I've done the math, and the results are in — the Samsung Bespoke Jet AI Ultra is a 5-star vacuum cleaner
I'm not going to lead you on: the Samsung Bespoke Jet AI Ultra is the best vacuum cleaner in the world. Certainly it's the best one I've ever tested or used. I adore everything about this vacuum cleaner, from its super-powerful cleaning capabilities to its sleek design.
Samsung makes a range of Jet vacuums, including the Bespoke Jet robot vacuum and the Jet Pet. However, the Bespoke Jet AI Ultra is the best-of-the-best, top-of-the-range vacuum. After announcing it in March 2025, the vacuum was officially released in April 2025. It brings me great joy to announce that Samsung's claim of 'the most powerful vacuum in the world' is, in fact, 100% true.
So, if it's so good, why bother reading the rest of the review? Well, I'll get into all the cleaning details and smart home features in this Samsung Bespoke Jet AI Ultra vacuum cleaner review.
Price
$1,099 / £1,199
Bin volume
Vacuum: 16 ounces / Charging station: 70 ounces
Max runtime
60 min / 100 min
Battery charging time
210 min / 300 min
Included batteries
2: 60 min / 100 min
No. of tools
5 plus tool stand
Filters
HEPA
Dimensions
11.8 x 33.5 x 11.8 inches
Weight
14.1 pounds
Bagged or bagless
Bagless (vacuum), bagged (charging station)
The Samsung Bespoke Jet AI Ultra (say that 10 times) is $1,099 from Amazon U.S. and £1,199 from Samsung U.K.. It doesn't seem to be available on Amazon U.K. yet.
This makes it one of the priciest vacuum cleaners I've ever seen, but that's for a valid reason. Sometimes good things are expensive. The Bespoke Jet AI (as I will now refer to the vacuum to save my fingers) self-cleans, it has Wi-Fi and smart home compatibility, and it's really good at cleaning. I see no issue with the price.
The Dyson Gen5Detect I use is $949, but has no cleaning station or app control. If you want to save $$$ but still get a decent vacuum, I'd recommend the Shark Clean & Empty, which is just $349.
Where the Samsung Bespoke Jet AI vacuum excels is its design. It's super unique, and definitely one of the most intelligently designed vacuums I've ever reviewed.
The Bespoke Jet AI is a mix between a cordless stick vacuum and a robot vacuum: it has a stick vacuum and a cleaning station. This cleaning station automatically empties the vacuum dustbin when you place the vacuum on top. But, be warned — it's not magnetic, nor does it click into place. One jiggle and the vacuum might fall right off.
The Bespoke Jet AI comes in black or mint. I tested mint, which would have been my choice had I been purchasing this vacuum for myself. The cleaning station is quite big, so make sure you choose the color that will look best in your space.
The vacuum itself has five tools and a tool stand. This tool stand looks like an old iron fire tool stand, but is made from a thin plastic. Considering how well-made the vacuum cleaner itself is, I was a little disappointed to feel that the tool stand is flimsy. However, it still held my tools adequately, so this weaker construction didn't negatively affect usability.
The tools are: pet tool (great for hair), active dual brush (general), slim LED (hard floors), and then handheld crevice tools and a flex tool for hard-to-reach places. The pet tool is absolutely phenomenal at cleaning up ground-in hair, which I'll discuss in full later. Even though the slim LED is intended for hard floors only, I found it worked really well on my low pile carpet. Finally, the active dual brush is the ideal all rounder: it was able to clean my low pile carpets and hard floors instantly.
As the vacuum easily converts into a handheld, I found it super versatile for cleaning my entire house. I could clean the carpeted areas and hard floors without needing to switch brush. I could reach into the crevices beside my fridge and under cupboards easily.
On the vacuum handle itself is a bright screen that shows you battery time, current cleaning power, and allows you to control cleaning mode. I found this screen very easy to use and helpful. It'll alert you if there are any blockages, or if it's powered up to a more intense cleaning mode.
I'm a little disillusioned with smart home at the moment (what do you mean, I need to download an app to use my hair dryer?), but the Bespoke Jet vacuum is perfect for smart home aficionados. As with other Samsung gear, it links up with the Smart Things app. I already have a Samsung washing machine, so watching my virtual house grow when I added this vacuum was pretty cute, I can't lie.
Setting up the vacuum was easy: simply scan the QR code and you're good to go. I named my vacuum cleaner (following the silly nomenclature trend of my washing machine's moniker 'Mayor Spinny') and was good to go.
Smart Things is basically an easily-accessible control panel: no fiddling with tiny buttons on the vacuum itself (even though my experience with controls on the screen was fine). Here are a few screenshots of the Smart Things capabilities.
As you can see, there's not really too much you can do on the Smart Things app. This could be because I have an iPhone, or it could be because, well, it's a vacuum. Even so, I like being able to remote control emptying the dustbin.
Bizarrely, if you have a Samsung cellphone, you can receive calls to the vacuum cleaner. As I have an iPhone, this feature was a little beyond me, but I suppose it's… nice to have if you like receiving calls on your vacuum?
Samsung has some bold claims about this vacuum: it's 'the world's most powerful stick vacuum'. And honestly? I believe it. There's a reason you see a 5-star rating above.
The Bespoke Jet AI has an RPM of 148,000, compared to the Dyson Gen5Detect's 135,000 and the Dyson V15s's 125,000 RPM. The Bespoke Jet AI has something called a 'HexaJet Motor', which effectively means the vacuum can reach powers of up to 400W during cleaning. In reality? This translates to 100% clean floors almost instantly.
On top of using this vacuum as my main vacuum for over a week, I ran through Tom's Guide's standardized tests too.
To test the Bespoke Jet AI's ability to clean on carpet, I used hair, cat litter, and Cheerios on my medium-pile rug. For the hair, I used the Pet Tool, and for the other two I used the standard Active Dual Brush.
