I lived with Samsung’s worst 2025 Android phone for a year. Here’s why I’m finally giving up

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Three months after Samsung launched the three mainline Galaxy S25 models, it followed up with a fourth offering: the Galaxy S25 Edge. By all indications, Samsung released the ultra-thin Galaxy S25 Edge to get ahead of the iPhone Air, and it almost worked. The Galaxy S25 Edge came with better specs and fewer compromises than the iPhone Air, but one year later, Samsung’s slim flagship has no successor in sight. It’s easily the brand’s worst phone of 2025, and seems destined to be forgotten as a quirky flop.

I bought the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge in cash, with no promotions or discounts, and used it for the last year. Whenever I wasn’t reviewing a new Android phone, the Galaxy S25 Edge was my daily driver. I still love the concept, but I struggled to live with Samsung’s execution.

The Galaxy S25 Edge has critical flaws that make it a worse thin phone than the iPhone Air, and I can’t overlook them anymore. When AT&T offered me a free Galaxy Z Fold 8 in exchange for my Galaxy S25 Edge, I took it and ran.

I really enjoy thin phones, but understand I’m in the minority. I prefer to carry a slimmer device with a smaller battery and fewer cameras than lug around a thicker phone with hardware I’d rarely use. That’s why the Galaxy S25 Edge caught my attention in the first place. It packed flagship specs, such as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chip and the same 200MP primary camera as the Galaxy S25 Ultra , in a 5.8mm chassis. My favorite part was the Galaxy S25 Edge’s weight — a 6.7-inch Android phone weighing just 163 grams is almost unheard of.

If I could narrow down the Galaxy S25 Edge’s problems to a single component, it’d be the battery. I can’t get the Galaxy S25 Edge to last a full day, regardless of how long I let One UI learn my habits or how much I conserve charge. A midday or evening charge is required for this phone, and it’s not uncommon for me to burn through three charge cycles on long travel days. The 3,900mAh battery capacity just isn’t large enough to power the flagship processor and display.

Absolutely everyone warned me about this before I bought the Galaxy S25 Edge, but I must stress that it didn’t have to be this way. Samsung could’ve designed the Galaxy S25 Edge from the ground up, selecting components that were optimized for the form factor. Instead, it pulled components from the Galaxy S25 Plus and Galaxy S25 Ultra and mixed them together for the Galaxy S25 Edge. The result is a phone with incredible specs on paper , but without the battery required to power them.

The Galaxy S25 Edge’s 6.7-inch AMOLED screen is the exact same QHD+ panel used in the Galaxy S25 Plus, complete with 2,600 nits of peak brightness. The two phones have the same processor and the same amount of memory. The key difference is that the Galaxy S25 Plus has a 4,900mAh battery, whereas the Galaxy S25 Edge has a 3,900mAh battery. The large display draws just as much power on the Galaxy S25 Edge, and yet it has a much smaller battery to work with.