I’ve used the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge and it’s an engineering marvel

Design and Screen

• Ultra-thin and light
• 5.8mm thick and 163g
• Top-end 6.7-inch QHD+ screen

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge is thin. No, scratch that; it’s absurdly thin. In a world where smartphones regularly come in at around 8-9mm thick, if not thicker, the Galaxy S25 Edge measures in at an incredible slimline 5.8mm thick. 

It’s hard to quantify that if you’ve not got a ruler to hand, but it’s the exact width of a stack of seven credit cards, and anecdotally, it’s around the same thickness as the Vivo V200 Ultra’s camera bump. Not the whole phone; the camera bump. 

That would’ve been impressive enough, but it also measures in at a rather impressive 163g, lighter than even the lightest plastic-made budget phones you’ll find in 2025 – and this thing is far from a piece of lightweight plastic.

It’s instead crafted from the same combination of titanium and glass as the top-end Galaxy S25 Ultra, and actually improves it with upgraded Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 screen protection – the first smartphone on the market to offer it. That’s paired with Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protection for the glass rear, along with IP68 dust and water resistance.

To be honest, I was sceptical about the appeal of an ultra-premium thin phone that doesn’t offer the bells and whistles of thicker flagships, but as soon as I picked it up, I got it. The feel of holding a phone that thin and light isn’t something I’ve experienced since the early days of smartphones. It felt oddly nostalgic in a way, but not in a bad way; in the best way possible.

It felt great in the hand, making my regular Galaxy S25 Ultra feel like a thick brick in comparison. Heck, even compared to the Galaxy S25 Plus that we praised for being thin and light just months ago, looks dated when put against the S25 Edge. It’s a pleasure to use, particularly one-handed, and feels nice in the palm despite the angular design – likely down to its lightweight nature. 

It’s genuinely a marvel of smartphone engineering, though it’s something you’ll have to see in the flesh to truly appreciate.

What’s more, that lure to produce a super-thin phone hasn’t come at the cost of a great display, with the S25 Edge offering the same 6.7-inch AMOLED screen as the Galaxy S25 Plus. 

That’s with the same thin bezels, same LTPO-enabled 120Hz refresh rate and even the same pixel-packed QHD+ resolution – though the latter could be a bit risky when it comes to battery life. More on that in a bit.  

As you might expect from a screen borrowed from a top-end flagship, it looks just as good on the S25 Edge as it did on the S25 Plus, with Samsung’s signature vibrant look present and accounted for. 

Cameras

• 200MP main camera
• 12MP ultrawide
• No dedicated zoom hardware

There are sacrifices to such a thin, lightweight design, and the first is apparent when looking at the camera setup. Despite the fact that the cheaper Galaxy S25 offers a trio of lenses comprised of main, telephoto and ultrawide lenses, the S25 Edge offers only a main and ultrawide.

It looks even worse when compared to the S25 Ultra, which is just £150 more and comes with not one but two dedicated zoom lenses. 

The lack of a telephoto isn’t exactly surprising, given that zoom lenses need physical space to magnify – something the S25 Edge is short on – but it doesn’t make it any less disappointing to see here. 

Still, the Galaxy S25 Edge does manage to pack a main 200MP sensor. It’s not the exact same sensor as the top-end Galaxy S25 Ultra, with Samsung slimming the sensor down by an impressive 80%, but the results – at least in my quick tests in an admittedly well-lit hands-on area – look just as impressive. 

Those extra pixels are being put to good use, too, allowing the primary lens to double up as a zoom lens. Of course, it’s entirely digital, so the more you push it, the worse the results look, but they seemed pretty nice on the surface at around the 2x – 3x mark. Anything further than that, though, and you’ll see artefacting begin to appear. 

Alongside the main lens sits a lower-res 12MP ultrawide lens. It doesn’t seem quite as remarkable compared to the primary snapper, but it’s the same as that found on the rest of the S25 range, complete with autofocus for macro use. 

Again, it seemed to do a solid job in early testing, but as with all the lenses, I’ll save my final thoughts until I’ve spent more time with the phone. 

Also, expect the S25 Edge to match the S25 Ultra’s 8K video recording capabilities, though with such large file sizes, I’d recommend the vast majority of people to 1080p or 4K. 

Features and specs

• Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chipset
• OneUI 7 with Galaxy AI smarts
• Small 3900mAh battery

As a member of the flagship Galaxy S25 family, the S25 Edge packs the same custom Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chipset as its siblings, coupled with 12GB of RAM to handle the various Galaxy AI experiences on offer. 

Though it’s far too early to say for sure, early hands-on impressions are good; the phone felt speedy, with quick app opening times and buttery-smooth scrolling – though that’s unsurprising given the chipset on offer.

The real challenge will be more performance-intensive tasks, like high-end gaming or editing video on CapCut. We already know that the Snapdragon 8 Elite can handle these tasks with ease, but with such a thin chassis on offer, there could be potential issues with heat build-up. And, with heat comes throttling.

To be fair to Samsung, it has included an upgraded thermal interface material that should allow heat to be distributed across the device, keeping it cooler for longer. However, I’ll have to confirm just how effective it is once we get a sample in for testing. 

That’s what I’d categorise as a mild concern – but my biggest is certainly battery life. 

Samsung itself is confident, claiming that the S25 Edge’s 3900mAh battery is enough to deliver 24 hours of video playback, but that’s rather nebulous and not necessarily indicative of regular use. 

Of course, having not spent more than an hour or so with the device, I can’t yet comment on battery life, but the combination of a small 3900mAh cell – the same as the year-old Galaxy S24 – and a large 6.7-inch 120Hz QHD+ screen doesn’t bode well for battery longevity. 

For context, we found that the Galaxy S24 would just about make it to the end of the day, and that phone has a much smaller screen with a lower FHD+ resolution to power. 

Samsung could’ve rectified this by using silicon-carbon battery tech, which allows for denser batteries in smaller form factors, but it has opted for the regular lithium-ion battery tech instead. 

That’s a bit of a shame. We’ve finally reached the point where smartphones tend to last all day without scrambling for a charger like you would’ve done five or 10 years ago, and now with the introduction of ultra-slim phones, we could be squarely back in that territory.

Elsewhere, however, things are looking much more rosy; the Galaxy S25 Edge comes with Samsung’s OneUI 7 based on Android 15 and all the benefits that come with it, from the redesigned UI to boosted Galaxy AI smarts. 

Samsung has also confirmed that the complete suite of Galaxy AI features, including the Now Brief introduced on the S25 range earlier this year, will be present and accounted for on its slimline smartphone. 

Though not a game-changer like some might imagine, the toolset has handy features like recording transcription and some of the best image removal tech I’ve used, so its addition here is welcome, if not entirely expected. 

And, like the rest of Samsung’s flagship collection, the Galaxy S25 Edge will enjoy the same seven years of OS upgrades and security patches, matched only by the likes of Google and, more recently, Honor.

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