Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge

 Review of Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge 

It's basically an S25+ with the titanium frame and main cam from the Ultra, but even thinner. On a certain level, just like fashion, older trends can over time become fresh and stylish again. Additionally, after phones made the transition to 5G, which require extra power, more complex modems and larger antennas, modern components have started shrinking again, essentially paving the way for the return of slimmer handsets. While thinness may be the most striking thing about the Galaxy S25 Edge, that's not enough to justify the creation of a whole new device. Instead, we believe this phone is a part of a larger mission by Samsung to make the middle child of its flagship mobile line up a more appealing member of the family. And it's largely a success actually.  

Performance

Like the rest of the S25 family, the Edge is powered by a Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chip with 12GB of RAM and either 256GB or 512GB of storage. Despite the compact dimensions, Samsung still found room to squeeze a vapour chamber inside to prevent throttling and overheating. So even when pushed, the back of the phone rarely got more than lukewarm while delivering strong performance during gaming, multitasking or doing pretty much anything else you can think of.

Design

The Galaxy S25 Edge features an LTPO OLED panel with the exact resolution as the S25 Ultra, 1440 x 3120px. It's just that it's 0.2" smaller and matches the Plus' diagonal of 6.7". The device also doesn't skip features like granular refresh rate control with up to 120Hz and HDR10+. The Dolby Vision is missing from the feature list, and the colour depth is 8-bit, not 10-bit. That's hardly an issue for most users, but colour gradients may not appear as smooth as on a true 10-bit display. Performance-wise, the display isn't much different from the S25 Ultra. It can go up to 768 nits in manual mode and boost up to 1,416 nits in auto mode. That's more than enough for comfortable outdoor use even on a bright sunny day. Like the rest of the Galaxies, the S25 Edge offers Standard and Adaptive refresh rate modes. However, both modes seem to be adaptive in a way, meaning the display will dial down to 1 Hz when idle, but the Adaptive one boosts up to 120Hz, while the Standard is capped at 60Hz. Additionally, video 24fps and 48fps video playback in Standard mode is locked to 60Hz, while Adaptive matches the refresh rate.

The S25 Edge is more than just a super sleek phone designed purely for extreme thinness. The S25 Edge is beautifully designed. At just 5.8mm thick (0.23 inches), it feels impossibly sleek. What might be even more impressive is that Samsung hasn't sacrificed durability to get here either. Just like the S25 Ultra, the Edge features a titanium frame, an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance and an even stronger Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 panel covering its display. The one difference is that the Edge's screen has a glossy finish instead of matte like on the Ultra because Samsung says an anti-reflective coating would have increased its thickness. At just 5.8mm thick, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge is one of the thinnest smartphones ever made. However, while the S25 Edge shares some characteristics with the Ultra, like its frame and main camera, at least when it comes to its overall size, it's really more of a refreshed take on the S25+. It has the same 6.7-inch OLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate that's just as vibrant and wonderfully colourful as before. Although it does weigh a bit less at 163 grams or 5.75 ounces versus the S25+ (190g or 6.7 oz).

PROS

Sleek design

Titanium frame

Big 200MP main cam

Bright OLED display

CONS

Smallest battery on any S25 phone

No telephoto lens

Mediocre wired charging speed

Not fully Qi2 compatible

$1,100 at Samsung

Cameras

The Galaxy S25 Edge features the 200MP main camera from the S25 Ultra, though it lacks a dedicated telephoto lens. The other major departure from the S25+'s basic template is that the Edge features the 200MP main sensor from the Ultra, along with a 12MP ultra-wide cam. But there's no dedicated zoom. The massive amount of pixels the Edge's primary sensor can capture means you have quite a bit of freedom to crop in without degrading image quality. You just need to remember to tell the camera to shoot in full 200MP mode instead of the standard 12MP setting. One other small change is that Edge features a slightly wider-angle 12MP selfie cam than the S25+ and Ultra, which allows you to fit more people in group shots, but that's really the main difference. In general use, the S25 Edge takes great pics. Colours are rich and details are crisp, though you still get Samsung's slightly oversaturated hues and warmer tones. The same goes for low-light shots. 

