Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge review: An incredibly slim and light smartphone, but at a cost
Samsung tries a ‘less is more’ approach for its latest smartphone with mixed results
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Score: 7/10
We like:
- Exceptionally slim and light design
- Excellent main camera
- Intuitive software with seven years of updates
We don’t like:
- Battery life isn’t great
- Complete lack of zoom cameras
- Slow charging
What is the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge?
As the smartphone industry has matured, design innovation has slowed, meaning that the best Android smartphones tend to look quite similar to one another. Samsung’s latest answer to industry-wide ennui is the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, which is the first of what promises to be a wave of extremely thin phones.
While its footprint is large, similar in size to the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra or the iPhone 16 Pro Max, the Galaxy S25 Edge is unusually skinny and lightweight.
Yet despite a severe reduction in internal space, Samsung has sought to maintain the Galaxy S25 Edge’s high-end flagship credentials in a bid to justify its £1,099 starting price. It has the same speedy processor and main camera as the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, as well as a vibrant high resolution display.
Samsung is working with mostly tried and tested components here, but it has had to make one or two compromises along the way. Just how much are we willing to sacrifice for such a skinny phone?
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How we test smartphones
Our smartphone reviews are based around five key metrics: design and features, display, performance and battery life, software and AI and camera capabilities. For a phone such as the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, which is at the top end of the smartphone pricing scale, I’m expecting a strong showing in all departments.
At this price, performance should be exceptional. I ran a pair of popular benchmark apps – Geekbench and GFXBench – and compared the results to other similarly priced phones such as the iPhone 16 Pro Max, Galaxy S25 Ultra and Pixel 9 Pro XL. Camera quality should also be among the best on the market, so I took a range of photos in a variety of lighting conditions. I have tested the majority of flagship phones released in the past 12 months, so I’m able to gauge the quality of these images against the very best.
It’s almost a given that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge will be exceptionally well built, but there’s one area that I’m particularly interested in. Going into this review, I wanted to see how the phone’s uniquely slim design would impact its battery life. At the end of each day of regular usage, I noted the remaining percentage and compared it to my experience with other phones. I also ran the PCMark Work 3.0 Battery Test for a more scientific comparison.
As with all of our smartphone reviews, I used the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge as my main handset for a week, using it for emails, alarms, web browsing and media consumption just as I would my own handset.
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Design and features
Score: 9/10
While I’ve sought to convey just how skinny the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge is through pictures and videos, none of them truly sell the experience of holding it for the first time. With a thickness of just 5.8mm, this is an exceptionally thin device, no doubt about it.
By stark contrast, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is 8.2mm thick, while the iPhone 16 Pro Max is 8.3mm. That’s a difference of more than 40% in both cases.
This reduction in thickness doesn’t have particularly pronounced practical ramifications, other than making the phone feel more nimble and more futuristic. It didn’t change how I used or transported the phone, for instance, and it still leaves a footprint that I’d classify as large, measuring 158mm long and 76mm wide.
There is a positive knock-on effect to this thinness, and it relates to the weight of the phone. At just 163g, the Galaxy S25 Edge weighs about the same as the regular Samsung Galaxy S25, which is one of the smallest phones on the market. With this mass spread over a much wider area, it makes the Edge more pleasant to hold for long periods and more comfortable when using it lying down.
Samsung hasn’t compromised on the quality of the phone’s construction, either. By using a titanium frame, it has ensured that the Galaxy S25 Edge retains its rigidity. There’s no flexing to be found here and it’s suitably water and dust-tight with an IP68 certification.
Display
Score: 8/10
By pursuing a ‘big phone in a small phone’s body’ approach, Samsung has been able to provide a full-sized 6.7-inch display. It’s the same component that you’ll find in the Samsung Galaxy S25+ and it’s a real beauty.
This means that you get an extremely sharp 3,120 x 1,440 maximum resolution, though an annoying quirk with Samsung’s phones is that you will need to delve into the settings menu to activate this resolution manually.
There’s also a 120Hz maximum refresh rate here, which helps to make scrolling and general screen navigation feel incredibly smooth. Less competitive with other phones, however, is the maximum brightness. The S25 Edge peaks at 2,600 nits, which is the unit of measurement for brightness. This is just about good enough for viewing outdoors in the sun, but it falls short of the OnePlus 13’s 4,500 nits, which is a phone that costs hundreds of pounds less.
As always with Samsung’s top displays, the output is extremely rich and colourful, to the point where I preferred to switch it from the default ‘Vivid’ screen mode to a more muted ‘Natural’ setting. I did miss the Galaxy S25 Ultra screen’s anti-reflective finish, though.
Performance and battery life
Score: 7/10
The Galaxy S25 Edge runs on the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chip as the rest of the Galaxy S25 range, and in day-to-day tasks such as watching BBC iPlayer, messaging friends and snapping photos, I was unable to challenge it.
This top-end processor, paired with a generous 12GB of RAM, also ensures that it can run power-hungry games, including Sky: Children of the Light and Minecraft. However, I did observe the phone getting a little hot when playing games for longer than a few minutes. You can almost certainly attribute this to the skinny form factor, as there’s much less room for an effective cooling solution.
That’s not ideal when you consider that the Galaxy S25 Edge only includes a 3,900mAh battery, which is smaller than the cell inside the regular Galaxy S25. Samsung insists that it has somehow optimised the phone’s battery using artificial intelligence (AI), and I can confirm that it did last longer than I expected.
However, I did observe some inconsistencies. While on one day of light to moderate usage, I would be left with a good half a tankful remaining, another would see it dropping well below the halfway mark. Using PCMark’s standard battery test, meanwhile, the Edge fell hours short of the rest of the Galaxy S25 range.
