Over the past two years, top smartphone brands have been battling for the title of the world’s thinnest smartphone. While Oppo and Honor have exchanged blows in the foldable phone category, neither has brought that same thinness race to traditional non-folding smartphones.
Now, the race is heating up between Samsung and Apple. Apple is rumored to launch the iPhone 17 Air in September, while Samsung teased the Galaxy S25 Edge at its Unpacked event back in January—officially launching it just last month. Measuring just 5.8mm at its thinnest point, the Galaxy S25 Edge might be thicker than unfolded foldables, but it’s currently the thinnest standard smartphone on the market.
The Galaxy S25 Edge aims to tackle several engineering challenges at once, balancing the constraints of ultra-thin design with the need for core smartphone components. The result is a device that’s slim, lightweight, and enjoyable to use, combining many of the highlights from the Galaxy S25 series. After using it for a full month, I’ve been genuinely surprised by how well it performs.
Like all ultra-thin devices, the Galaxy S25 Edge faces the usual challenge: how do you fit a full flagship smartphone experience into such a thin chassis without too many compromises? After a month of real-world usage, I can confidently say that it mostly succeeds—and more than I initially expected.
Looking at the spec sheet, the Galaxy S25 Edge comes equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, just like the rest of the S25 lineup. It also offers similar RAM and storage options to the Galaxy S25 Plus.
Despite a few trade-offs, the Galaxy S25 Edge still checks the boxes of a true Samsung flagship phone. And after weeks of use, I realized those compromises weren’t nearly as important as I once thought.
The biggest challenge for every smartphone manufacturer trying to make devices thinner is figuring out how to fit in a larger battery without compromising design.
Oppo and Honor tackled this issue by adopting Silicon Carbon battery technology, which allows for a significant increase in energy density—delivering up to 18% more battery capacity within the same physical dimensions. Tecno is also expected to embrace this innovation if its Spark Slim concept phone makes it to the market.
While the Galaxy S25 Edge would have been a perfect candidate for Samsung to transition to Silicon Carbon batteries, the company opted to stick with its well-established Lithium-Ion battery technology. As a result, the S25 Edge features a 3,900 mAh battery, which is 100 mAh smaller than the standard Galaxy S25. It retains the same 25W fast charging and 15W wireless charging seen in the rest of the lineup.
So, should battery life be a concern in everyday use? That depends on how you use your device. In my real-world testing, I found that the Galaxy S25 Edge battery performance was just enough to last a full day with moderate to heavy usage. The best I’ve managed was around 28 hours of use, including 7 hours of screen-on-time. On days filled with intense camera usage or mobile gaming, the battery life dropped by up to 40%.
The Galaxy S25 Edge camera system is also an impressive feature. It reportedly includes the same 200MP main sensor found on the Galaxy S25 Ultra, though Samsung engineers reduced its size by 18% to fit into the thinner frame. It’s paired with a 12MP ultra-wide lens (the same used in the Galaxy S25 Plus), but lacks a telephoto lens.
In our Galaxy S25 Edge review, Andy Boxall pointed out that it’s a fantastic daily camera phone, and surprisingly, the absence of a telephoto lens wasn’t a major drawback. After a month of hands-on use, I agree—it delivers strong results for most everyday photography needs. However, if you're someone who frequently zooms beyond 3x, the lack of a dedicated telephoto camera may leave you wanting more.
If you don’t regularly zoom beyond 2x, the 2x optical zoom—achieved through in-sensor cropping—will likely meet your needs. However, image quality noticeably drops at 4x zoom and above, with a clear loss of detail and sharpness. Unfortunately, this mirrors the same issue seen in the Galaxy S25 Ultra camera, which also struggles with clarity at higher zoom levels.
That said, I’ve genuinely enjoyed using the Galaxy S25 Edge camera over the past month. In many ways, it outperforms the Galaxy S25 Plus, especially for users who want the power of a 200MP primary sensor but are willing to live without a dedicated telephoto lens—and more importantly, want to avoid the bulk of larger flagship phones in the Galaxy lineup.
To be honest, I didn’t expect to like the Galaxy S25 Edge as much as I do. Despite some spec compromises and the lack of zoom versatility, the phone’s ultra-thin design has completely won me over. As the saying goes, holding is believing—and once you experience the lightweight and slim profile of the S25 Edge, you’ll find it hard to go back to thicker smartphones.
Measuring only 5.8mm in thickness, it’s a full 1.5mm thinner than the Galaxy S25 Plus, yet it still matches its performance on paper. Once you hold it, you’ll quickly understand why it’s unlike anything else currently available. Simply put, there’s no other non-folding smartphone that offers the same combination of power, portability, and premium feel as the Galaxy S25 Edge.
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