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Within the 2000s, a standard joke about smartphones was that they saved getting smaller. Within the decade that adopted, the pattern was to make every little thing progressively greater, till you have been mainly holding a small pill in your pocket.
What’s previous is new once more with the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, a brand new cellphone whose whole promoting level is that it’s smaller than its brethren. What we’ve 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 foul system. Its type issue is, certainly, fairly interesting as soon as it’s in your fingers, and the specs on provide are completely affordable for a $1,100 cellphone. You get a high-end chipset and a giant (however flawed) show for that value, nevertheless it 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 value is on the upper finish of the Samsung flagship spectrum, coming in just under the $1,299.99 beginning value for the Galaxy S25 Extremely. That mentioned, the specs inside it are pretty commensurate with the price:
I ought to be aware that upgrading to 512GB storage bumps the worth as much as $1,219.99 (although a present card deal at Amazon helps a bit), placing it proper up there with the Galaxy S25 Extremely. That’s the one configuration selection you get, although.
Like I mentioned, these aren’t dangerous specs for the worth. You get a giant, high-res show and the very same chipset utilized in Samsung’s most costly cellphone, together with a good quantity of RAM. A 1TB storage possibility 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
Severely, it is tiny.
Credit score: Joe Maldonado/Mashable
The bodily type issue is the large (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) every day, the distinction is very noticeable.
Put merely, it feels nice within the fingers. Its 163g weight is mainly an identical to the bottom S25, too, however distributed over a taller and wider system, so it feels extraordinarily mild given its floor space. My solely fear right here is that it undoubtedly feels prefer it may 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. In fact, 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 reasonably sizable digicam bump on the higher left nook of the cellphone’s bottom, meant to accommodate its two rear lenses. I’m no engineer, so it’s doable that there simply wasn’t a greater method to design this, nevertheless it’s a bit disappointing for an excellent 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 referred to as “Titanium Icyblue.” We’re large followers of pink smartphones round right here, and this is able to’ve been an important 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 a giant 6.7-inch panel with a buttery easy 120Hz refresh fee and an excellent crisp 3120×1440 decision, so what may presumably be incorrect with it?
Properly, its peak brightness of two,600 nits doesn’t essentially get the job executed in vivid daylight. Whereas strolling round my neighborhood in Brooklyn to take images with the Galaxy S25 Edge’s cameras, I commonly 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 bought worse as soon as the solar was absolutely 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 sensible, given that each one 4 of these telephones have the identical Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chip inside them. {Hardware} parity, on this case, has led to efficiency parity.
Apps load rapidly, every little thing runs easily, and I by no means observed the cellphone getting sizzling whereas doing an excessive amount of, regardless of by no means utilizing a case for it. In the event 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 light-weight. That’s fairly neat.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge: Battery life
Credit score: Alex Perry/Mashable
Apart from the comparatively dim show, the opposite main compromise I observed 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 house, and the entire level of this cellphone is that it doesn’t take up house.
Nonetheless, utilizing our customary battery testing methodology of enjoying an HD video on the show at 50 p.c brightness till it died, the Galaxy S25 Edge was in a position to final for 21 hours and 36 minutes. That’s not miserably dangerous by any means, nevertheless it’s value contemplating that the not too long ago launched Google Pixel 9a, at $500, was in a position to 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 checks worse than a minimum of one latest funds cellphone isn’t nice.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge: Cameras
The Galaxy S25 Edge’s rear digicam array sits someplace between a base expertise and a flagship expertise. Like a base S25, you solely get the vast and ultra-wide lenses, with no telephoto possibility by any means as with the S25 Extremely. Nonetheless, it does match the S25 Extremely in a method: The primary vast 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 images. Even with out a telephoto lens, the utmost 10X zoom produces very clear and crisp photographs.
No zoom.
Credit score: Alex Perry/Mashable
10X zoom.
Credit score: Alex Perry/Mashable
Pictures taken with the common vast and ultra-wide lenses look vivid and exquisite, too.
It has been so good out in Brooklyn recently.
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Finest metropolis on the earth.
Credit score: Alex Perry/Mashable
There’s even a devoted Macro Focus mode now, which helps you to put the digicam up actual shut in opposition to tiny objects and seize them in nice element. It really works very intuitively, activating by itself as quickly as you get the digicam shut sufficient to what you’re attempting to shoot. I dig it.
Macro focus is nice.
Credit score: Alex Perry/Mashable
Lastly, nighttime images remains to be fairly good right here. It does a pleasant job of constructing darkish images look extra legible, although there are occasions when the ultimate product seems to be a bit prefer it’s lit with studio lighting. It’s a bit unnatural, however that’s an issue loads of different telephones have, too.
Left:
No night time mode.
Credit score: Alex Perry/Mashable
Proper:
Night time mode.
Credit score: Alex Perry/Mashable
Is the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge value 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 most costly one, at a way more interesting type issue. And if you would like a super-thin, flagship-like Galaxy smartphone, that is it.
The bodily design of the S25 Edge is, certainly, a promoting level in the event you care rather a lot about telephones being skinny and light-weight. 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 approach.
Due to a high-end chipset, you get comparable efficiency to Samsung’s finest cellphone, too. Battery life is unquestionably one thing you’ll need to compromise on, and in my expertise, the show isn’t nice in vivid daylight, however this can be a strong cellphone in nearly each different approach.
