections.

On paper, rivals shine brighter still, but I was still impressed with the Galaxy’s ability to really pump up the nits when I stepped outside. Visibility is pretty much excellent as a result, if just a half-step behind the S25 Ultra.

This phone also gets surprisingly loud, given there can’t be much room left over for speakers. The earpiece and down-firing main driver combo deliver clear, if slightly top-heavy sound that’ll do just fine if you’ve not got a pair of headphones handy. Just don’t expect very much at all in the way of bass

Performance & software: the whole Galaxy experience

Before it arrived, I wondered whether the Galaxy S25 Edge’s slim dimensions would force Samsung to use one of Qualcomm’s stripped-back Snapdragon 8 Elite chips with fewer CPU cores. Turns out, with a vapour chamber that’s 15% larger than the one in the S25 Plus, there’s plenty of headroom for the full-fat silicon – including those familiar “For Galaxy” tune-ups you won’t find anywhere else.

Combined with 12GB of RAM, that makes this phone something of a powerhouse – and with zero performance penalty versus the rest of the S25 line-up based on my testing. It outpaced most Android rivals in synthetic tests, including the Xiaomi 15 Ultra and Vivo X200 Pro. It’s comfortably faster than the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL, too.

Naturally that translates to a flawless performance within Android, with zero stutter, rapid load times, and seamless multitasking. Even demanding games like Genshin Impact played at a consistent 60fps, with the rear of the phone only getting mildly warm after a prolonged play session.

It helps that OneUI is a well-optimised take on Android at this point, even if the sheer number of Samsung-specific apps and features can be overwhelming for newcomers. The redesigned Quick Settings menu and split notifications screen is quite helpful for fitting more content onscreen at once, and the slide-out toolbar is a useful way of launching several of Samsung’s big Galaxy AI additions.

AI Select, a Samsung alternative to Google’s Circle to Search (which hasn’t gone anywhere) lets you highlight any onscreen text or image, with options appearing for foreign language translation, generative image editing, and content summaries. The writing tool can simplify or rewrite text in different tones, to sound more casual or professional, and the audio transcription tool is handy if you make a lot of voice recordings.

Now Brief and the Now Bar haven’t seen an explosion of third-party support yet, but the app notification summaries, weather reports, travel suggestions and sports scores are nice to have in one place.

I can’t fault Samsung’s long-term software commitments, either. Seven years of new Android generations and software updates are tough to bet outside of Google and one or two other Android brands.

Battery life: what did you expect?

There’s no escaping it: Samsung has done the S25 Edge dirty by fitting it with a meagre 3900mAh battery. That’s as small as you’ll find on any S25 model, despite having to power a 6.7in display here. The 6.3in Galaxy S25 has 4000mAh while the larger (but thicker) S25 Plus has 4900mAh.

In one more demanding rundown test simulating heavy real-world use, the S25 Edge could only manage twelve and a half hours, while the S25 nudged over fifteen and the S25 Plus lasted closer to seventeen. Samsung says 24 hours of video playback is achievable, though that’s not how most people use their phones.

My daily routine – a mix of social scrolling, photography, YouTube streaming, gaming, web browsing, email, phone calls and messaging – saw me hit 60% before lunchtime. And that was while staying connected to Wi-Fi. I was in the red by 10pm, with the battery saver mode engaging to guarantee I lasted until bedtime. A day of remote working and events where I was mainly using 5G fared even worse, necessitating a top-up from a portable battery bank at mid-afternoon to ensure it could show my train ticket for the journey home.

Charging speeds are sluggish for a top-tier phone, too. 25W wired top-ups are only on par with the much cheaper S25, and 15W wireless refuelling isn’t anything to shout about.

There’s an argument that you’re accepting a few limitations in buying such a thin phone – but if Chinese brands can fit silicon-carbon batteries with significantly higher capacities into their new flagships, why can’t Samsung? Regular travellers will need to think twice as a result; phones that are only a little bit heavier and thicker last considerably longer than this.

Cameras: doing the double

With limited room for camera hardware, Samsung has equipped the S25 Edge with a 200MP lead lens – one that’s 18% slimmer than the S25 Ultra’s – and a more modest 12MP ultrawide. Zoom is handled entirely by cropping and enhancing the main snapper, up to 10x.

With both sensors being largely known quantities, the S25 Edge didn’t throw up any surprised during my testing. It’s a very capable cameraphone, with shots that lean towards vibrant colours and a strong HDR effect to maximise how much of a scene is exposed. You get a little more control through the camera app than you did in previous years, with a set of highly customisable filters for those who prefer a more high contrast look.

Samsung’s image processing remains high grade, putting it on par with Apple and Google in most lighting situations. If you want even more definition or a filmic feel to your shots, you’ll have to head for the best cameraphones from Vivo, Oppo and Xiaomi.

While the cropped zoom shots can’t compete with a dedicated telephoto lens, 2x images are pretty much lossless, and 4x pics hold up very well indeed. I wouldn’t reach for the 10x setting unless I really had no way of getting closer to my subject, so I respect Samsung for not offering an even wilder digital zoom figure for the sake of it. It’s where you’re making the biggest sacrifice by buying the Edge over the Ultra, in my opinion.

Consistency between the main and ultrawide lenses isn’t quite as good as I’ve seen from Samsung in the past, and the 12MP pixel count means the secondary snapper shows a noticeable drop-off in detail – particularly in low light. The colours it captures are still vivd enough and exposure is well-judged. It also doubles as an effective macro shooter, swapping automatically from the main sensor when you get to around 5cm from a subject.

Of course there are plenty of generative image editing tools to choose from, including generative expand that convincingly fills the gaps of tightly-cropped pics, and an AI eraser that’s still leagues ahead of what Apple Intelligence can manage.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge verdict

Being first on the scene with any new tech counts for a lot, so Samsung gets a big thumbs up for redefining “thin phones” before the likes of Apple could. The Galaxy S25 Edge is fantastically slim and light, yet still packs in flagship-grade power beneath its big, beautiful screen. The OneUI interface is as slick as ever, and that lead lens can take some particularly pleasing photos.

Battery life is the elephant in the room. Barely being able to scrape through a single day of moderate use is a disappointment, no two ways about it, and charging speeds are properly pedestrian. The sooner Samsung steps up its game here, the better.

That puts the Galaxy S25 Edge in an awkward position. The cheaper S25 Plus isn’t exactly a porker, yet it lasts considerably longer per charge; and if photography matters most, the flagship S25 Ultra isn’t an awful lot more cash. The line-up will make more sense when Edge inevitably replaces Plus, but right now you’re paying a premium for diminutive dimensions – and getting a shorter lifespan to boot.

Still, I’m betting plenty of people will be willing to break out the credit card while the S25 Edge remains a unique proposition.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge technical specifications