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Samsung has stuck to the three-phone flagship lineup for a few generations now, but with chief smartphone rivals Apple and Google exporting four handsets apiece in their iPhone 16 and Pixel 9 series, it was inevitable that Samsungs Galaxy S family would grow to match. The new addition in question is the long-rumoured, super-skinny Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge.
This new Samsung phone squeezes itself into the Samsung flagship lineup, four months after the top-end Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, Galaxy S25 Plus and Galaxy S25 launched back in February. But instead of just being smaller, or cheaper or some combination of the two, this phone aims to squeeze the same capabilities into a handset thats dramatically thinner than most of the competition. Lets dig in and meet this pancake of a phone.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge preview: Whats new?
Okay, first things first: the price. The Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge slips into the flagship family as the second-most expensive model, fitting in between the S25 Plus and the S25 Ultra. There are two variants to choose from: a 256GB model, which will set you back £1,099 and a 512GB version, which comes in at £1,199.
So what does that money get you? The standout feature here is the incredible slimness, with the phone measuring a petite 5.8mm from the back to the front. By comparison, the Galaxy S25 is 7.2mm thick and the S25 Ultra is 8.2mm.
My colleague Jon Bray went hands-on with the S25 Edge and, while he found the slimness of the phone to be impressive – just look at how it compares to the chunkier iPhone 16 Plus in the images below – what really stood out to him was the weight.
At just 163g, the Galaxy S25 Edge felt incredibly lightweight during the hands-on session, especially when compared to similarly sized phones – the iPhone 16 Plus Jon had on him, for instance, weighs 199g. The S25 Edge is closer in weight to its compact brother, the 162g Galaxy S25, despite being roughly the same height and width as the S25 Plus, a phone that weighs a much bulkier 190g.
Despite this, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge is just as robust as its Ultra sibling. The frame is constructed from sturdy, lightweight titanium alloy, where the standard S25 and the Plus use Armor Aluminium. And its available in Silver, Jetblack and Icyblue colourways.
Covering the display is a sheet of the new Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 glass, while the rear is protected by a layer of Gorilla Glass Victus 2. Finally, the phone is rated IP68 for dust and water resistance, meaning it is dust-tight and able to withstand a 30-minute dunk in 1.5m of fresh water.
The display is confirmed to be a 6.7in panel, so Id bet good money its the same screen we saw on the Galaxy S25 Plus. Take it with a grain of salt until we have official confirmation, but that would mean a Super AMOLED 2X screen with a sharp resolution of 3,120 x 1,440 and a dynamic refresh rate up to 120Hz.
As with the rest of the S25 series, the Edge runs on the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chipset, which has a slightly higher 4.47GHz peak clock speed than the vanilla offering used by other smartphone companies. Backing it up is 12GB of RAM and your choice of 256GB or 512GB of internal storage.
The one area of slight concern is the battery. At 3,900mAh, its a little bit smaller than the Galaxy S25s (4,000mAh) and quite a drop from the Galaxy S25 Plus 4,900mAh cell. The smaller battery still performed well in our testing of the Galaxy S25, lasting for over 31 hours in our in-house battery test, but that compact handset had a much smaller screen to light up. It will be interesting to see how the Edge does in our stamina rundown when it comes time for the full review; I expect it will fall short of 30 hours but not by much.
At the very least, Samsung is aware of the need for robust cooling when putting something as powerful as the Snapdragon 8 Elite inside a frame as svelte as the Galaxy S25 Edge. Tailored thermal interface materials are apparently used throughout to allow the excess heat to disperse through the phone, avoiding any dangerous or frustrating overheating issues. Of course, well have to see how that holds up when we come to testing.
The 200-megapixel main camera has been ported over directly from the Galaxy S25 Ultra, with a little bit of reengineering to slim it down by 18% and make it fit the new frame. Samsung is claiming more authentic skin tones and improved night photography for this camera (though it wasnt entirely clear what they were comparing it to) as well as 10-bit HDR and 8K offerings in the video recording.
Just beneath that main lens is a new 12-megapixel ultrawide shooter, which supports autofocus and also doubles as a macro camera. Rounding out the photography suite is the 12-megapixel selfie camera on the front, which is the same setup offered by the rest of the S25 series.
Given that it costs more than the S25 Plus, it is a serious mark against the S25 Edge that it doesnt include a telephoto camera. Fair enough, such lenses are more tricky to squeeze into compact frames but when skinny foldables like the Honor Magic V3 manage to figure it out, Im not sure thats an excuse Im willing to accept from a phone costing four figures.
Software on the S25 Edge looks to be identical to its siblings, too, with seven years of OS updates and security patches confirmed, post quantum cryptography protection and the usual Galaxy AI smorgasbord of smart features, including Now Brief, writing assists and camera editing tools.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge preview: Early verdict
Everyone who asks me for professional advice on what phone they should buy usually boils their key priorities down to two things: battery life and cameras. With that in mind, its certainly an interesting strategy for Samsung to compromise in those two areas in order to achieve the slimmer build.
This is just a first look, mind you, and it could well be that the battery life surprises me in testing, or the two rear cameras are so good that I forget telephotos even exist. So far, though, I dont know if I see the appeal. Regardless, I will be putting this skinny smartphone through its paces in the near future so be sure to check back soon for my final verdict.
