Galaxy S25 Edge deals — where to get Samsung's super thin new phone for free
Samsung's Galaxy S lineup just got bigger — and thinner.
The Galaxy S25 Edge is the newest member of the family, and this device is all about being thin and light. You get a big 6.7-inch display and 200MP camera in a design that measures just 5.8mm thin and weighs 5.8 ounces.
There are dozens of Galaxy S25 Edge deals to choose from right now. And trust us when we say you'll want to take advantage of them because this $1,099 phone is not cheap.
My favorite deal right now comes from Samsung itself. Samsung is offering up to $750 off the Galaxy S25 Edge with trade-in. Equally impressive, T-Mobile is offering the Galaxy S25 Edge for free with trade-in and Experience Beyond or Go5G Next data plans.
Those aren't the only Galaxy S25 Edge deals you can get right now. Below I've rounded up the best deals from carriers and retailers alike. For more ways to save, make sure to check out our guide to the best Samsung promo codes.
Galaxy S25 Edge: up to $750 off w/ trade-in @ SamsungThe new Galaxy S25 Edge sports a 5.8mm profile, which is 31% thinner than the Galaxy S25 Ultra. It features a 6.7-inch AMOLED QHD+ 120Hz display, Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, 12GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. It also has a 200MP main camera with 10x digital zoom and a 12MP front camera with 85-degree FOV. In our Galaxy S25 Edge review, we called it a svelte phone that offers the same One UI 7 experience and Galaxy AI features found on the S25 Ultra. Just keep in mind you'll need to charge it during the day as its battery life only hit 12 hours and 24 minutes in our testing.
Galaxy S25 Edge: free w/ trade-in @ T-MobileT-Mobile is also giving away Samsung's latest phone to anyone who trades in an eligible device in any condition and signs up the carrier's Experience Beyond plan, which costs $100/month. You receive bill credits covering the cost of the Galaxy S25 Edge spread out across 24 months. If you'd prefer a less expensive data plan, you can get $800 off the cost of the Galaxy S25 Edge with a trade-in and a new line on either the Experience More or Go5G Plus. Existing customers on the Experience More, Experience Beyond, Go5G Plus, or Go5G Next plans can also save $800 with a trade-in.
Galaxy S25 Edge: free w/ trade-in @ AT&TAT&T is offering the Galaxy S25 Edge for free when you trade-in an eligible phone from any year, in any condition. You'll need to sign up to an eligible 36-month data plan to get this offer.
Galaxy S25 Edge: free w/ unlimited @ VerizonWith its 5.8mm profile, the Galaxy S25 Edge is the thinnest phone in Samsung's S25 family. It features a 6.7-inch AMOLED QHD+ 120Hz display, Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, 12GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. It also has a 200MP main camera with 10x digital zoom and a 12MP front camera with 85-degree FOV. In our Galaxy S25 Edge review, we called it a svelte phone that's rich in features. Note: The phone is coming in and out of stock at Verizon.
Galaxy S25 Edge: up to $830 off w/ trade-in @ Xfinity MobileNew and existing Xfinity Mobile customers can get up to $830 off the Galaxy S25 Edge with an eligible trade-in. Customers with no trade-in can still get $400 off Samsung's new phone when they purchase with Xfinity.
Galaxy S25 Edge: up to $750 off w/ trade-in @ Best BuyTrade-in an old phone at Best Buy and you can get up to $750 off the new Galaxy S25 Edge. Additionally, Best Buy Plus and Total members can get a $50 Best Buy gift card with their Galaxy S25 Edge purchase.