Needless to say, a more intensive day of usage, including hopping between mobile and Wi-Fi networks, using Google Maps for navigation and catching up on TV shows on the train, is likely to leave you assessing your recharging options. This isn’t a disaster by any means, but the Galaxy S25 Edge offers far from the best phone battery life.
Talking of which, the Galaxy S25 Edge only supports wired charging speeds of just 25W, which is incredibly slow for a £1,099 smartphone. In testing, I noticed that I would need to wait at least an hour to charge up to full from empty. Wireless charging is also supported, which you would expect for this kind of money, but the recharge speeds via this method are even slower still.
Software and AI
Score: 8/10
The Galaxy S25 Edge launches with Android 15 software installed, with Samsung’s own OneUI 7 tweaks layered over the top. It retains the class-leading promise of seven years of future software updates, including security patches.
This is one of the more visually appealing software interfaces, with sharp, colourful icons and widgets conveying plenty of heads-up information. That’s driven home by the neat ‘Now Brief’ widget on the lock screen, which supplies handy summaries of weather, calendar and health information.
It’s also extremely customisable, and places plenty of control at your fingertips. Take, for instance, the extra row of applications of your choosing that can be accessed at any time with a swipe from the top left of the home screen.
However, to my eyes, it isn’t as simple to use or as aesthetically appealing as Google’s Android on its Pixel 9 smartphones, with the Edge’s split notification pane and somewhat convoluted app and settings menus. It’s also full of pre-installed apps that you probably won’t want or need, though thankfully, these can be deleted should you wish.
Samsung’s AI tools are extensive, too. These range from the impressive-but-pointless (Drawing Assist lets you produce AI images from text descriptions or sketches) to the genuinely useful (real-time conversational language translations). You also get a full suite of Google AI tools, including the Gemini voice assistant and Circle to Search, which, with a simple swipe, lets you search for more information on whatever you see on screen.
Cameras
Score: 7/10
The Galaxy S25 Edge’s cameras are a curious mish-mash of components that speak to the engineering challenge Samsung faced in reducing the thickness of the phone. While it shares the 200-megapixel main camera with the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, it lacks that phone’s two zoom cameras, and also has an inferior 12-megapixel ultrawide camera.
It’s the lack of any form of proper zoom that sticks in the craw here. If you’re paying upwards of £1,000 for a phone, such a provision should be a given. Indeed, the £800 Samsung Galaxy S25 and its close rival, the Google Pixel 9, both feature dedicated zoom cameras.
Disappointment aside, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge takes very good photos. The main camera sensor is as impressive here as it was in the Ultra, capturing extremely sharp and vivid shots with excellent, colourful contrast.
Night shots are clear and well-defined and the video capture is steady without any judder at up to 8K resolution. Zoomed images look surprisingly detailed at 2x zoom and passable at 4x, with Samsung effectively cropping in on the main sensor. Shots at 10x look a little blurry, however, and Samsung was wise not to stray beyond that point.
The 12-megapixel ultrawide takes respectable landscape images that match the tone of the main sensor, but lack the amount of detail and depth. Selfie shots from the 12-megapixel front camera look great, with a choice of either a standard close-up or a slightly wider angle. Samsung’s portrait images are strong, too, helping the subject to stand out against a convincingly blurred background.
Technical specifications
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge is £150 cheaper than the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, but I would still recommend the more expensive phone to most people. It has superior battery life, a proper zoom camera function and the bonus of a dedicated S Pen stylus.
Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge?
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge is a capable flagship smartphone with an immediately striking design. Using a phone that’s this skinny genuinely feels like something special in a handset market that can feel somewhat repetitive, even among the best smartphones.
As impressive as Samsung’s feat of engineering is, however, it’s simply not worth the trade-offs. Battery life, while far from disastrous, remains below the standard we’ve come to expect of a modern smartphone. The lack of a proper zoom camera, too, isn’t something we’re used to putting up with on a phone that costs as much as this.
It’s the Galaxy S25 Edge’s considerable price that’s the biggest misstep here. Beyond the lighter weight, you’re being asked to pay too high a premium for a design feature that brings zero additional tangible benefits to the table.
Yes, if:
- You want a slim, light phone with a big screen
- You value form over function
- You’re after the longest software support possible
No, if:
- You’re an intensive user who needs great battery life
- You like to shoot lots of zoomed-in camera shots
- You tend to be in a hurry to charge your phone up
Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge FAQs
What are the biggest upgrades for the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge?
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge gives you top-level performance in an unusually skinny and lightweight body, with the same 200-megapixel main camera as the Ultra model.
Will the Samsung Galaxy S25 series use Exynos or Snapdragon processors?
Samsung is using the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chip in all models of the Galaxy S25 Edge, just like the rest of the Galaxy S25 series.
What are the design changes for the Samsung Galaxy S25 series?
The wider Samsung Galaxy S25 series looks and feels a lot like previous generations, but the Galaxy S25 Edge adds a brand new super-skinny option to the range.
Is the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge waterproof?
Yes, Samsung has implemented the same IP68 water resistance rating as most other flagship phones.
Does the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge have wireless charging?
Yes, the Edge is compatible with up to 15W Qi wireless chargers.
Does the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge support Gemini AI?
Yes, a long press of the side button will bring up Google’s advanced AI assistant.
What software does the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge run?
It has Samsung’s OneUI 7 software with Android 15, while an update to OneUI 8 and Android 16 is promised by the end of 2025.