Item
Target clean
Actual clean
Cat litter
20g
100%
Cheerios
20g
100%
Hair
One hair extension
100%
As you can see from these results, the Samsung Bespoke Jet AI Ultra utterly demolished these tasks. The Cheerios took just one pass to be completely cleaned up. I was shook. The hair took a few slow passes with the Pet Tool, but I had really ground the hair into the carpet.
This table below is the result of our cleaning tests repeated on hard floors rather than a thick pile carpet.
Item
Target clean
Actual clean
Cat litter
20g
100%
Cheerios
20g
100%
Hair
One hair extension
100%
Again, the Bespoke Jet AI Ultra made light work of these tasks. As with above, I used the Pet Tool for the hair and the Active Dual Brush for the other two.
I use DecibelX to monitor volume. On AI mode (standard mode, basically), the Bespoke Jet AI ran at an average of 71dB, and topped out at 84dB in 'Jet' mode. This is 1dB quieter than the Dyson Gen5Detect's max mode, and a faster RPM, so in actuality this means it's a considerable degree quieter than the Dyson.
One of my favorite aspects of the Bespoke Jet AI is that it comes with two batteries. One battery has a max runtime of 100 minutes, and the other is 60 minutes. As with other vacuums, these 'max runtimes' are calculated in the lowest power mode. From fully charged, this is what the screen displayed as battery runtime.
Power
60 minute battery
Min
42
AI
24
Mid
24
Max
13
Jet
14
I've not tested any vacuums that come with two batteries before. The Dyson V15s tops out at 60 minutes, the Dyson Gen5Detect 70 minutes, which puts the Bespoke Jet AI Ultra in pole position here.
As the Bespoke Jet AI is a self-emptying vacuum, there's very little day-to-day maintenance required. Obviously you need to empty the cleaning station dustbin, but this holds 70 ounces so that will be a rare occurrence. Samsung provides 3 cleaning station bags in the Bespoke Jet AI box. Once these run out, Samsung sells 5 bags for $39.
It will depend on the size of your house, but I didn't get anywhere close needing to empty the cleaning station bag during my 10-day testing.
As I only had this vacuum on a loan (whereas usually I get to keep vacuums for long-term testing, so I can say for certain that they hold up over time), I had to clean the vacuum and tools thoroughly before returning to Samsung. I can report that while removing the hair extensions from the pet tool was laborious, it was relatively straightforward to clean.
For those purchasing the Bespoke Jet AI for personal use, Samsung offers a 5-year warranty on the vacuum cleaner itself and a 2-year warranty on the batteries. You can purchase additional Jet AI batteries for a cringe-inducing $200.
Even though it's expensive, sometimes good things just are expensive. And for once, I don't mind that the Samsung Bespoke Jet AI Ultra is over $1,000. The vacuum cleaner earns its price: it has a massive 100 minute battery (alongside a 60 minute battery too), it's the most powerful vacuum I've ever used, and does all of that while being super lightweight too.
I have nothing bad to say about the Bespoke Jet AI Ultra. I was scratching my head trying to think of cons, and nothing came to me. I loved everything about this vacuum during testing. It sucked up hair, cereal, cat litter, and everyday mess with ease, and made light work of both thick carpets and hardwood floors.
If I could keep one vacuum forever, it would be the Bespoke Jet AI Ultra. The results are in: this is the best vacuum in the world.
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9 hours ago
- Android Authority
If ultra-thin phones are the future, I hope they learn from the Galaxy S25 Edge's biggest mistakes
Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge If it were enough for a phone to be thin and light, the Galaxy S25 Edge would be a winner. In fact, it's a design marvel from top to bottom. However, the innovative design comes with battery limitations, inflexible cameras, and struggles to sustain performance, making this a phone that can't keep up with its own engine. It looks incredible and it'll wow your friends, but you're the one that'll be stuck dealing with the annoyances when the novelty factor fades. There's something to be said for throwing an idea at the wall and seeing if it sticks. Sometimes, it gives us something brilliant, like HTC introducing dual camera setups to the world or Samsung resurrecting the foldable phone. Other times, like with the LG Wing, it leaves us scratching our heads, wondering how an idea ever grew the wings it needed to fly — pun intended. So, when Samsung teased the Galaxy S25 Edge at the end of its first Unpacked event of 2025, I figured it could go one of two ways: we could have a new standard for ultra-slim smartphones on our hands, or we could have a one-off design that reminds us why innovation isn't always progress. Unfortunately, I think this is a case of the latter, and here's why. It's a design marvel… Ryan Haines / Android Authority Don't get me wrong — the Galaxy S25 Edge looks impressive. It even feels impressive. Every time I pick it up, I'm in awe of how Samsung managed to make something with such a large display so thin and feel so light. Whenever I hand it off to a friend, they seem to heft it once in their hands before immediately pulling out their iPhone for a side-by-side comparison. Every time, the Galaxy S25 Edge is thinner and lighter, at least for its size. That's what's most exciting about the Galaxy S25 Edge: Every time someone holds it, you get to see the look of surprise on their face. It's the Galaxy S25 Edge's entire bit — at just 5.8mm thick from top to bottom, it's probably the thinnest device most people have held in a long time, unless they're dedicated iPad Pro users. And yes, there's a bit more of a bump around the cameras, because there's no way a 200MP primary sensor would fit directly into the body, but it certainly doesn't break the illusion of top-to-bottom thinness. Seeing my friends' faces as they hold a phone this thin and light is almost worth the price of admission... almost. However, it also takes just a few seconds of holding the Galaxy S25 Edge for the questions to start rolling in. I've been peppered with everything from 'How do you hold it comfortably?' to 'Do you think you could bend it?' to 'Why are you using it without a case?' Honestly, the answers to all three of those questions are pretty much the same — you just have to trust Samsung a little bit. It decked out the Galaxy S25 Edge in its best materials, sandwiching a titanium frame between Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 on the front and Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the back. If you find a way to bend it in your pocket or your backpack, then you're probably going to destroy a thicker, less expensive