One month later, the Galaxy S25 Edge is much better than I expected

For the past two years, a few choice phone makers have been competing for the crown of the world’s thinnest smartphone. Oppo and Honor have both traded the crown of the world’s thinnest foldable, but neither has taken the same approach to non-folding phones.

Instead, Samsung and Apple are expected to vie to be the world’s thinnest phone overall. Apple is rumored to launch the iPhone 17 Air in September, while Samsung first teased the Galaxy S25 Edge at Unpacked in January, before it was launched last month. Measuring 5.8mm thick at its thinnest point, the Galaxy S25 Edge is thicker than the best folding phones when they are unfolded, but remains the thinnest current smartphone otherwise. 

The Galaxy S25 Edge tries to solve many problems at once, while also skirting around the laws of physics and the amount of space for core components. The result is a mix of the Galaxy S25 experiences into a phone that’s thin, light, and a joy to use. I’ve spent a month with the Galaxy S25 Edge, here’s why it’s surprised me. 

A true flagship phone

The Galaxy S25 Edge faces the same challenges that any thin smartphone will: how to include as much of the core flagship experience as possible, without sacrificing too much in any single area. After using it for the past month, the Galaxy S25 Edge meets this standard in most ways, and does so more than I expected it to.

Looking at the specs list above, the Galaxy S25 Edge offers many of the same features as the rest of its namesake siblings. There’s the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy processor used across the entire range, as well as the same RAM and storage options as the Galaxy S25 Plus. 

The Galaxy S25 Edge has all the hallmarks of a true Samsung flagship phone, albeit with a few key caveats. However, after a month of using it, I’ve realized that these compromises ultimately mattered less to me than I had initially expected.

The biggest elephant in the room: the battery life

The biggest challenge facing every phone maker trying to make technology thinner is how to include a larger battery. 

Oppo and Honor achieved this by adopting Silicon Carbon battery technology, which allows for a significant increase in density, enabling the fitting of around 18% more battery capacity in the same physical space. Tecno is also expected to follow suit if the Spark Slim concept phone becomes a commercial product.

While the Galaxy S25 Edge would be the ideal candidate for Samsung to switch to Silicon Carbon battery technology, the company chose to stick with the tried-and-tested Lithium-Ion technology. As a result, the S25 Edge has a 3,900 mAh battery, which is 100 mAh less than the base Galaxy S25, and it comes with the same 25W charging and 15W charging as the rest of the lineup. 

Should the battery life be a concern in day-to-day usage? While your experiences will vary as your usage does, I’ve found that the Galaxy S25 Edge is just good enough for a full day’s usage with moderate to heavy usage. During my testing, the battery lasted up to 28 hours on a single charge, with around seven hours of screen-on-time. That’s the maximum I’ve experienced, but on days with particularly heavy camera usage or gaming, this can reduce by up to 40%.

The other key question: the dual camera setup

The Galaxy S25 Edge supposedly offers the same 200MP primary camera as the Galaxy S25 Ultra, but Samsung’s engineers reduced it in size by 18% to ensure it would fit in the S25 Edge. This is paired with the 12MP ultrawide camera found on the Galaxy S25 Plus, but there’s no telephoto lens.

In our Galaxy S25 Edge review, Andy Boxall observed that the Galaxy S25 Edge is a brilliant everyday camera phone with surprisingly few downsides to not having a telephoto lens. After a month of using it, this is a great way to consider the camera system as a whole; however, the lack of a telephoto lens will disappoint you if you are accustomed to zooming past 3x. 

If you don’t often zoom past 2x, then the 2x optical zoom — achieved through in-sensor cropping — is capable of handling your needs, but it loses detail and quality once you zoom to 4x and beyond. It also exhibits the same disappointing lack of sharpness as the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s camera.

I’ve enjoyed using the Galaxy S25 Edge camera over the past month. It’s better than the Galaxy S25 Plus overall, and it’s the ideal phone for people who want the 200MP primary camera, don’t mind the lack of telephoto, but crucially, don’t want the added heft of the rest of the Galaxy S25 series.

One month in, the Galaxy S25 Edge is better than I expected

I didn’t expect to like the Galaxy S25 Edge as much as I have. Despite some compromises in the specs sheet and the lack of a telephoto lens, the thin build of the Galaxy S25 Edge has me hooked. Holding is believing, and once you hold the Galaxy S25 Edge, those other concerns quickly melt away. 

At 5.8mm, it’s 1.5mm thinner than the Galaxy S25 Plus, yet it’s just as good a smartphone on paper. Once you hold it, it’ll also quickly discourage you from using other smartphones as well, especially as there are no other non-folding smartphones that feel as good.