After using the Galaxy S25 Edge, I have one word on the brain: ‘Frankenstein’

Since 2020, Samsung’s Galaxy S lineup has stayed incredibly consistent. Each year, we see a Galaxy S, Galaxy S Plus, and Galaxy S Ultra. This year, in the Galaxy S25 series that launched in February, we saw the same but also a tease for a new, ultra-thin model to come later on. Eventually, we found out the phone’s name: the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge. Today, I got to use that phone for the first time.

If you only care about the phone’s star feature, which is how svelte it is, let me assure you: this phone is hella thin. However, Samsung needed to make a ton of sacrifices to get it to be that way, and some of those sacrifices might be too difficult to stomach. There’s also the question of this phone’s identity amongst its Galaxy S25 siblings, which I can only summarize using the word “Frankenstein.”

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge is much thinner than any Galaxy S phone before it. If you ignore the camera bump, it’s just 5.8mm thick, which is about 2.4mm less than the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra (see them compared in the image above).

Notably, an unfolded Galaxy Z Fold 6 is thinner than this by 0.2mm, so this is far from the thinnest smartphone Samsung’s ever made. Regardless, 5.8mm is very, very thin for a non-foldable phone, and when I held it in my hand, I immediately felt the lack of heft. Additionally, because it’s so thin, it also weighs very little at 163g — not too far off from the Galaxy S25’s weight, despite this phone having similar dimensions to the Galaxy S25 Plus.

While using the Galaxy S25 Edge, I felt like I’d break it. I didn’t try, for obvious reasons, but I feel like I could have crushed it in my hand if I wanted. Meanwhile, holding the Galaxy S25 Ultra in one hand and the Edge in the other, the Ultra felt like a brick in comparison. It’s too early for me to fall on one side or the other, but I feel like a phone with a thickness between the two is what I’d want the most.

Anyway, outside of how thin and light the Galaxy S25 Edge is, the only other notable design element of the phone is the camera module. It looks very different from all other Galaxy S25 phones, and not just because it only has two lenses (which I’ll talk about more soon). The design aesthetic of the cameras on the other Galaxy S25 models is nowhere to be found, which is a truly bizarre decision.

As a refresher, Samsung designed the camera modules on the Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, and S25 Ultra phones to be aesthetically the same in an attempt to bring some brand cohesion to the line. It is truly puzzling that Samsung did this and then, just months later, launched another Galaxy S25 phone that does not have that aesthetic.

Regardless, the Galaxy S25 Edge is a Galaxy S phone through and through. It’s a lot skinnier and leaves behind the camera module design, but it brings over everything else, including flat sides, the same port placement, an unchanged button array on the right side, and even a note-for-note recreation of the Galaxy S25 Plus’ display (specs included). The only notable difference here is that the glass that covers the display is Corning Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2, and not the Gorilla Glass Armor 2 on the Galaxy S25 Ultra. The Ceramic version is just as strong as the Armor version, but it lacks Armor’s anti-reflective coating, which is very disappointing.

That’s a great way for me to segue into my Frankenstein analogy, so here we go.

OK, so Dr. Frankenstein created life by piecing together parts from dead people. He took an arm from this guy, a leg from that guy, and a brain from another, and threw them all together to make a creature. It’s alivveeee!

Samsung has done the same with the Galaxy S25 Edge. Although it looks a bit different from its siblings on the outside, there’s nothing new inside that you haven’t seen on the three other Galaxy S25 models.

From the vanilla Galaxy S25, Samsung took the battery and charging capabilities. The Galaxy S25 Edge charges at 25W with a cable and 15W wirelessly, just like the Galaxy S25. Notably, 25W is far slower than the Plus and Ultra, which both charge at 45W.

The battery in the Galaxy S25 Edge is actually even smaller than the one in the Galaxy S25, even though the phone is significantly larger with a higher resolution display. For the record, the Edge’s battery has a capacity of 3,900mAh, just shy of the 4,000mAh capacity of the Galaxy S25.

It’s too early to give battery life stats for the phone, but even Samsung has low expectations for it. During my briefing, the company told me the phone typically clocks in with longer battery life than the Galaxy S24 but less than the Galaxy S25. That’s…not a great look, Samsung.

It’s mind-boggling that the company went this route. When I heard that the Edge was incredibly thin, I thought for sure this was going to be Samsung’s first smartphone with a silicon-carbon battery, similar to the one seen in the OnePlus 13. That would make sense: a very thin phone with the same battery life as a “normal” phone, thanks to this new technology. Clearly, that’s not the case, though. I just don’t get it.

Moving on to the Galaxy S25 Plus, Samsung took its display, its 12GB of RAM, and its storage options (256GB and 512GB). Considering this phone also has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy under the hood, that makes the phone’s insides most comparable to the Plus model.

Finally, from the Galaxy S25 Ultra, the Edge took its cameras (but not all of them, which I’ll talk about in the next section), the titanium rails, and the colorways, including Titanium Silver, Titanium Icyblue, and Titanium Jetblack.