phone, too. Of course, that level of faith in the top-tier materials doesn't make the Galaxy S25 Edge any more comfortable to hold. It feels like picking up a vinyl record to put it on your turntable, by which I mean you hold it so carefully by the frame because you're worried about smudging the front by accident. I know I'm not going to damage the 6.7-inch AMOLED by touching it — it's a phone, it's meant to be touched — but I'm more worried about accidentally opening an app, pressing on my home screen to edit the layout, or launching Circle to Search via the gesture pill, because all three of those things have happened thanks to my stocky little fingers. Oh, and I simply refuse to use the Galaxy S25 Edge with a case, because that would essentially make it as thick as any other phone, which I would also prefer to use caseless. You could argue that it's better to have a protected thin phone that's only as thick as an unprotected regular phone, but I still think it defeats the point of buying the Edge. Besides, the phone is already IP68 protected, so I shouldn't have a problem letting it stand up to the elements while the glass and titanium defend it in case I take a tumble. Unfortunately, to go back to that vinyl record metaphor I used, that's my biggest problem with the Galaxy S25 Edge. Even though I know it's durable, just like I know that lightly touching a vinyl record won't cause irreparable harm, I can't bring myself to use it like I would another phone. I'm still determined to treat it like a work of art that's to be handled as if it were about to break, and that makes me not want to use it at all. I'm too nervous to simply toss it in a backpack or leave it on the couch when I dash out for a couple of morning miles, all because I'm not sure what would happen if I were a little too rough. Ryan Haines / Android Authority Even worse, by treating the Galaxy S25 Edge with such care, I feel like I'm depriving myself of one of Samsung's best features: its excellent display. The Galaxy S25 Edge packs a nearly identical 6.7-inch LTPO AMOLED panel to the one on the Galaxy S25 Plus, right down to the variable 120Hz refresh rate. We loved the display on that phone (even though the phone itself was a bit of a meh-burger), and it's just as good this time, too. The colors are rich and vibrant, the refresh rate is buttery smooth, and the nearly nonexistent bezels make the Edge feel like all content, all the time. It was the perfect display for checking the finales of Andor and The Last of Us off my list, and I propped it up next to my laptop to watch Chelsea lift the UEFA Conference League trophy, completing world football before Arsenal has won any European silverware (whoops, sorry, stream of consciousness there… moving on). One thing I didn't expect from the Galaxy S25 Edge's display, though, is just how dim it can get. Sure, it's fun to brag about peak brightness, and reaching 2,600 nits in bright sunlight is great, but I wasn't expecting Samsung's ultra-thin flagship to go the other way, too. While testing the camera, I watched the phone overrule me, kicking into the most extreme form of battery saver and dropping the panel to what I can only guess was one nit. At the time, I was annoyed, as it was a bright, sunny day, so I could no longer see the camera interface itself, but I've since come around to the idea that it was doing everything possible to stretch its battery just a little bit further. …with performance pitfalls… Ryan Haines / Android Authority Although most of the questions I've fielded about the Galaxy S25 Edge have been about its eye-catching, barely there design, one more comes up just as often: Does its performance keep up? After all, with such a slim body, there's only so much room for cooling technology and to fit a battery, so something has to give, right? Unfortunately, yes. Before we talk about shortcomings, though, we should touch on the Edge's chipset and storage combos — they do everything they can to set the phone up for success. It picks up where its siblings left off, pairing a Snapdragon 8 Elite processor with 12GB of RAM and up to 512GB of fixed storage. That's more than good enough for day-to-day tasks, and sets the Galaxy S25 Edge up to make a solid run at our gauntlet of benchmarks. At first, the Edge's performance backed up exactly what I thought it would. My colleague Rob Triggs and I put it up against its fellow Galaxy S25 models across our pair of CPU-intensive tests, and it hung right with its counterparts. It only came up shy of the Galaxy S25 Ultra in single-core Geekbench 6 performance, and barely edged the crowd on the more comprehensive PCMark Work test. Unfortunately, as Rob noted in his head-to-head… -to-head-to-head comparison, that's where the good news runs out. When we flipped our testing to the more graphically intensive Wild Life stress tests, the Galaxy S25 Edge was quick to throw in the towel. Both times, it started out running like an Olympic sprinter, only to drop below even the smallest Galaxy S25 model by the fourth or fifth run. At its worst, the Edge scored about 8.5% slower than the Galaxy S25 and a painful 24.8% behind the Galaxy S25 Ultra — no small margin when spending over $1,100 on a new phone. It's pretty straightforward to figure out why the Galaxy S25 Edge stumbles when it does, though: Its thermal regulation isn't there. It peaks at the same internal temperature as Samsung's other flagships, but when it hits that temperature, it has to throttle its performance much harder to compensate for the condensed cooling setup. Unfortunately, that means cutting its performance in half by the end of our testing — something we haven't seen since the Galaxy Z Flip 6 with its equally tricky cooling setup. The Edge has trouble keeping up with non-Samsung devices, too. We've already established that it starts sky-high, just about matching the OnePlus 13's peak despite the latter having a massive cooling chamber, before dropping much closer to the performance of the iPhone 16 Pro Max and Pixel 9 Pro XL just a few runs later. It's not bad company to keep — both Apple and Google make great flagships — but you get more out of both in terms of battery life and camera flexibility to make up for whatever performance woes pop up. The Galaxy S25 Edge has no such luck. Oh, and the Galaxy S24 FE puts up similar final numbers despite costing nearly $500 less. Now, this is where you might hope I'll swoop in and say the Galaxy S25 Edge's day-to-day performance is different from its controlled benchmarks. It's not. The phone runs fine under casual load but stumbles when you ask it to work a little harder. The Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset heats up, the battery drops like a stone, and you start to get battery anxiety in a hurry. I can make do if I'm just walking around