Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge in 2026: the thin flagship a year on

UPDATED · News · 15 Jun 2026 · Daniel Reid

When Samsung first showed me the Galaxy S25 Edge on 13 May 2025, the pitch was almost entirely about one number: 5.8mm. A year on, with the phone having been on UK shelves since 30 May 2025, that thinness is still the first thing anyone notices when they pick mine up — and it’s still the thing that decides whether this phone is for you. I’ve had long enough now to be honest about what that trade actually costs.

What Samsung actually built (Galaxy S25 Edge)

The Edge slotted into the 2025 range as the awkward middle child, sitting between the S25+ and the S25 Ultra on both price and spec. On paper it reads like a flagship and behaves like one: a 6.7-inch QHD+ AMOLED running at 120Hz, 12GB of RAM, and your choice of 256GB or 512GB of storage. The camera is led by a 200MP main sensor paired with a 12MP ultrawide, with a 12MP selfie camera up front.

So far, so Ultra-adjacent. But the headline figure — that 5.8mm thickness, making it the slimmest phone in the entire S25 family — is not a free win. It’s the whole story, and everything else on the spec sheet bends around it.

The two things you give up

To get a phone this thin, Samsung had to make space disappear, and space is exactly what a battery needs. The Edge ships with a 3,900mAh cell, noticeably smaller than the S25+ and the Ultra. After a year of daily use I can tell you that’s not marketing nuance — it’s the single most defining fact of living with this phone. It gets through a normal day, but a normal day only. The moment you lean on it — navigation, a long video call, a few hours of camera use — you’re reaching for a charger by early evening in a way you simply aren’t with the chunkier models in the line.

The second compromise is the camera system. The Edge does without the periscope telephoto that defines the Ultra. That 200MP main sensor is genuinely excellent in good light, and the digital crop is usable, but if you’re the kind of person who reaches for proper optical zoom — concerts, sport, wildlife, your kids on a stage forty feet away — this is the phone that will quietly let you down. A year on, that’s the limitation I notice most, more than the thinness ever delights me.

Does the price still make sense in 2026?

At launch the Edge arrived at £1,099 for the 256GB model and £1,199 for 512GB, after pre-orders opened on 12 May 2025. That is Ultra-money territory for a phone that, by design, is not the Ultra. And that’s the tension that hasn’t gone away in the year since: you are paying a flagship premium for a flagship body, not for the most capable flagship hardware.

The good news for anyone shopping now is that a 2025 flagship in 2026 is no longer a 2025 flagship price. The Edge has had a full year to settle, and second-hand and trade-in deals have done what they always do to last year’s halo phone. If the design is what you want, this is a far easier phone to recommend at a year-old price than it ever was at £1,099.

Who I’d point towards it — and who I’d steer away

Here’s my position after a year with it. The S25 Edge is for one specific person: someone who genuinely, viscerally cares about how a phone feels in the hand and the pocket, and who has a charging habit — a desk charger, a car charger, a power bank — that papers over the battery. For that person the Edge is a small daily pleasure, and I understand the appeal completely.

If that’s not you, I’d walk past it. A heavier user is better served by the S25+ for the battery alone, and a photographer who wants reach should spend the same money on the Ultra and its periscope. Buying the Edge because it’s the newest-feeling phone in the family, without being honest about how you’ll actually use it, is how you end up resenting a four-figure purchase by month three.

What would change my mind? A genuinely bigger battery in a future Edge, or fast enough charging to make the small cell a non-issue. Samsung proved with this phone that it can build something this thin without it feeling fragile or flimsy — that part is no longer in doubt. The engineering won the argument. Now it’s the practicality that needs to catch up, and until it does, the Edge remains a phone I admire far more than I’d actually buy.