Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge review: The next generation of smartphone

In January 2025, Samsung teased the Galaxy S25 Edge; the company released the product months later. I’ve gone hands-on with the device and spent over a month with it.

In many ways, Samsung’s latest device surprised me, in a good way. With its portability, slim form factor, camera, experience, and even the battery, it was slightly better than I assumed.

Slim battery

Let’s start with what people want to know most about the S25 Edge: the battery life. The handset sports a 3,900mAh battery, which is pretty small by flagship standards. Most flagships on the market have around a 5,000mAh battery, so seeing one this small is pretty strange. Despite the small battery, S25 Edge’s power cell is pretty acceptable. It’s far from being the best, but on average, I get about four and a half to five hours of screen time usage.

On most days, I play several Marvel Snap games, watch a few YouTube clips, listen to music, and scroll through social media. However, I pushed the device to 6.5 hours of screen time one day when I was using Google Maps for about three hours straight, while another day, when playing Limbo, Blasphemous and listening to music, it only lasted about 3.5 hours. Essentially, I’ve been pretty comfortable with leaving my house without a charger if I’m gone for the day at work or out with some friends. But if I think I’m going to be out late, I typically feel the need to bring a charger or power up before I leave the house, just in case.

If you work from home or have the ability to charge your phone at work, then you probably won’t even notice the phone’s smaller battery. Also, if you’re updating from a phone that came out about two or three years ago, then you probably won’t even notice an issue. Your battery experience won’t improve, but it’ll be pretty similar. The battery S25 Edge definitely isn’t good compared to handsets like the iPhone 16 Pro Max or S25 Ultra, but it easily matches smartphones that came out about three years ago.

No telephoto

Aside from that, my main other issue with the Edge is the lack of a telephoto camera. I’m fully on the side of cheaper phones offering an ultrawide camera over a telephoto shooter, but a handset that costs this much should have both. The camera experience is pretty good, though. I’ve used it for work product photography, taking pictures at the Ripley’s Aquarium, and snapping pictures throughout my day, like pictures of my ramen or cool graffiti.

These images look good, offer great colour science and can capture great detail. However, something seems a little off with nighttime photography – the pictures I have taken are a little too bright and unrealistic, and don’t even look like night anymore.

This isn’t the same nighttime experience I had when using the S25 Ultra, so it’s strange that there’s this problem. Oddly, capturing low-light images without using Night Mode produced better results overall.

The camera and battery work hand in hand with the S25 Edge’s Snapdragon 8 Elite processor paired with 12GB of RAM. Everything runs smoothly on the device, and I haven’t run into any lag. I’ve played games like Limbo, Marvel Snap and Dandara without issues. The S25 Edge benchmarked well with a single-core score of 2,710 and a multi-core score of 9,355, which puts it below devices like the ROG Phone 9 and the Zenfone 12 Ultra, but ahead of even the S25 Ultra. Benchmarks don’t hold much weight, as we understand that they don’t always equate to real-life experiences, but this is good.

Thin AF

I’ve discussed the S25 Edge design a few times already, so I won’t go into too much detail here, but it’s hard not to love it. The 6.7-inch display, light 163g body, and an incredibly thin 5.8mm frame feel great in your pockets and fit my hand perfectly. However, the smartphone feels so fragile, it’s not, but I’m always worried about breaking it. I often use it with a case I bought, just in case I drop it and break the device, and this isn’t a typical fear I have when using phones. I would much rather use it without the case, though, so when I’m home, I take it off and enjoy the device’s slimness.

The phone does have Corning Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 and a titanium frame, though, so it’s not flimsy by any means. The handset also has a 6.7-inch display with a 120Hz refresh rate and a 3,120 x 1,440-pixel resolution. Combining a flagship screen with a slim profile is excellent. Typically, if you want a light phone, you’d need a device with a smaller screen, but the S25 Edge bucks the trend. Cramming top-of-the-line features into the S25 Edge’s slim body is what makes the device a next-generation flagship smartphone.

Despite how much I like the phone, I’ve had one continuous issue with my S25 Edge that sometimes causes it to lose connection to Wi-Fi. I’ve reached out to Samsung, and it appears to be an issue with only my device. I’ve also contacted some of my other friends who review devices, and none have had this bug. So, it shouldn’t be something you need to worry about, but I still thought it was worth mentioning.

Samsung’s S25 Edge also comes with an assortment of AI features, but I’ve discussed them here and here.

The next step

I’ve seen people complain online about the device and say that Samsung shouldn’t have made a phone this thin and that no one cares about that sort of stuff., Plainly, I think they’re wrong. After using it for so long, a phone that feels like literally nothing in your pocket is phenomenal. If you’re someone who needs a phone with stellar battery life, then I’d avoid getting this handset. Instead, I’d recommend the S25 Edge to anyone who wants an all-around great phone that’s stunningly thin and takes solid pictures.

Despite the device’s shortcomings and online complaints, Samsung has once again kick-started a new phone design trend with the S25 Edge. In 2011, Samsung released the Galaxy Note, a phone that people mocked for being too big. I worked at Best Buy then, and I remember the confusion at such a large-screen device; however, little did we know that phone companies worldwide would soon launch their phablets. Now, phones with screens bigger than six inches are the norm.

Slim devices like the S25 Edge are the next step in smartphones, and of course, Samsung is the first to make that step again. Moreover, this is a step toward the types of phones you see in science fiction, which usually have a flat, transparent screen. With the progress of phones nowadays, we’re pretty far from that. However, making smartphones as thin as possible is progress toward that future, and the S25 Edge is that step.

MobileSyrup recommends the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge to anyone who wants a super-thin smartphone and doesn’t mind the trade-offs needed to get there.