Battery life

The biggest trade-off when making a phone this skinny is having less room for its battery. As such, the S25 Edge has the smallest power pack in the family at 3,900 mAh, which is 100mAh less than what’s in a base S25. This led to a time of just 25 hours and 59 minutes on our local video rundown test. It is three and a half hours less than what we got from the S25 Ultra (29:27) and two hours less than a standard S25. The Galaxy S25 Edge relies on a relatively small 3,900 mAh battery that powers the Snapdragon 8 Elite and a 6.7-inch LTPO OLED. And frankly, we expected battery life to be abysmal. Of course, compared to the rest of the Galaxy S25 family and alternatives such as the iPhone 16 Pro Max, the vivo X200 Pro, or the Xiaomi 15 Ultra, this thin handset falls behind. Interestingly enough, the Edge holds up pretty well in the video playback test. Unlike the Galaxy S25+ and S25 Ultra, the S25 Edge caps its charging rate at 25W using a Power Delivery charger with Samsung's PPS protocol. Wireless charging is, as usual, rated at 15W. The charger isn't provided in the box, so you'd have to buy a compatible one to make the most of it. Since the Galaxy S25 Edge has a similar battery capacity to the vanilla S25 and supports up to 25W charging, it's not a surprise that the results are very similar. The S25 Edge outperforms the S25 by a small margin at the 15 and 30-minute marks, but charges significantly faster to 100%. In fact, the S25 Edge gets pretty close to the S25+ charging time to 100% (1 hour and 4 minutes for the Edge vs 59 minutes for the S25+ with a 45W charger). When pitted against the competition, however, the S25 Edge charging speed is far from impressive. Only Pixels and iPhones have similar charging times. Even though it's not the fastest to charge, the S25 Edge provides some battery health-preserving options. You can disable fast charging or you can limit the charging to anything between 80 and 95%. The Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge has 15-watt wireless charging and 25-watt wired charging. The S25 Edge still has support for wireless charging at an acceptable 15 watts, though its wired speeds are just average at 25 watts. However, as the phone is merely "Qi2 ready," anyone who wants to use compatible magnetic wireless accessories will need to buy a case or an adhesive mount with a built-in magnet, because there isn't one inside the phone itself.

Speakers

The Galaxy S25 Edge offers a hybrid set of stereo speakers - one full-fledged speaker placed at the bottom and another one with a double duty as an earpiece at the top. Loudness is rated as "Good" at -26.4 LUFS but lower than the rest of the S25 line up. That's expected given the thin profile of the chassis. Less room means less loudness. Less room also means less bass, though; you can clearly hear the difference. The sound tuning is very similar to that of the S25 Ultra, but the tracks sound flatter with not-so-pronounced bass. 

   

Conclusion

The S25 Edge is a divisive phone. If you have the desire to get modern phones thinner than they already are. Particularly if you're like most folks and you throw the thing in a case as soon as you get it. Shaving off an extra 1.5mm over the standard S25 doesn't really make a tangible difference in how you use it, unless you consider the phone's reduced battery life a good thing. Like the S25 Ultra, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge features a titanium frame. But as an alternative to the humdrum S25+, suddenly things get a lot more interesting. Samsung's previous middle child costs significantly more than a base S25, but it doesn't have the fancy features like a super high-res main camera or a titanium frame like you get on the S25 Ultra. Really, the S25+'s most attractive feature is a nicely-sized 6.7-inch screen. Now here's where the Galaxy S25 Edge comes in. It has all of those things alongside a super thin and wonderfully crafted chassis for the same $1,100 starting price as the S25+. Samsung did sacrificed some battery capacity and the phone's dedicated zoom to get here, but those aren't straight-up deal breakers. It's because with the Edge, the new in-between member of Samsung's flagship mobile family is more than just skinny, it has a stylish identity that can stand on its own around the world.