Samsung S25 Edge Review: The Ultra-Thin Flagship That Trades Features for Style—Is It Worth It?

Samsung S25 Edge Hands-On: What Were They Thinking?

This is Samsung's brand new S25 Edge. It's just 5.8 mm thick, which makes it almost 30% thinner than the S25 Ultra, and it's looking very likely that this is just the start of an entire wave of ultra-slim high-end phones. And so, clearly, I have questions. Firstly, how have they built a phone that's much thinner than their others? Secondly, why? Like, who's asking for these thin phones? What's the supposed benefit? And then finally, should you really consider buying it, or is this actually just a very pretty looking money trap?

PhotoCredit: Samsung.com

How Did Samsung Make the S25 Edge So Thin?

The how part of this equation is pretty simple. Samsung have made this phone so thin by taking their top-end Galaxy S25 Ultra and chopping things up. The Edge has two fewer cameras. There's no three-time zoom camera. There's no five-time zoom camera. And this whole laser autofocus thing over here, that's gone, too. And while the phone does still keep an ultrawide camera, that's been downgraded. So, instead of the 50-megapixel one on the Ultra, the Edge has 12. But that is not all. There's no S Pen baked inside like there is on the Ultra. The screen doesn't have that absolutely amazing anti-reflective coating that improves visibility.

The speakers—I was sitting there doing some blind testing and exactly as you'd expect given that there's less space inside the phone. The ones on the Edge have quite a bit less of a thump than the ones on the Ultra. All finished off by also a significantly smaller battery. 3,900 mAh on the Edge compared to 5,000 mAh.

PhotoCredit: samsung.com (Left: S25 Edge and Right: S25 Ultra)

Does Feature Cutting Make It Feel Better?

Now, if the question you're asking me is, has all of this feature cutting made the phone feel better in the hands? My answer would be, hell yeah. Picking this phone up was very reminiscent of my first time picking up a MacBook Air or one of the new iPads. 30% thinner and 25% lighter might not sound like transformative figures, but they absolutely feel like them. And I think it feels particularly good because unlike most light phones which achieve that lightness by using cheap plastic, this is light while still having that premium titanium construction and the top-end Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 on its screen.

It just feels cool that you can have this form factor while still having most modern luxuries like an ultra-bright almost borderless display, like all the AI shenanigans like Samsung's extremely good object eraser and generative AI editor.

The Strange Part: Price

Here is where it gets a little bit strange. While Samsung have managed to make this phone thinner by cutting all these features down, the one thing they haven't cut is the price. The S25 Edge is releasing at £1,099 here in the UK, which yes, is £150 cheaper than what the S25 Ultra launched at. But then if you look at what you can get the S25 Ultra for now, it's the same price, like exactly from Samsung. So what? You can either buy the phone with everything or you can buy the phone without everything and you pay the same.

Why Did Samsung Make the S25 Edge?

Which brings me to the why. Why then did Samsung make something that when you glance at the spec sheet looks like they lost a bet with the design intern? Well, here is why I think it's not a stupid idea. If you're a consumer and you got a high income, I don't think it's a crazy idea that you might want to spend £1,100 on a phone. It's like the single possession that you're going to be spending most of your spare time on for maybe the next 5 years.

But then previously, if you'd looked at Samsung's phone lineup before the Edge, you'd run into a bit of a block. Now, if you're not a particularly techy consumer, if you're not someone who's specifically looking for 100 times space zoom on your camera or this incredibly advanced smart pencil-like experience embedded within the phone, then you don't really have any incentive to spend more than the £850 that you would need to buy an S25 Plus. That might actually be the better phone for you than the Ultra because it's just slimmer and more compact.

And so I think the reason that the S25 Edge exists is to create an alternate path. You want to spend more, you don't really crave all the extra tech from going down the Ultra line. So this allows you to spend that extra on style instead.

What Does the S25 Edge Offer?

Now, it does have a few things in common with the Ultra, like it still has the same top-of-the-line 200-megapixel camera that only Samsung's Ultra phones have previously had. They have flattened the lens structure to keep it slim, which does seem to make the output slightly softer than that of the S25 Ultra. I took this photo like six times and every time it was slightly less good, but still better than what you would get on an S25 Plus.

Same for the ultra wide. While the quality isn't as good as the Ultra's, at least this ultrawide does still have autofocus like that one, which means you can also use it for close-up macro shots. This Ceramic 2 glass on the front is similar in strength to the Ultra and stronger than the Victus 2 glass that you get on pretty much any other Samsung phone.