my neighborhood, listening to Spotify and scrolling social media, but when I was home for Memorial Day Weekend, I decided to work the Edge a bit harder. I took it for the photo walk I mentioned in the design section above, and it showed me just where its weaknesses lie. C. Scott Brown / Android Authority When I started my trip around town, the phone was at a comfortable 25% charge — perfectly reasonable, and no battery saver was needed yet. I put my trusty CMF Buds Pro 2 in my ears and fired up my daylist while looking for interesting scenes worth shooting. After about 20 minutes in the sun, opening and closing the camera as needed, the battery dropped to a mere 3%, and the titanium frame felt uncomfortably warm in my hand. This is when Samsung hacked its brightness down to just one nit, marking the end of my adventure because I couldn't see the screen any longer. Of course, I wasn't in an emergency, so I just shrugged and went back to my parents' house to look for a charger. However, that poor battery return has stuck with me to the point where I'm not sure I'd leave home with anything less than a 30% charge and expect to have any juice left by the time I get back. The Galaxy S25 Edge is great in short bursts, but like a sprinter, it runs out of energy in a hurry. Then again, I can't imagine that many people will be using the last 20% of their phone's battery to take photos of the place where they grew up, but I prefer to think of it as a warning. The stakes were very low for me, but if you were out on a hike and got lost or got into a car accident and needed to call for help, I'm worried that you wouldn't be able to trust the Galaxy S25 Edge like you could another phone. And, if you can't trust your phone when you need it most, you're probably not going to have that phone for very long. Granted, the Galaxy S25 Edge is much more reliable for casual workloads. It soared through the last few episodes of some of my favorite shows, as mentioned above, and it's been perfectly happy to load up Pokémon TCG Pocket while I waste time opening pack after pack looking for a few more shinies. More graphically intensive titles like Call of Duty Mobile and even Warhammer 40,000 Tacticus would probably turn the Galaxy S25 Edge into a small neutron star, though — either that, or it would throttle to the point where they became unplayable. And, since I've opened the door of complaining about the Galaxy S25 Edge's tiny battery, let's stay a while. Personally, I think this is the biggest thing that would make me nervous about keeping and using this phone in the long term. Due to size constraints, Samsung could only fit its flagship with a 3,900mAh battery, making it smaller than the cell inside the base Galaxy S25. Had Samsung adopted a silicon-carbon battery, it probably could have bumped that capacity by a few hundred milliamp-hours, much like OnePlus did with the OnePlus 13, but it didn't. It settled for less, and our controlled battery drain test shows why that was probably a bad idea. On the left side, we have the Edge's performance against its fellow Samsung models, discounting the Galaxy S25 Ultra to keep the graph legible. Across four of the first five categories, the ultra-slim Galaxy S25 Edge comes up short. Sure, it ties the Exynos-toting Galaxy S24 on a simulated Zoom call, and it's right in the mix for camera performance, but everywhere else, it's hovering around fifth place out of five. It, of course, has the fifth-largest battery out of the five, so there's not much for the Galaxy S25 Edge to hang its hat on here. The problems get worse on the right side when we put the Edge up against similarly priced competition, including the beefed-up Motorola Razr Ultra and the iPhone 16 Pro. Yes, the Edge generally stays ahead of its iOS-powered rival, but it falls far behind the other three Snapdragon 8 Elite flagships, stopping hundreds of minutes short of the rest in terms of 4K video playback, web browsing, and even a simulated Zoom call. Mix in the fact that the rest of these phones have much larger batteries for not much more money (or sometimes less), and it becomes tough to reach for the Galaxy S25 Edge. Ryan Haines / Android Authority Swapping over to charging, the Galaxy S25 Edge once again takes after Samsung's smallest flagship. It packs the same 25W wired and 15W wireless charging options as the base Galaxy S25, ignoring that Samsung's more expensive options bump the rate to 45W with a compatible USB PD PPS block. This strict limitation means that although it has the smallest battery of the phones I compared it to on the right side, it charges second-slowest, only finishing faster than Apple's turtle-esque iPhone 16 Pro. And yes, I'll admit that it's probably unnecessary to complain about a phone that can fill its battery in just about an hour, but when options like the Razr Ultra and OnePlus 13 can fill their much larger cells in as little as half the time, I'm going to pick them whenever I get the chance. …and inflexible cameras… Ryan Haines / Android Authority While I can understand Samsung stripping back the battery capacity on its slimmest flagship to date, it's tougher for me to understand a few other limitations, including the dual camera setup. Yes, for the first time since the Galaxy S10e (which cost a fraction of what the Galaxy S25 Edge does), we have a flagship Samsung phone with only two rear cameras. Granted, the primary camera is an absolute beast — the same 200MP sensor from the Galaxy S25 Ultra — but it feels like Samsung has given up one of the things I've always trusted to keep it among the best camera phones you can buy. To me, when you pick up a traditional Samsung flagship, you expect a pretty flexible triple camera setup. You expect a solid primary camera, a telephoto sensor set to 3x optical zoom, and an ultrawide sensor that rounds things out. That's not the case with the Edge. It's content to pair its Ultra-tier primary sensor with a Plus-tier 12MP ultrawide shooter, creating a camera duo that's equally excellent and just kind of everyday average. It could have pulled over the 50MP ultrawide sensor from the Galaxy S25 Ultra, giving the Edge more megapixels and cropping ability than it could know what to do with, but instead went the more pedestrian route while stripping most of the zoom capability. There are plenty of megapixels here, I'm just not sure they're in the right place. Of course, I can only imagine that Samsung decided to axe the telephoto sensor in order to limit the size of its camera bump, thus keeping the Edge, well, edgy. Engineers probably already took exception because the bump is just as thick as the rest of the phone, and maybe they put their foot down at the extra space the hardware would have required. Unfortunately, that means the zoom on the Galaxy S25 Edge is all