Because the Galaxy S25 Edge is so thin, it simply couldn’t accommodate the periscope telephoto lens we see on the Galaxy S25 Ultra. Samsung electing to not transfer that to the Edge makes sense. However, Samsung also neglected to bring the other telephoto lens over to the Edge, leaving it a telephoto-free phone.

That means you get three lenses in the Edge ported over from the Ultra: the 200MP primary, the 12MP ultrawide, and the 12MP selfie camera. Samsung told me that the vast majority of its users shoot photos in one of four magnifications: 0.6x, 1x, 2x, and 5x. Based on this internal data, the company reasoned that the 200MP primary sensor can handle three of those magnifications through digital cropping, with the 0.6x setting falling to the ultrawide.

Of course, Samsung also talked about how Galaxy AI camera features will pick up the slack for any quality deficiencies. The Galaxy S25 Edge has all the Galaxy AI features of the other three Galaxy S25 phones, which means all the nifty camera tricks, too.

While this reasoning seems sound, a phone that costs this much should come with at least one telephoto lens. The fact that it doesn’t will make it difficult to compete with most other phones on the market that fall at this price point, including Samsung’s own Galaxy S25 Plus.

Another thing I discovered during my limited time with the device is that Samsung limits its zoom capabilities to 10x. This makes sense — without a telephoto, going further than this is going to push the 200MP primary sensor well beyond its limits — but it is interesting to see Samsung move backwards like this after touting its 100x zoom capabilities on the Ultra models for so many years. Even the Galaxy S25 and S25 Plus can go to 30x, and their telephoto lenses are showing their age.

Finally, the Galaxy S25 Edge has one ace up its sleeve that no other Galaxy S25 phone has, which is Log video recording through the selfie camera. The Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, and even the S25 Ultra can’t do this. I asked Samsung if it would push Log support for selfie video to the other phones, and it said, “Maybe.”

There’s no way to sugarcoat this, so here we go: the 256GB version of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge has an MSRP of $1,099. That makes it more expensive than the Galaxy S25 Plus. The 512GB version of the Edge hits $1,219, which is just $80 shy of the 256GB version of the Ultra.

For the life of me, I can’t understand how Samsung thinks this will work in its favor. A phone that has a few of the Galaxy S25 Ultra cameras, most of the specs of the Plus, but with a battery that is smaller than the S25’s and charges just as slowly, should not cost over $1,000. But, here we are.

This becomes even more confounding when you realize that the other three phones in the lineup have already come down in price. Right now, it’s easy to find the Galaxy S25 Plus ($999.99 at Amazon) for under $850. It’s also easy to find the Galaxy S25 Ultra ($1299.99 at Amazon) for under $1,000. It will be months before the Edge drops below its $1,099 price, so who would choose this over either of those, considering the compromises?

This doesn’t even take into account other phones that don’t have the Samsung logo on the back. The Google Pixel 9 Pro XL ($1099 at Amazon) — a phone that mops the floor with the S25 Edge by nearly every metric, except for thinness and weight — has a matching MSRP of $1,099. That phone is even older than the Galaxy S25 series, so finding it in the ~$800 range is easy, too.

There’s also the aforementioned OnePlus 13 ($899.99 at OnePlus), which has an even lower MSRP of $899. That comes with the silicon-carbon battery technology the Edge should have come with, and has all the other bells and whistles of a 2025 flagship smartphone.

I just don’t get what Samsung is trying to do here.

The thing I keep coming back to again and again here is “Why?” Why did Samsung decide to Frankenstein this phone together at this price? Was it to prove that it could make a phone this thin? That would be a valid enough reason, for sure, but that’s not a valid reason for people to buy it.

What’s so disappointing is that there is a pricing gap between the Galaxy S25 Plus and the Galaxy S25 Ultra that Samsung should fill with something. Last year, I imagined this as a “Samsung Galaxy S25 Pro,” which Frankensteined the best features from the Plus and the Ultra, removed the S Pen, and cut down on a few premium specs and features to keep the Ultra at the top. Not every Samsung fan agreed with my take there, but I feel like even naysayers would agree that the Galaxy S25 Edge is not it, either.

I realize that similar things were probably said about Samsung’s original foldable phones. People lambasted those devices for lacking flagship-level specs just to get a device that folds. The difference, though, is that there was a new, extremely novel technology involved there. With this, there’s…thinness. That’s it. I don’t think that’s enough.

I want to close this out by saying I haven’t used this phone long enough to say whether it’s good or not. We’ll have a full review of the phone soon, and we’ll find out just how much its 5.8mm thickness changes things and whether or not a $1,100 phone can compete without a telephoto lens. But simply from a practical standpoint of examining the ratio between specs and value, the Galaxy S25 Edge seems like it’s already lost.

What do you think? Is this the phone you would have Frankensteined together, if you’d had the opportunity? Let me know in the comments!