Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge review: It’s thin, and that’s what counts

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Within the 2000s, a typical joke about smartphones was that they stored getting smaller. Within the decade that adopted, the development was to make all the pieces progressively greater, till you have been principally protecting a small pill in your pocket. 

What’s previous is new once more with the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, a brand new cellphone whose complete promoting level is that it’s smaller than its brethren. What we now have right here is basically the identical because the Samsung Galaxy S25 collection that launched in February, however thinner. I want there have been extra attention-grabbing issues to say about it, however honestly, there aren’t.

Nonetheless, that doesn’t imply the Galaxy S25 Edge is a nasty system. Its kind issue is, certainly, fairly interesting as soon as it’s in your arms, and the specs on supply are completely cheap for a $1,100 cellphone. You get a high-end chipset and an enormous (however flawed) show for that worth, but it surely doesn’t come with out compromises, particularly to battery life.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge: Worth and specs

Samsung is not mendacity about how skinny it’s.
Credit score: Joe Maldonado/Mashable

So far as pricing is anxious, the Galaxy S25 Edge’s $1,099.99 beginning worth is on the upper finish of the Samsung flagship spectrum, coming in just under the $1,299.99 beginning worth for the Galaxy S25 Extremely. That mentioned, the specs inside it are pretty commensurate with the cost:

I ought to be aware that upgrading to 512GB storage bumps the worth as much as $1,219.99 (although a gift card deal at Amazon helps a bit of), placing it proper up there with the Galaxy S25 Extremely. That’s the one configuration alternative you get, although. 

Like I mentioned, these aren’t unhealthy specs for the worth. You get an enormous, high-res show and the very same chipset utilized in Samsung’s most costly cellphone, together with an honest quantity of RAM. A 1TB storage choice may need been good to have, although that may’ve jacked the worth up much more, so I can see why Samsung went with out it.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge: Design

Significantly, it is tiny.
Credit score: Joe Maldonado/Mashable

The bodily kind issue is the massive (and presumably solely) draw of the Galaxy S25 Edge. It measures in at simply 5.8mm of thickness, a considerable discount from the 7.2mm of thickness discovered within the base S25. As somebody who makes use of an iPhone 16 (which is 7.8mm thick) each day, the distinction is very noticeable. 

Put merely, it feels nice within the arms. Its 163g weight is principally an identical to the bottom S25, too, however distributed over a taller and wider system, so it feels extraordinarily gentle given its floor space. My solely fear right here is that it positively feels prefer it might snap in half at any time, although with the brand new Corning Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 materials utilized in its development, that’s most likely only a matter of notion and never actuality. After all, I didn’t attempt to break it as a result of it’s a really costly system and Samsung wouldn’t have been proud of me.

My solely actual gripe with the design is that there’s nonetheless a fairly sizable digital camera bump on the higher left nook of the cellphone’s bottom, meant to deal with its two rear lenses. I’m no engineer, so it’s doable that there simply wasn’t a greater option to design this, but it surely’s a bit of disappointing for a brilliant skinny cellphone to not sit extra flatly on my desk than this one does.

Oh, the colour choices are a little bit of a bummer, too. You simply get silver, black, and one thing known as “Titanium Icyblue.” We’re massive followers of pink smartphones round right here, and this could’ve been an incredible alternative for Samsung to incorporate one.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge: Show

The show is nice, aside from one factor…
Credit score: Joe Maldonado/Mashable

I had a little bit of a complicated expertise with the Galaxy S25’s show, which is a top quality one by the numbers. It’s an enormous 6.7-inch panel with a buttery clean 120Hz refresh fee and a brilliant crisp 3120×1440 decision, so what might presumably be mistaken with it?

Effectively, its peak brightness of two,600 nits doesn’t essentially get the job carried out in shiny daylight. Whereas strolling round my neighborhood in Brooklyn to take pictures with the Galaxy S25 Edge’s cameras, I recurrently had a little bit of a tough time seeing issues on the show, even at max brightness. It was barely bothersome beneath cloud cowl, and acquired worse as soon as the solar was totally out.