digital and tops out at just 10x zoom — the same as an iPhone 16 or a base Pixel 9. You could technically get creative and shoot full 200MP images from the primary camera only to crop them in tighter afterwards, but otherwise, there's no way to push the default interface further. In practice, that makes the Galaxy S25 Edge feel like a Fiat with the engine of a Ferrari — you know it could probably do more, it just won't. Let's get to some camera samples, and you'll see what I mean. 4x zoom 2x zoom I don't have too many issues with any of the shots I picked for this first row — they show the Galaxy S25 Edge's strengths pretty nicely. The subjects in all four samples are clean and sharp, with pleasant natural fall-off behind the sign in my hometown and good shadows below the rail car to the far right side. If I had to pick out a hiccup from the bunch, it would be that Samsung's heavily saturated red and green color profile is back with a vengeance. I know it was a sunny day, but the caboose that sits in the park in my hometown hasn't been that red for a few years, nor is the grass usually quite so lively at this point in the spring. Also, for being a mostly digital crop, the shot of the blue crab holds pretty solid detail. Focus Enhancer Portrait Mode Portrait Mode Moving on, Samsung's dedicated portrait mode is just as reliable as its natural bokeh, if a bit sharper. I like that it was able to pick out the entire lion sculpture against the white fence, as I've had other experiences where a phone will isolate the lion's head and then call it a day. The massive 200MP sensor had no troubles with the slightly lower lighting conditions in the shot to the right, either. It correctly exposed the ice cream sign while keeping accurate shadows in the doorway and on the ivy-coated building in the background. The macro-like shot of the succulent on the left-hand side brought one of Samsung's other quirks to my attention, which is the way it handles Focus Enhancer in close-ups. Now, I didn't think to snap two shots of the first succulent, so I went back out to find a hydrangea on my street back home in Baltimore. I grabbed two photos — one with Focus Enhance active and one with it turned off. After a glance between the two, I think I'll be turning Focus Enhancer off for the foreseeable future. Although it cleverly adjusts for macro-like detail, Samsung's artificial sharpening is just too much for me to think the image is natural. Also, while I gave Samsung some heat for picking the lower-resolution ultrawide sensor over the 50MP option on its Ultra, I still think it's a good camera. I love the colors in the shot of the town hall to the far left, and I think the camera does a great job of showing the scale of the church tower on the right side. It's a little tougher to get a look I like when trying to capture street art up close, referring to the mosaic on the far side, but the colors are still spot-on given the gray, overcast day when I was walking around. Alright, here's where I get to illustrate the problem with Samsung ditching the telephoto sensor. Despite having a monstrous 200 megapixels to work with, the Galaxy S25 Edge is happy to stick with just 10x zoom. That's a fraction of what the smaller Galaxy S25 models can achieve at 30x and hardly compares to the 100x Space Zoom of the Galaxy S25 Ultra. Yes, I will admit that limiting the zoom ensures better finished photos across the entire range — everything below is plenty sharp enough for me to share it, though, because it's digital, you can't pixel peep without things getting dicey — but it feels like an artificial limitation on such an expensive smartphone. 1x zoom 2x zoom 4x zoom 10x zoom The last piece of Samsung's premium camera setup is its 12MP selfie camera. This time, I have to give it some credit for matching the Galaxy S25 Ultra — even if a 12MP sensor isn't a high bar in a punch hole. Either way, I think the colors and details are good enough, and the artificial bokeh does a pretty good job of capturing all of my hair without putting too sharp a line around my head. I'm not entirely sure why my white shirt has such a blue cast, but I'm much happier with the tones in my face, even if I got a little burnt over the holiday weekend. Portrait Mode If high-quality video is what you're after, you can probably guess what I'm about to say. Yes, the Galaxy S25 Edge shoots great footage at 1x or 2x zoom. Yes, the stabilization is excellent, and the ability to shoot 8K at 30fps or 4K at up to 120fps means you have plenty of options. I like how a few of my simple clips around town came out, but like above, the lack of zoom flexibility means there are scenes you just won't be able to dial in closely enough. On the bright side, some of Samsung's latest software wrinkles make it more enjoyable to use the cameras overall. The Edge supports a smooth zoom slider when shooting videos, which makes clips, well, smoother. It also lets you save exposure settings when you flip between camera modes so that you don't have to raise and lower your exposure and risk missing a shot. Perhaps the coolest trick in the Galaxy S25 Edge's camera book, though, is its ability to shoot Log format videos from both the front and rear sensors, meaning that you can easily hop in and color grade your footage later on. You can also check out full-resolution versions of these camera samples and several more at this Google Drive link. …but I do like One UI 7! Ryan Haines / Android Authority Despite everything that's let me down about the Galaxy S25 Edge, there's one bright spot to the phone that didn't used to be one. For a long time, I ranked Samsung's One UI as one of my least favorite Android skins, complaining that it's too cluttered and forces me through too many menus to get my phone feeling just right. I begged to spend time in Pixel UI or on Nothing OS, only dipping back into One UI for major updates or while writing a review. Now, though, I feel at least a little bit more at home, and will probably like it even better once I get to try a stable build of One UI 8. For starters, Samsung has simplified its customization options — or at least made them look better. It's improved the color-matched theme options, added the ability to resize and reshape your widgets to break up the traditional home screen grid, and cooked up a little thing called DIY Home. Personally, I don't think I could ever use the wide-open chaos of DIY Home, which allows you to put apps anywhere on your home screen and overlap them with stickers and doodles, but I respect what Samsung is going for. I've seen a few very creative layouts floated across the One UI subreddit, and I would steal them if I didn't have to recreate them by hand. DIY Home is chaos, but I like that Samsung is embracing its wild side. The Now Bar is also an essential