Galaxy S25 Edge: 512GB for $1,099 @ AmazonAmazon is offering the upgraded 512GB Galaxy S25 Edge for $1,099. That's what you'd normally pay for the base 256GB model. Additionally, you'll get a free $50 Amazon gift card with your purchase.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNET
6 hours ago
- CNET
My Week With AT&T Internet Air Left Me Bummed
With all the talk of a possible recession, tariff uncertainty, the high price of eggs and market fluctuations, it can be challenging to part with your money. Once you decide to spend a bit, you want that purchase to be worth it. If it isn't, falling short of what you hoped for can be especially frustrating. When it comes to home internet, I often say that the best broadband connection is one you never notice. With steady buffering and long load times, AT&T's 5G internet offering, AT&T Internet Air, never let me forget that I was using it. Seemingly overnight, we've seen a rise in 5G home internet popularity. One report found that 89% of new broadband subscriptions in the past two years came from just two 5G providers: T-Mobile and Verizon. So when AT&T launched AT&T Internet Air late in 2023, I was excited to see how it compared. I was quickly disappointed. I have as friendly a testing environment as you'll ever find for an internet provider. I live alone in a one-bedroom apartment, and the list of connected devices I own is shockingly short: Just my iPhone SE, Apple TV 4K and a MacBook Pro that I use to work from home. That's not much strain to put on a Wi-Fi network, but even so, AT&T Internet Air couldn't handle it. That's why I have a hard time recommending the service to anyone. AT&T's wireless internet connection consistently delivered download speeds below 10 megabits per second -- a far cry from the 90Mbps to 300Mbps it advertises. That said, wireless internet speeds are more dependent on location than wired options like cable and fiber, so your experience may be much better than mine was. (Subscribers on AT&T's subreddit reported speeds in the 150Mbps to 300Mbps range.) Locating local internet providers There were things I liked about AT&T Internet Air -- namely, the easy setup and useful app -- but that's like saying I like everything about a car except the fact that it can't go above 25 miles an hour. Internet providers have one job -- to deliver a fast, reliable connection -- and on that front, AT&T Internet Air was an unequivocal bust. Read more: My T-Mobile 5G Home Internet Experience: What I love and What I Wish Were Better Joe Supan / CNET Setting up AT&T Internet Air All in all, it only took me 11 minutes to set up AT&T Internet Air. It truly couldn't have been simpler. The box only comes with two items: A gateway device and a power outlet. I followed the instructions in the box, downloaded AT&T's Smart Home Manager app and scanned the QR code on the device. The app suggested that I place the gateway device near a window and facing west if possible. I was able to find a spot that checked both boxes near my desk, where I'd need the strongest internet speeds possible. Once I'd landed on a location, the app ran a quick test and gave me the approval. I was now ready to test out the connection. AT&T Internet Air speed and reliability There's no way around it: AT&T Internet Air's speeds were incredibly disappointing, and the speeds I was getting would be basically unusable for most people. It boils down to the advertised speeds versus the actual speeds you get. After dozens of speed tests throughout the week, AT&T Internet Air averaged a download speed of 5.86Mbps and 9.87Mbps upload in my apartment. The highest download speed I got at any point was 10.63Mbps, while upload speeds peaked at 14.38Mbps. At the same time, my $50 Connect More plan through Xfinity -- advertised as 300Mbps download -- returned average speeds of 321/109Mbps. AT&T Internet Air's latency was also very high, with an average ping rate of 298ms. That's bad news if you plan on doing any online gaming, where 40ms or lower is considered ideal. AT&T says that users typically experience download speeds between 90Mbps and 300Mbps and upload speeds between 8Mbps and 30Mbps. My upload speeds fell within that range but I never came close to 90Mbps download. The highest I got was 14.38Mbps. (I used Ookla for all of my speed tests, which is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.) Wireless internet like AT&T Internet Air or T-Mobile 5G Home Internet is inherently more erratic than a wired connection like cable or fiber. Because it transmits data wirelessly from a cellular tower, it's more vulnerable to network congestion and weather disruption. That's why router placement is particularly important -- if you don't have a clear line to the nearest tower, your internet connection will suffer. But I did have a clear line. I could find a spot for the router right against a window facing west, just as I was instructed during setup. The problem didn't seem to be the location of my home, either: AT&T's coverage map shows the entire city of Seattle blanketed in 5G Plus speeds, which it describes as its fastest tier. AT&T's coverage map indicates that I should have been able to access AT&T's fastest speed tier. AT&T I tried moving the router to a few different locations over the course of testing but speeds never improved. In fact, it got even slower when I moved it to another room or away from the window. AT&T recommended calling customer support to help determine the best spot for the device based on where the closest cell tower is. Wireless internet providers like AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon all include a caveat in the fine print that says they may temporarily slow your speeds if the network is congested. That