It’s not unusable by any means, however in direct comparability to my iPhone 16 (whose peak brightness of two,000 nits ought to be inferior), it’s considerably dimmer in daylight. I don’t know why that is, however that was my expertise with the Galaxy S25 Edge’s show. Be warned.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge: Efficiency

When it comes to efficiency, the excellent news is that the S25 Edge is kind of an identical on this regard to the remainder of the Galaxy S25 household. That is smart, given that each one 4 of these telephones have the identical Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chip within them. {Hardware} parity, on this case, has led to efficiency parity.

Apps load rapidly, all the pieces runs easily, and I by no means seen the cellphone getting sizzling whereas doing an excessive amount of, regardless of by no means utilizing a case for it. Should you care about benchmarking statistics, the S25 Edge compares very favorably with the S25 Extremely, the highest-end cellphone within the S25 line. That cellphone’s multi-core rating in Geekbench 6 was 10,049, whereas the S25 Edge got here in at 10,014.

In different phrases, you’re getting comparable efficiency to a real high-end flagship on a cellphone that’s remarkably skinny and lightweight. That’s fairly neat.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge: Battery life

Credit score: Alex Perry/Mashable

Other than the comparatively dim show, the opposite main compromise I seen with the Galaxy S25 Edge got here within the type of battery life. This one is admittedly much less stunning and extra forgivable; batteries take up area, and the entire level of this cellphone is that it doesn’t take up area. 

Nonetheless, utilizing our customary battery testing technique of taking part in an HD video on the show at 50 % brightness till it died, the Galaxy S25 Edge was capable of final for 21 hours and 36 minutes. That’s not miserably unhealthy by any means, but it surely’s price contemplating that the lately launched Google Pixel 9a, at $500, was capable of go a full 24 hours utilizing the identical methodology.

You’ll nonetheless have the ability to get a couple of full day’s use out of 1 cost on the S25 Edge, however the truth that it assessments worse than at the least one current finances cellphone isn’t nice.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge: Cameras

The Galaxy S25 Edge’s rear digital camera array sits someplace between a base expertise and a flagship expertise. Like a base S25, you solely get the large and ultra-wide lenses, with no telephoto choice in any way as with the S25 Extremely. Nonetheless, it does match the S25 Extremely in a technique: The principle large lens is a 200MP shooter. The disappointing facet of that is that the ultra-wide lens is simply 12MP, whereas it was 50MP on the Extremely.

Nonetheless, megapixel numbers apart, this cellphone takes good pictures. Even and not using a telephoto lens, the utmost 10X zoom produces very clear and crisp photos.

No zoom.
Credit score: Alex Perry/Mashable

10X zoom.
Credit score: Alex Perry/Mashable

Pictures taken with the common large and ultra-wide lenses look vivid and exquisite, too.

It has been so good out in Brooklyn these days.
Credit score: Alex Perry/Mashable

Greatest metropolis on the earth.
Credit score: Alex Perry/Mashable

There’s even a devoted Macro Focus mode now, which helps you to put the digital camera up actual shut towards tiny objects and seize them in nice element. It really works very intuitively, activating by itself as quickly as you get the digital camera shut sufficient to what you’re attempting to shoot. I dig it.

Macro focus is nice.
Credit score: Alex Perry/Mashable

Lastly, nighttime images continues to be fairly good right here. It does a pleasant job of constructing darkish pictures look extra legible, although there are occasions when the ultimate product appears to be like a bit prefer it’s lit with studio lighting. It’s a bit of unnatural, however that’s an issue loads of different telephones have, too. 

Left:
No evening mode.
Credit score: Alex Perry/Mashable

Proper:
Night time mode.
Credit score: Alex Perry/Mashable

Is the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge price it?

On its deserves, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge does precisely what it units out to do: Present a flagship-like expertise for barely much less cash than the costliest one, at a way more interesting kind issue. And in order for you a super-thin, flagship-like Galaxy smartphone, that is it.

The bodily design of the S25 Edge is, certainly, a promoting level when you care quite a bit about telephones being skinny and lightweight. I personally don’t discover my common iPhone 16 to be prohibitively cumbersome, however I can’t lie: Utilizing it after utilizing the S25 Edge makes it really feel that method.

Due to a high-end chipset, you get comparable efficiency to Samsung’s finest cellphone, too. Battery life is certainly one thing you’ll should compromise on, and in my expertise, the show isn’t nice in shiny daylight, however it is a strong cellphone in virtually each different method.