Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge hands-on: Less smartphone, more compromises

After teasing america for months, Samsung has formally revealed the Galaxy S25 Edge. At conscionable 5.8 millimeters (0.22 inches) thick, it’s the slimmest subordinate of the S25 household — and its slimmest smartphone ever. It’s disposable to preorder present and launches connected 30 May, starting astatine $1,100.

Samsung said that S25 Edge “unlocks a caller epoch of maturation for the mobile industry" — and it’s casual (too easy!) to cynically spot this arsenic a mode of hawking different Samsung telephone into a thinner — and yet akin — portion of hardware, with acquainted cameras, method specs and AI software. This isn’t an Ultra, nor is it a caller foldable. However, it could beryllium a caller absorption for Samsung’s flagship S series.

What’s the quality betwixt the S25 and S25 Edge?

Surprise! The Edge is thinner. While the S25 Edge measures successful astatine little than the base S25, which is 6.4mm (0.25 inches) thin, it weighs astir the same. In fact, there’s lone a gram’s quality betwixt the two, contempt the S25 Edge packing a overmuch bigger 6.7-inch surface than the S25’s 6.2-inch one.

And boy, tin you archer the difference. The astir modern examination I tin marque is erstwhile Apple switched to a titanium framework for the iPhone 15 Pro. Spec sheets and numbers beryllium damned: I could consciousness however overmuch lighter the instrumentality was. Despite having a overmuch bigger surface than my iPhone 16 Pro, the thinner S25 Edge felt airy yet premium. I easy slipped it successful and retired of my pants pockets, because, well, however other americium I going to measure the biggest selling constituent for Samsung’s latest phone?

The happening is: Device thickness isn’t an contented I person with flagship smartphones — it’s the surface size. The basal Galaxy S25 (or the Pixel 9 Pro) deed the saccharine spot for my hands. While this caller S25 Edge whitethorn beryllium easier to clasp than similar-sized phones, a 6.7-inch surface isn’t for everyone.

Like astir phones (the Pixel 9a is simply a funny outlier), the S25 Edge inactive has a important camera portion derailing different cleanable hardware lines. The dual-camera setup protrudes a bully 4.5mm (0.17 inches), though it features the aforesaid 200-megapixel sensor packed into the pricier S25 Ultra.

Samsung says it re-engineered the camera portion to guarantee it could acceptable connected the Edge, but it inactive sticks retired — a lot. Before I got to grip the phone, I thought this would pb to the caller telephone being oddly unbalanced and top-heavy. But immoderate Samsung has done to put the constituent furnishings wrong the S25 Edge, it worked. The telephone doesn’t consciousness lopsided oregon fragile astatine all, but similar immoderate different premium flagship smartphone.

The Galaxy S25 Edge’s cameras

Alongside the superior 200MP sensor, Samsung included a 12MP ultrawide camera with autofocus and macro photography support. And… that’s it. There’s nary dedicated telephoto system, which typically takes up much abstraction however you presumption the camera. The 2 lenses are stacked successful a vertical arrangement, which I deliberation looks cleaner than the camera cornucopias recovered connected different devices — but galore folks are going to miss the versatility of a existent telephoto. Sure, you tin digitally zoom by cropping successful connected that immense 200MP sensor, but it’s not the same.

The S25 Edge tin besides seizure up to 8K video and packs each the different photography tricks you’d expect successful an S-Series phone, similar nighttime photography and lossless zoom. Of cours,e it besides handles post-capture AI tools similar generative editing (removing photobombers and unwanted objects from your photos) and Audio Eraser for cleaning up video successful large environments.

And erstwhile it comes to AI — oregon Galaxy AI — you’re getting the aforesaid array of features that we saw successful the basal S25 and S25 Ultra, powered by a customized Snapdragon 8 Elite spot and 12GB of RAM. Those AI tools see the Now Brief and Now Bar which takes contextual clues from your apps and smartphone to laic retired a program for your day, punctual you of the upwind and more. Samsung’s integration of Google’s Gemini present includes Gemini Live, truthful you tin pat into your camera provender to inquire questions astir your photos and things successful your surroundings.

It’ll apt prime up immoderate aboriginal Gemini and Android upgrades, too: The Galaxy S25 Edge volition person 7 generations of OS updates and 7 years of information updates.

At a media briefing, Samsung besides outlined however it’s trying to guarantee the S25 Edge runs chill contempt each the packed-in hardware, utilizing a caller Thermal Interface Material (TIM) for amended vigor dissipation wrong that constricted space. I didn’t truly get the clip to propulsion the instrumentality to its limits during the briefing, truthful we’ll hold for a reappraisal to measure whether it works good enough.

The institution did person to marque compromises to acceptable each the S25 Edge’s features into this svelte profile. It has a 3,900mAh battery, which is tiny for a telephone with a 6.7-inch show that costs much than $1,000. In comparison, the basal S25 has a 4,000mAh compartment — that's a bigger artillery connected a cheaper telephone with a smaller screen. Then, there's the S25+, which has a 4,900mAh artillery with the aforesaid surface size arsenic the S25 Edge.

In its defence, Samsung has made sizeable advancement connected the artillery beingness of its devices (particularly with this year’s harvest of Galaxy S phones). The institution claims the S25 Edge tin tally video for up to 24 hours. However, with a bigger surface wrong a thinner device, artillery beingness whitethorn beryllium the biggest compromise—and it’s thing we volition person to trial erstwhile we reappraisal the Edge properly.

The Galaxy S25 Edge is priced astatine $1,100 (£1,100) with 256GB of storage. It volition motorboat connected May 30 successful 3 colors: Silver, Jet Black and Icy Blue. It’s hard to gully immoderate factual conclusions connected whether the S25 Edge’s compromises for a smaller instrumentality footprint are worthy it, but expect our reappraisal successful the adjacent fewer weeks.