might explain my test results if they were all happening at 'internet rush hour' -- the hours between 7 and 11 p.m. when traffic is highest. But I tested AT&T Internet Air at various times throughout the day and never saw much of a difference. How was it using AT&T Internet Air? If anyone can get by with slow internet speeds, it's me. I live alone and I don't do any bandwidth-stressing activities like online gaming and the only devices connected to the internet are my phone, laptop and streaming device. But even with that minimal setup, AT&T Internet Air struggled to pull its weight. Zoom meetings at work were reliably unreliable, to the point where I had to switch back over to my Xfinity connection several times. Working in Google Docs, the connection would routinely drop out, causing me to wait a few seconds before I could continue writing this review. AT&T Internet Air's range was basically limited to the room with the router. When I ran speed tests in my bedroom -- one wall away from the router -- my connection slowed to a mere 1Mbps in download and upload speed. It was a frustrating experience. I found myself switching back over to Xfinity or cellular data on my phone every time I wanted to do something like watch a YouTube video from the group chat or take a FaceTime call. I don't need gig speeds -- I probably don't even really need 100Mbps speeds -- but I do need at least 15Mbps, which is what Netflix recommends for streaming in 4K. Unfortunately, AT&T Internet Air failed to clear even that low bar. How does AT&T Internet Air compare to other 5G internet providers? 5G home internet has taken off in the past few years and AT&T is later to the party than competitors T-Mobile Home Internet and Verizon 5G Home Internet. In general, using 5G technology for home internet has been an unequivocal success. A survey from J.D. Power released last summer found that customer satisfaction is higher for wireless customers than cable or fiber, even though it received lower performance scores. 'A lot of the concerns I had heard about fixed wireless access were that it's just never going to be as fast as fiber,' Carl Lepper, senior director of the technology, media and telecommunications intelligence practice at J.D. Power, told me at the time. 'But for a lot of people, affordability trumps that. And it's not often that you need superfast speeds, depending on how you're using your internet.' 5G home internet often reaches rural households where cable and fiber aren't available and it's a significant step up from the satellite or DSL service that those internet users are typically stuck with. And because 5G providers are cellphone carriers first and foremost, they offer significant savings when you bundle home internet with a cellphone plan. Provider Monthly price Advertised download speeds Advertised upload speeds AT&T Internet Air Read full review $60 ($47 with an eligible AT&T wireless plan) 90-300Mbps 8-30Mbps T-Mobile Home Internet Read full review $50-$70 ($30-$50 with cellphone plan) 87-415Mbps 12-56Mbps Verizon 5G Home Internet Read full review $50-$70 ($35-$55 with qualifying Verizon 5G mobile plans) 300-1,000Mbps 20-75Mbps Show more (0 item) Shop providers at my address Those savings aren't quite as significant with AT&T as they are with T-Mobile and Verizon, but paying $47 a month for home internet is still a solid deal. If you're not bundling with a cellphone plan, AT&T Internet Air is on the expensive side and there's no guarantee that it will make up for it with faster speeds -- as my week with AT&T showed. The final verdict: AT&T Internet Air could still be useful for some After those disappointing results, you might be surprised to learn that I still wouldn't swear off AT&T Internet Air completely. Other customers have clearly gotten faster speeds than I did -- Reddit users regularly report speeds north of 700Mbps -- and there's a chance my apartment is just in a particularly bad location for the service. Unlike T-Mobile 5G Home Internet, AT&T Internet Air does not offer a free trial, so you'll be out at least $60 if you sign up and find out the speeds aren't fast enough. I'd still recommend going with T-Mobile or Verizon first if you want to try out 5G home internet, but AT&T Internet is still worth a shot if you're stuck with limited options. I tried AT&T Internet Air for a week FAQs: What is AT&T Internet Air? AT&T Internet Air is a 5G fixed wireless connection that offers a singular plan. Pricing starts at $60 monthly or $47 if you bundle it with an eligible AT&T wireless plan. In areas where AT&T's faster fiber service is unavailable, this fixed wireless option could be an alternative for some. Is AT&T Internet Air fast? AT&T Internet Air advertises download speeds of 90Mbps to 300Mbps and upload speeds of 8Mbps to 30Mbps. However, after conducting a dozen speed tests at home, my actual speeds were significantly lower than what was advertised. The highest speed I was able to reach for upload was 14.38Mbps, which is on the lower end of that range. With AT&T Internet Air, I only averaged 5.86Mbps download and 9.87Mbps upload. Compared to other 5G providers, Verizon and T-Mobile advertise much faster speeds, topping out at 415Mbps and 1,000Mbps, respectively. However, it's worth noting that even if you get faster speeds at your home with a 5G fixed wireless connection, your speeds can be temporarily slowed down during network congestion. In addition, AT&T's latency is very high, which can be pretty bad if you're a gamer. The average ping rate that I received at home was 298ms. For online gaming, your ping rate should be 50ms or lower.
Android Authority
6 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
7 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.