part of One UI 7, and one of the better Dynamic Island clones I've ever used. It's not exactly like Apple's implementation in that it's invisible most of the time, but I appreciate that it pops up with timely notifications on my lock screen before shuffling off to the top right corner when I open my phone. I've used it for everything from stacking an endless rotation of kitchen timers to monitoring the Europa League final so that I didn't have to watch Tottenham take on Manchester United — a pairing that would have put me to sleep by halftime. I'm less sold on Samsung's Now Brief, which updates you on the weather, upcoming events, and news headlines every few hours, but only because I already get those things from the widgets on my home screen. This is also where I should take a second to acknowledge Galaxy AI. There's not much new on this front, at least not if you read our Galaxy S25 reviews, but the overall experience keeps getting smoother. I've started to find more and more uses for things like Photo Assist and its generative edits, and I'm glad that Drawing Assist finally feels more like an image generator than the original Portrait Studio. Samsung's Call Assist and Chat Assist are pretty good, too, now that they have built-in translation features that make it easier to tolerate my younger brother when he busts out one of the many languages he studied in college. I'm not sold on everything yet — you won't find me using Writing Assist to punch up paragraphs when I already wordsmith for a living, but who knows, even that might change over the impressive seven years of updates that the Edge is due. Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge review verdict: Who's buying this? Ryan Haines / Android Authority When I started this review, I wondered which side of the innovation line the Galaxy S25 Edge would fall on. I pondered whether it would feel like a stroke of genius, beating Apple to the ultra-thin punch and becoming one of the best Android phones, or if it would feel more like LG's famous (or infamous) Wing — a bold idea that didn't work how we'd hoped. Now, after about two weeks with the phone, I have my answer: I hope the Galaxy S25 Edge is a one-and-done. I know, I know, that sounds dramatic. In fact, in a vacuum, the Galaxy S25 Edge probably does everything Samsung hoped for. It's powerful in small doses, feels durable to carry through a busy day, and is about as slim as my mind can comprehend. If those were the only criteria I had to grade it on, it would pass with flying colors. I would even be willing to give it some of the same grace that I give flip phones, acknowledging their hardware limitations without giving them a total pass. The Galaxy S25 Edge banks on being thin, but that's not enough of a reason for me to recommend it. Most of the time, the Galaxy S25 Edge is even more limited than a Galaxy Z Flip 6 ($1099.99 at Samsung). Yes, they're both ambitious form factors, and yes, they both have just two rear cameras compared to Samsung's usual three, but that feels more like a perk of the Flip and a drawback of the Edge. See, I like the fact that I can grab Samsung's most recent flip phone, slip it into my pocket, and go about my day. When I need to check on something, I can usually do it from the power-sipping Flex Window, which helps ease my inevitable battery anxiety. I can let the two rear cameras do more than their usual workload, doubling as high-resolution selfie shooters with reliable wide and ultrawide fields of view. I can even tap into most of the Galaxy AI features I've come to rely on, all without ever unfolding the hinge. However, when I need to check something on the Galaxy S25 Edge, I may as well check it on the Galaxy S25 Plus ($999.99 at Amazon). I have to pull the big 6.7-inch slab out of my pocket, fire up its entire display, and hope that I'm done before the battery starts to tick away too quickly. And, if I'm doing all that, I may as well do it on the Galaxy S25 Plus itself since the battery life is better, the charging is faster, and the cameras are more flexible thanks to the 10MP telephoto sensor. On top of it all, the Galaxy S25 Plus is cheaper — and if you don't care about the latest chip, the very similar Galaxy S24 Plus is likely available for even less on sale. Honestly, for the money, I think I'd even take Samsung's smaller Galaxy S25 ($809.99 at Amazon) over the Edge. No, that phone might not be as technically impressive — if we're still going to give being thin that much credit — but it once again comes out ahead on battery life and camera flexibility. It's also quite a bit cheaper than the Edge, and I think its more traditional cooling setup gives me hope that it'll age better than the twice-as-bright, half-as-long Edge might. If you want to spend a little more money, Samsung's Galaxy S25 Ultra ($1299.99 at Amazon) is probably its best flagship phone to date, even though the design remains a bit played out. It has all of the camera flexibility that the Edge lacks, and the S Pen is a go-to for power users, even if it's been simplified to little more than a basic stylus. Looking outside the Samsung bubble, I think most of the Edge's rivals offer better bang for about the same number of bucks, too. Google's Pixel 9 Pro XL ($899 at Amazon) and Apple's iPhone 16 Pro ($999 at Amazon) or Pro Max ($1199 at Amazon) won't be as thin or as light, and they'll offer differing slates of AI-powered features, but they have many of the same strengths as the other Galaxy S25 options. In Google's case, we continue to fall in love with its clever camera tricks, prompt software updates, and the fact that its hardware has improved by leaps and bounds over the previous generation. The Pro Pixels also charge faster than the Galaxy S25 Edge and have bigger batteries, so even though the Tensor G4 still tends to run warm, it still manages to counteract most of my battery anxiety. Thin phone obsession isn't going anywhere, but I hope the next generation doesn't require quite so many crucial sacrifices. I also want to throw the OnePlus 13 ($899.99 at OnePlus) out as a competitor. Where Samsung decided to make cuts to make its Galaxy S25 Edge as slim as possible, OnePlus chose to pack its latest flagship with more and more. It has sharper, more flexible cameras that zoom to 120x, and the Hasselblad color profile is among my favorites. OnePlus earns points for its massive 6,000mAh battery and 80W wired charging, too, along with 50W wireless charging and a cool new magnetic charger that works with compatible cases. It's not quite the same as Qi2, but it's a step in the right direction. Despite my vain hopes that the Edge will be a one-off, it's pretty clear the thin phone obsession isn't going anywhere. With the long-rumored iPhone 17 Air on the way and various concepts in the works at other Android OEMs, the S25 Edge is the dawn of a new form factor for larger display smartphones (we've seen plenty of thin phones before, after all). I just hope the next generation doesn't require quite so many crucial sacrifices for the sake of the undeniable wow factor. Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge Incredibly slim design • Impressively lightweight • Great materials MSRP: $1,099.99 Ultra-thin. The Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge is the thinnest Galaxy S device ever but still packs a 6.7-inch AMOLED display, a Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, and a 200MP main camera. See price at AmazonSee price at Samsung Positives Incredibly slim design Incredibly slim design Impressively lightweight Impressively lightweight Great materials Great materials Improved One UI experience Improved One UI experience Solid primary cameras Cons Poor thermals Poor thermals Mediocre battery life Mediocre battery life No telephoto camera No telephoto camera Slow wired charging
CNET
10 hours ago
- CNET
These Settings Could Save Your Aging Android From the Junk Drawer
My Android phone's a few years old, and while it doesn't have the flashiest camera or thinnest design anymore, it still handles everything I need day to day. I used to think I'd have to upgrade just to get the newest features, but that's not the case. Thanks to long-term software support from companies like Google and Samsung, older phones can still get a lot of love. And with the right tweaks, I've managed to seriously boost my phone's performance without spending a dime. Before you start shopping for a new device, try a few of these tips. You might be surprised at how much better your phone can run with just a few small changes. It's true: Whether you have a Samsung Galaxy, Motorola or OnePlus phone, it's likely that you can still optimize your battery life and give your phone a new lease on life by making a few easy adjustments. Note that there might be some differences between Android devices, and phone manufacturers often put their own software on top of Android. Certain settings may be missing or in a different place, depending on the version of Android you're running and the maker of your phone. Need more Android tips? Check out these five tips to make your Android feel like new again and how to use Android's AI circle to search features. An overly bright display will drain your battery incredibly fast. Óscar Gutiérrez/CNET Settings to improve your battery life Living with a phone that has poor battery life can be infuriating, but there are some steps you can take to maximize each charge right from the very beginning: 1. Turn off auto screen brightness or adaptive brightness and set the brightness level slider to under 50%. The brighter your screen, the more battery power it uses. To get to the setting, pull down the shortcut menu from the top of the screen and adjust the slider, if it's there. Some phones may have a toggle for auto brightness in the shortcut panel; otherwise, you need to open the settings app and search for "brightness" to find the setting and turn it off. 2. Use Adaptive Battery and Battery Optimization. These features focus on learning how you use your phone, including which apps you use and when, and then optimizing the apps and the amount of battery they use. Some Android phones will have a dedicated Battery section in the Settings app, while other phones (looking at you, Samsung) bury these settings. It's a little different for each phone. I recommend opening your settings and searching for "battery" to find the right screen. Your phone may also have an adaptive charging setting that can monitor how quickly your phone battery charges overnight to preserve its health. Why you should use dark mode more often Another way to improve battery life while also helping save your eyes is to use Android's dedicated dark mode. Any Android phone running Android 10 or newer will have a dedicated dark mode option. According to Google, dark mode not only reduces the strain that smartphone displays cause on our eyes but also improves battery life because it takes less power to display dark backgrounds on OLED displays (used in most flagship phones) than a white background. Depending on which version of Android your phone is running, and what company made your phone, you may have to dig around the settings app to find a dark mode. If your phone runs Android 10 or newer, you'll be able to turn on systemwide dark mode. If it runs Android 9, don't despair. Plenty of apps have their own dark mode option in the settings that you can use whether or not you have Android 10. To turn it on dark mode, open the Settings app and search for Dark Mode, Dark Theme or even Night Mode (as Samsung likes to call it). I suggest using dark mode all the time, but if you're not sure, you can always set dark mode to automatically turn on based on a schedule, say from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. every day, or allow it to automatically switch based on your location at the time of sunset and sunrise. Using dark mode on any phone is an easy and good-looking way to save battery life. CNET Keep your home screen free of clutter Planning to hit up the Google Play Store for a bunch of new Android apps? Be prepared for a lot of icon clutter on your home screen, which is where shortcuts land every time you install something. If you don't want that, there's a simple way out of this: Long-press on an empty area of your home screen and tap Settings. Find the option labeled something along the lines of Add icon to Home Screen or Add new apps to Home Screen and turn it off. Presto -- No more icons on the home screen when you install new apps. You can still add shortcuts by dragging an app's icon out of the app drawer, but they won't appear on your home screen unless you want them to. Read more: Best Android Phones You Can Buy in 2024 Set up Do Not Disturb so that you can better focus If your phone routinely spends the night on your nightstand, you probably don't want it beeping or buzzing every time there's a call, message or Facebook alert -- especially when you're trying to sleep. Android offers a Do Not Disturb mode that will keep the phone more or less silent during designated hours. On some phones, this is referred to as the Downtime setting or even Quiet Time. Head to Settings > Sounds (or Notifications), then look for Do Not Disturb or a similar name. If you can't find it, search for it using the built-in search feature in your settings. Using the feature, you can set up a range of hours when you want to turn off the digital noise. Don't worry, any notifications you get while Do Not Disturb is turned on will still be waiting for you when you wake up. Also, you can typically make an exception that allows