Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge Vs S25 Ultra: How Do The Two Flagship Phones Compare?

With the brand new slim form Galaxy S25 Edge, Samsung is shaking up its flagship smartphone lineup for the first time in years. The company traditionally applies its Edge moniker to experimental devices, and while the S25 Edge isn't as bizarrely inventive as devices that bore the name before it, it's still a head-turner. Samsung has made thin devices in the past  — its Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra tablet is half a millimeter thinner than the S25 Edge — but this is its thinnest smartphone ever at 5.8 mm. Feature-wise, it sits somewhere between the S25+ and the ultra-premium Galaxy S25 Ultra.

It's not as if the S25 Ultra is some ungainly behemoth by mid-2020s standards. It's a large phone, but it has almost the same dimensions as the iPhone 16 Pro Max it's positioned against in the market. Nor is the S25 Edge a particularly petite device. It has roughly the same height and width as the Galaxy S25+ that sits in the middle of this year's Samsung lineup. In fact, the smallest of the lineup overall is the base model S25, at least before you factor in the Z axis. 

So, just how well does the S25 Edge stack up against its bigger brother? Considering how svelte it is, it retains more features than you'd expect, but it has to jettison a few things nonetheless. Even with downgrades to the battery and camera, the new handset still manages to pack the same flagship processor, titanium construction, and more into its razor-thin body.

Being the thinnest phone Samsung has ever made is the Galaxy S25 Edge's big selling point. Measuring just 5.8 mm thick and wrapped in titanium sides, it's certainly an engineering marvel. But when you stack the Galaxy S25 Edge up against its older brother, the 8.2 mm S25 Ultra, it's clear that the newer phone is sacrificing quite a bit of functionality to keep its slim figure.

Battery is where the S25 Edge takes the biggest hit. Since Samsung is sticking with lithium-ion batteries rather than adopting the newer silicon-carbon tech now showing up on some of the best phones outside the U.S., it was only able to pack a 3,900 mAh cell into the Edge. Compared to the 5,000 mAh battery on the Ultra, users can expect significantly reduced battery life. Charging up is slower on the Edge, too, at 25 watts on a wired connection compared to the 45 watts supported by the Ultra. On the other hand, both could use a boost to bring them more in line with other Android devices like the OnePlus 13 (6,000 mAh).

Shutterbugs may avoid the Edge, too, since it loses the telephoto camera from the Ultra and downgrades the bigger phone's 50-megapixel ultrawide to a more modest 12 megapixels. Thankfully, the excellent 200-megapixel main wide lens from the Ultra remains. Some smaller discrepancies for the Edge include a lack of the Ultra's widely-praised anti-reflective coating and S Pen stylus, though the best S Pen productivity features were already downgraded on the Ultra compared to last year.

Even with the aforementioned compromises, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge still manages to punch above its weight class. It carries the same, top-tier processor as the Galaxy S25 Ultra  — a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite — as well as the same glass and titanium construction. It has the same gorgeous display as the S25+. It's running the same, mostly excellent version of One UI 7, Samsung's latest Android skin. Ultimately, the deciding factor when choosing between these two premium Samsung smartphones will be your needs.

If you're the sort of person who settles for nothing less than the best in terms of specs, you'll probably balk at the smaller battery and missing camera. On the other hand, if you're willing to sacrifice some battery life and camera features for a phone that turns heads whenever it comes out of your pocket, the S25 Edge is certainly that device. Apple is tipped to set off a thin phone war, releasing a similarly snatched smartphone as part of the upcoming iPhone 17 lineup later this year.

It's unclear whether the S25 Edge was a preemptive strike to steal Apple's thunder, but none of this will matter if consumers don't actually want these devices. Apple discontinued the iPhone Mini after just two generations because almost nobody bought it. That brings us to the biggest S25 Edge bummer: the price. At $1,100 for the base model with just 256 gigabytes of storage, it's a hard sell. The Ultra will set you back another $200. For $100 less, the S25+ can be yours. Both phones have bigger batteries than the Edge, and both have an additional camera. So, how much is thinness worth to you?