Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge 48 Hours Later: Great Engineering, But Too Pricey

For the first time in close to a decade, Samsung has an extra S-series phone in addition to the annual main series. Launched earlier this week, the Galaxy S25 Edge is the thinnest flagship (or near flagship?) phone on the market right now, and the thinnest in many years.

Measuring only 5.8mm, the S25 Edge is 31% thinner than the South Korean tech giant’s highest-end phone, the S25 Ultra.

Samsung had to make some compromises to slim down, however. The S25 Edge offers only two cameras, omitting the dual-zoom lenses that make a key selling point of Samsung’s Ultra phone, and it has a much smaller battery of 3,900 mAh compared to 5,000 mAh.

I suppose a more apt comparison would be to compare the S25 Edge against Samsung’s non-Ultra S25 phones, but that’s also tricky because the S25 Edge maintains the 200-megapixel camera and titanium body of the Ultra, and it’s also priced like the Ultra.

Other than missing zoom lenses, the Edge does feature top tier flagship components everywhere else: WQHD+ Samsung AMOLED display that gets plenty bright, the newest and best silicon in the Android space (a slightly overclocked version of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite), and the aforementioned titanium body and main camera,

The 200-megapixel sensor had to be redesigned to fit in the slimmer chassis, but performance wise, after 48 hours, it appears to be every bit as good as the S25 Ultra, which means this is an excellent main camera that is among one of the best sensors on the market.

Because the 200-megapixel is so pixel-dense, the phone can do a credible 2X zoom shot using in-sensor cropping.

The Edge also gets all the latest Galaxy AI features in Samsung’s flagship phones, including the best-in-class generative AI photo editing. I covered the AI aspects in my review of the S25 Ultra, I suggest readers check that to learn more, because the software experience between the S25 Edge and the S25 Ultra are identical (excluding the stylus stuff).

Battery life is, as expected, not great. This is not a phone that can last an entire day for a heavy user such as myself. And Samsung’s charging speed, at 25W, is still quite slow compared to Chinese competition.

I think the S25 Edge has definite appeal in certain markets like the U.S. and Canada, where the market is limited (no Chinese brand sells in that region) and consumers (according to market research and the comment section of various tech sites) prefer slimmer, smaller phones. But in Asia, where consumers have a habit of pushing their phones through its paces more, the S25 Edge’s less-than-stellar battery life is going to be a rough sell, especially since we will soon see Chinese brand offers 7,000 mAh phones (in a thicker body, yes, but not twice as thick as the S25 Edge).

The S25 Edge does a lot of little things that make the phone great to use. I love One UI’s multi-tasking capabilities, the excellent AI features, clean interface, and now, a very comfortable in-hand feel.

But the problem is, I think the phone is priced too high. In Hong Kong, it starts at HK$8,400, and in the U.S., about $1,200. That’s almost the same price as the S25 Ultra, which has two more cameras, a stylus, and a larger battery?

I feel like the S25 Edge should be priced around $899 to $950, to set it below the Ultra in pricing. Because if the Edge and the Ultra are almost the same price, Samsung is essentially telling their consumers “a slimmer phone” is worth two zoom lenses, larger battery, and a stylus? I think most people would disagree. It’s not like the S25 Ultra is an unbearably thick or heavy phone.