repeat callers and favorite contacts' calls to go through. Turn that on. If someone is calling you in an emergency, odds are they are going to keep trying. What someone who finds a lost or stolen Android phone will see after you use Find My Device to lock it. Jason Cipriani/CNET Always be prepared in case you lose your phone or it's stolen Is there anything worse than a lost or stolen phone? Only the knowledge that you could have tracked it down if you had turned on Google's Find My Device feature. To set yourself up for a successful recovery, here's what you need to do: Open the Settings app and then search for Find My Device. It's usually in the Security section of the Settings app. Or if you have a Samsung device, you can use Samsung's Find My Mobile service found in Settings > Biometrics and security > Find My Mobile. Once that's enabled, you can head to from any PC or mobile device and sign in to your account. Samsung users can visit to find a lost phone. Losing a phone is never a fun experience. Angela Lang/CNET If you run into any trouble setting any of this up, be sure to read through our complete guide to finding a lost Android phone. Assuming your phone is on and online, you should be able to see its location on a map. From there you can make it ring, lock it, set a lock screen note to tell whoever has it how to get it back to you or, worst-case scenario, remotely wipe the whole thing. And always keep your phone up to date As obvious as it may seem, bugs and other issues slowing down your Android device could potentially be fixed with a simple software update. Before you download and install the latest software update, make sure your device is connected to Wi-Fi, or else this won't work. Now, open the Settings application and type in Update. You'll then either see Software update or System update -- choose either one. Then just download the software, wait for a few minutes and install it when it's ready. Your Android device will reboot and install the latest software update available. Always keep your phone updated to the latest software to avoid bugs and other issues. CNET There's a lot more to learn about a new phone, of course. Here are the best ways to boost your cell signal, and here's a flagship phone head-to-head comparison. Plus, check out CNET's list of the best cases for your Samsung phone. More of an Apple fan? We have tips for boosting your iPhone's performance, too.
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
Galaxy S25 Edge: The thinnest flagship takes aim at iPhone 17 Air
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Samsung has unveiled the Galaxy S25 Edge, finally confirming what had been leaked months earlier — and the timing feels deliberate. Packed inside the 5.8mm, 163-gram chassis is the same Snapdragon 8 Elite chip and 200MP camera found in Samsung's Ultra model. In other words, it's not a 'lite' edition; it's a statement. The big reveal was held in Seoul, South Korea, on Tuesday morning local time — still Monday evening on the East Coast of the United States. While Apple hasn't publicly commented, the Edge debut date feels quite intentional. With the iPhone 17 Air (or Slim) rumored to be Apple's upcoming ultra-thin play, Samsung just got the first word in. Discount Get the new Galaxy S25 Edge from Samsung and save $120 immediately. This 512GB model is unlocked and comes in three colors: titanium icy blue, titanium jet black, and titanium silver. If you trade in an eligible phone, you can save up to $630. Delivery is May 30, Deal If you've followed Samsung's recent strategy, the Edge is the natural endpoint: Strip everything non-essential to chase a singular design vision. Here, that means matching the Ultra's internals but ditching the telephoto lens and reducing the battery capacity to 3,900 mAh. You get a Galaxy flagship that is lighter than anything Samsung has shipped in years. In return, you get a Galaxy flagship that is lighter than anything Samsung has shipped in years. It's also nearly 2mm thinner than the Galaxy S25 Ultra, and more than a full millimeter thinner than the iPhone 15 Pro. We've been here before, though. Phones got thin, they bent (a throwback to the iPhone 6 Plus), and manufacturers overcorrected with bigger batteries, bulkier camera islands, and the naming of 'Pro Max Ultra.' The S25 Edge hints at a design rethink: What if sleek, pocketable, and premium could coexist? Samsung is betting that it can. If the rumors are accurate, Apple will think the same thing. According to earlier leaks, Apple's 2025 iPhone lineup could include a brand-new Air model. This handset would be dramatically thinner, possibly as thin as 5.5mm, and built from titanium or aluminum to cut weight. The Air may not ship with the full triple-lens loadout we've come to expect. Like the Edge, it might settle for fewer sensors, a smaller battery, and an emphasis on lightness. And much like Samsung, Apple's design decisions will pose the same question: How much compromise are users willing to accept in the name of thin? The S25 Edge's biggest gamble isn't its weight or thickness. It's the battery. At 3,900 mAh, it's down nearly 25% from what you'll find in most 2025 flagships. That's the price you pay for a device this slim. Thermal management is another concern. Thin phones have less room for vapor chambers or graphite pads, and any passive cooling is limited by physics. Some users will notice if Samsung is throttling the Snapdragon 8 Elite under sustained load. Apple's Air may face the same scrutiny. The thinnest iPad Pro (5.1mm) already sparked debates about heat and battery performance. Now imagine a similar device in your pocket and how it might hold up after a day of heavy use. Samsung has everything to gain from this category. Unlike Apple, which has been refining a single design language across devices, Samsung can afford to experiment. The Edge isn't replacing the Ultra or the base S25. It's an option; a stylistic choice for users who value comfort over cameras or runtime. By being first, Samsung gets to frame the narrative: thinness is premium again. And if the iPhone 17 Air follows, Samsung can credibly say it set the trend. The S25 Edge feels like more than a hardware announcement in many ways. It's a provocation. If Apple responds with an iPhone 17 Air this fall, we could see thin become the new must-have spec, right alongside megapixels, refresh rates, and AI. But for now, it's Samsung's turn in the spotlight. The company has built the world's thinnest flagship phone. And in doing so, it may have kickstarted the industry's next great design war. iPhone 17 Air: Rumors are thick on the thinnest iPhone ever Samsung's Galaxy S25 phones offer a big performance boost and even more AI Samsung Galaxy Edge first look: How thin is Samsung's ultra-slim phone? (January 2025)
