Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Edge is finally here, and it’s every bit as thin as the company and several hands-on reviews said it was. There’s no doubt Samsung’s cooked up an impressive bit of engineering here, but it begs the question: is an ultra-thin smartphone really worth the hit to the S25 Series‘ already poor battery life? Instinct tells us no, but we’ll wait to get our hands on the thing before judging it too harshly.
Covered in titanium, the Galaxy S25 Edge promises to be the perfect blend of premium and ‘affordable’, bringing with it the same performance as the rest of its S25 siblings and, of course, Galaxy Intelligence. That all sounds marvellous – and it is – assuming you’re willing to put up with a weaker battery and a missing lens in exchange for all that extra portability.
Taking the Edge off
Samsung formally introduced the world to the Galaxy S25 Edge in the early hours of Tuesday morning, finally confirming the S25 Edge’s 5.8mm thin profile – 1.4mm thinner than that of the regular S25, and a whole 2.4mm thinner than the S25 Ultra. Samsung may have beaten Apple to the punch with a slim smartphone, but whether it’ll be able to take on Apple’s rumoured iPhone ‘Air’ rumours… remains to be seen.
You might’ve thought the ‘Edge’ moniker would refer to Samsung’s antiquated edgeless design, but you’d be wrong. The S25 Edge looks mightily similar to its Galaxy S25 brethren, pulling in with a flat display and a healthy coating of Corning Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2. You’d be forgiven for confusing the device until closer inspection, when the slim 5.8mm body becomes clear, or the two-shooter setup on the rear.
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Samsung’s thrown together what appears to be a decent 6.7in QHD+ AMOLED 120Hz display. Inside it all sits Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite ‘for Samsung’ chipset, just like you’d find in a regular S25. That’s accompanied by 12GB of RAM and a choice of 256GB or 512GB storage. If a terabyte of storage or more is a must, you’ll be sorry to hear the S25 Edge has left it out.
Where the S25 Edge stumbles hardest is its reliance on a 3,900mAh battery (and 25W wired charging) and only two lenses on the rear. Samsung sort of makes up for that last by including a 200MP shooter and a 12MP ultrawide that, with the help of Galaxy AI, should prove effective, while the front houses a 12MP selfie camera.
The only thing missing now is word on when the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge will make its way to South Africa, and what it’ll cost when it does. Samsung announced the device would go for $1,100 (∼R20,100) when it launches on 30 May in the States, meaning it’ll certainly cost a few thousand more by the time it hits shelves locally.