And also shout out to this realtime visual AI feature which has come out since the S25's launch. The execution isn't perfect, but the concept of it is insane. So, you know how you can already do realtime chats with Gemini using Gemini Live? This is like that, but you can now also be on a video call with it, which means things like you can pick up a coffee maker, for example, and be like, "Is this where I put the beans?" And it will literally look at where your finger is pointing and say, "Yes, but you also need to buy a filter, I can send you a link to one if you want." It's really cool tech.

But broadly speaking, my point is that even though price-wise the Edge is closer to an Ultra, feature-wise, it's way closer to the Plus. Somewhat similar to what happens if you buy one of Samsung's Z flip phones. You're paying more than what you would be for one of Samsung's more traditional devices for an aesthetic, a vibe, as opposed to actually getting better tech.

Who Is the S25 Edge Really For?

And so, the way that I see this S25 Edge is it's giving people another option for expression if that's what they want, but doesn't involve a folding phone, which as we've seen is still a niche thing that not everyone wants. And to be honest, separate to whether or not I'm going to recommend this, we're getting there. I think this is smart. This idea of a thin premium flagship is something that I think we're about to see a lot of over the next couple of years. Apple's almost definitely about to do it later this year. Others will follow.

And I do think that there are plenty of customers out there who are going to find this exciting because while to you and I the idea of a thin phone might make us think, well, didn't we try that 10 years ago and didn't it like not work at all? Well, I think it's pretty safe to say that the tech community is going to be largely against thinness at all costs because of the durability concerns and the fact that you get well less of the tech.

There are still two things that I would consider in the S25 Edge's favor. A, that materials are a lot better now than they used to be. Like, this is going to be more delicate than a thicker phone, but it's going to be a lot less delicate than something like the iPhone 6 Plus from back in the day. And then B is just that if you're someone who cares a bit less about the tech in 2025, which feels more likely than ever before because the changes in the tech are becoming harder to notice, then you can so see how the option to buy a phone that's just straight up 30% thinner is actually going to feel like the way more noticeable change than even bigger camera sensors, even faster charging, even brighter screens, you know, the usual stuff that we might pay more attention to.

Should You Buy the S25 Edge?

So that's why I think Samsung's making it. But it's a very different question as to whether or not you should buy it. I would say this. I think it's completely fine to go for a cool phone at the cost of some functionality. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, we make decisions like this all the time with the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the bags we carry. You don't always have to spec optimize if something makes you happy.

Like, this is the kind of phone that I'd be looking at, and my first thought would be, "Oh, my mom, she'd love this." Something that's luxury in all the ways that she needs it to be while cutting out all the stuff that she either isn't going to know or isn't going to care about to also be able to have this showstopping thinness.

However, there are two things that would make me very nervous to recommend this. One is the great case dilemma. It's this really counterintuitive thing where if you're buying an ultra thin phone like this, then you'd probably want a proper hardbacked thick case more than ever. But then if you put a proper hardbacked thick case on, you're then defeating half the point of sacrificing all these features to have a thinner phone. Wouldn't it just be better at that point to go for a thicker phone that is stronger and more feature-rich and then have a thinner case?

And then the second even bigger issue really is the battery size. Because while I do think that chopping out pro features like telephoto cameras and S Pens is actually completely justified because there are so many people who just will not even touch them, I wouldn't put battery in that same category. I think the vast vast majority of people, no matter how techy they are, would benefit from a big battery. Like mom, if we're using that example, she has never once complained about camera quality with her last few phones. But she absolutely runs into battery issues. It's probably like the one single spec that unites us all.

And so the idea of paying that ultra premium price for a phone with a battery that's not even just average, but actually small by today's standards is not something that I would be rushing out to do. They do say it's all day battery, but generally with phone companies, what that actually means is don't think about it too much. If this was a more energy dense silicon carbon battery, this would be a different conversation. But it isn't. Which means I think it's likely within a few years of using this when the honeymoon phase of going for something suave has run dry and the battery has degraded that you might regret prioritizing thinness. That is if you haven't already snapped the thing by then.

Final Thoughts: And now, while I show you the camera in action, one thing that I've been massively appreciating about my own phone recently is the stark drop off in junk calls and spam emails. You get them because every freaking service nowadays from your supermarket to that Wi-Fi login at the weird back street cafe that you went to once wants you to create an account, fill in every detail about you to be able to reach you in as many ways as possible. And the more times that you hand that data out, the more likely it is that it's going to end up in the hands of bad actors.