Samsung has unveiled the Galaxy S25 Edge, marking its thinnest smartphone ever, albeit with a hefty price tag. Although the device shares many components with the flagship Galaxy S25 series, certain aspects may detract from the overall flagship experience.

The Galaxy S25 Edge's Most Significant Compromise: Battery Life

Samsung’s greatest feat with the Galaxy S25 Edge lies in its ability to house the same hardware as its mainstream flagship, the Galaxy S25 (including the screen, processor, memory, storage, and a superior primary camera), within a slimmer frame measuring just 5.8mm thick (compared to 7.3mm on the S25 ).

To put it simply, the Galaxy S25 Edge is approximately 20% thinner than the Galaxy S25 and roughly 29% thinner than the top-tier Galaxy S25 Ultra. However, this engineering marvel comes at a cost—not in terms of its actual retail price (which we’ll discuss shortly), but in the compromises made regarding battery life. Allow me to elaborate.

The Galaxy S25 Edge boasts the smallest battery in the lineup, which includes the standard Galaxy S25 (4,000 mAh), Galaxy S25 (4,900 mAh), and Galaxy S25 Ultra (5,000 mAh). How much of a difference does a mere 100 mAh deficit make?

According to Phone Arena, known for their extensive smartphone battery testing, the Galaxy S25 Edge lasts less than the basic Galaxy S25 between charges. While Samsung’s thinnest smartphone lasts six hours and 22 minutes, the base flagship provides seven hours and six minutes of backup.

That’s over 40 minutes, a substantial discrepancy that could determine whether your phone survives an entire workday without needing a charge, or whether it dies during an important call while you’re driving home, navigating to a weekend destination, or attempting to capture the perfect sunset photo before the battery runs out.

Compared to a phone of similar screen size—the Galaxy S25 —the S25 Edge offers about 15% less battery life. It’s worth noting that the disparity may not affect everyone equally; light users or individuals who use the S25 Edge as a secondary device might manage to go a full day without recharging. Nevertheless, for power users or avid gamers, the difference will be apparent—and, needless to say, frustrating.

In today’s world, where smartphones play an increasingly crucial role in daily communication, navigation, and entertainment, those 40 minutes can genuinely impact your convenience and peace of mind. We require devices that last longer, not ones that necessitate carrying power banks, adapters, and cables constantly.

I’m not implying that the S25 Edge performs poorly for its slim profile, but it would have garnered more attention had the phone maintained the battery life of a mainstream flagship while shaving off additional millimeters.

It’s not impossible; Chinese brands have already equipped their Android smartphones with 6,000 or 7,000 mAh batteries while keeping a side profile of 7 or 8mm, thanks to advancements in silicon-carbon batteries with higher energy density.

Perhaps Samsung is exercising caution with its batteries, but for now, I don’t see the Galaxy S25 Edge competing with mid-range phones, let alone mainstream flagships, in terms of battery life. Prioritizing form over functionality, particularly such a critical function, doesn’t seem like progress.

Still, if you’re willing to accept these trade-offs or already carry a power bank everywhere, this won’t concern you.

The S25 Edge Charges Slower Than the Standard S25

Typically, manufacturers compensate for weaker battery life by offering faster charging speeds, a trend we’ve observed on OnePlus flagships like the OnePlus 10 Pro and OnePlus 11, which were released four to five years ago.

These phones didn’t excel in battery endurance, but they compensated with exceptionally fast wired charging speeds. For example, the OnePlus 10 Pro featured a 5,000 mAh battery with 65W wired charging and 50W wireless charging, while the OnePlus 11 boosted charging speeds further to 80W.

Fast charging allows you to restore a significant portion of the battery in a fraction of the time. Even if my phone’s battery doesn’t last long, I can plug it in for 10 to 15 minutes and get enough juice to last until bedtime. With advancements in smartphone technology, we now have more efficient chipsets, larger batteries, and faster charging speeds.

However, the Galaxy S25 Edge falls short in all three areas: it features a power-efficient Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset based on TSMC’s second-generation 3nm fabrication technology. For a device priced over $1,000, the S25 Edge offers frustratingly slow charging speeds.

The Galaxy S25 Edge supports 25W wired and 15W wireless charging (and it is Qi2-ready like the rest of Samsung’s flagships). Yet, Samsung’s thinnest smartphone charges even slower than the Galaxy S25, which also supports 25W wired charging, according to Tom’s Guide. This makes the S25 Edge the slowest-charging model in the lineup.

In my view, the handset could have benefited from 45W wired charging, a feature already available on the S25 and S25 Ultra. Based on the official press release, the phone already incorporates a vapor chamber to regulate the motherboard’s temperature, indicating that thermal management shouldn’t pose a major obstacle for faster charging.

To sum up, the Galaxy S25 Edge ranks among the most premium (and costly) models in the lineup yet offers the slowest charging speed. If you decide to purchase the phone, you can mitigate the issue by charging it overnight.

Missing a Telephoto Zoom Lens Like Other S25 Models

The Galaxy S25 Edge occupies a unique niche, and Apple is reportedly set to join the ultra-thin flagship market with its rumored iPhone 17 Air. However, besides its smaller battery, there’s another area where these devices fall behind the regular, non-slim flagships: camera capabilities.

Generally, I advise people that a smartphone’s camera quality correlates directly with its price. You can find decent cameras in mid-range phones costing around $500 to $600 (such as the Pixel 9a), but around the $1,000 mark, you get top-tier hardware for professional smartphone photography.

I’m referring to larger sensors that capture better low-light images, multiple lenses offering diverse perspectives, high-resolution telephoto sensors providing impressive zoom ranges, and sophisticated computational photography algorithms handling challenging lighting conditions, preserving exceptional detail, and enabling features like manual video recording settings.

It’s praiseworthy that Samsung managed to fit the S25 Edge with the same 200MP HP2 primary sensor as the S25 Ultra by reducing the lens structure’s thickness by 18%, along with the 12MP (f/2.2, PDAF) ultrawide sensor capable of capturing macro shots. Early reviews indicate that the main camera performs similarly to the one on the Ultra, but the absence of a dedicated zoom lens is a significant oversight.

However, once you begin zooming in, the 200MP sensor should perform well up to 4x or possibly 10x, but beyond those levels, the lack of a dedicated telephoto lens becomes evident. The ultrawide sensor also lags behind the 50MP sensor on the S25 Ultra. While regular photos may appear similar, differences in detail become noticeable when cropping.

I’m not saying the cameras on the Galaxy S25 Edge are subpar, but they aren’t as versatile as those on the Galaxy S25 Ultra or other $1,000 premium handsets like the iPhone 16 Pro or Pixel 9 Pro.

Absence of an Anti-Reflective Display Coating

The first time I held a Galaxy S25 Ultra beside my iPhone 16, I was astounded by how the Samsung flagship’s screen exhibited far fewer reflections than the iPhone. Indoors, the Corning Gorilla Armor

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