Beyond the Alphabet
Beyond the Alphabet is a weekly column that focuses on the tech world both inside and out of the confines of Mountain View.
Back in May, Samsung bucked its trend of only releasing three flagship phones with its announcement of the Galaxy S25 Edge. The phone is just 5.8mm thin, which is downright impressive from a technological standpoint, but it is overshadowed by the iPhone Air with its 5.64mm frame.
To avoid burying the lede, super-thin phones aren’t for me, and it’s not because I have an almost two-year-old running around the house. There are just too many compromises that are made just for the sake of being as thin as possible, and no matter how much Samsung or Apple might want to, a company can’t just alter physics.
As recent reports suggest, it would appear as though I’m not alone in feeling this way about ultra-thin phones. Just over a month after its launch, reports surfaced that “Galaxy S25 Edge sales aren’t meeting expectations.” And before that, a separate report claimed that “consumer interest in the Galaxy S25 Edge is below what Samsung initially envisioned.”
Now, it seems Samsung’s plans for the Galaxy S26 Edge may have suffered, with reports stating that the phone may not launch next year as expected. Let’s see why that might be.
Compromises aplenty
The most immediately apparent compromise is that the S25 Edge retails for $999 and only features a dual camera setup. Yes, it’s using the same 200MP main wide-angle lens as the Galaxy S25 Ultra and now Galaxy Z Fold 7. But it also sports a downgraded 12MP ultrawide lens and drops the telephoto sensor altogether.
But what if you don’t really care about not having the telephoto lens? Well, the decision to make a phone as thin as possible has another glaring consequence: a smaller battery. The S25 Edge sports a 6.7-inch QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X 120Hz display, which is the same as the Galaxy S25 Plus.
That’s a lot of pixels to power, not to mention that the power-hungry Snapdragon 8 Elite is behind the steering wheel. So while the Galaxy S25 Plus is equipped with a 4,900mAh battery, the S25 Edge comes in with a paltry 3,900mAh cell. According to Samsung, you’ll be able to get about 30 hours of playback with the Plus, with the Edge only capable of lasting for up to 24 hours.
No thank you. Battery anxiety is not something that I particularly enjoy.
What about the iPhone Air?
Just because I compared the S25 Edge to the S25 Plus doesn’t mean I’m giving Apple a pass here with the iPhone Air. Again, it’s a feat of modern engineering, arguably even more than the S25 Edge, as Apple managed to squeeze the entire logic board and cameras into the “plateau” on the back, while also being thinner.
That said, the iPhone Air is also full of compromises once you get past the “oohs” and “aahs.” Notably, Apple used a modified version of its A19 Pro chip that uses “one fewer GPU core” than the iPhone 17 Pro series. Plus, Apple intentionally introduced performance limits in the form of thermal throttling due to the size of the chassis. As a result, the iPhone Air actually falls short of the S25 Edge in GPU-focused benchmarks.
And as for the camera, the iPhone Air is ostensibly worse than the Edge, only featuring a single 48MP lens. Apple tries to obfuscate this by calling it a “Fusion” lens and banking on the 2x “optical-quality” images, but as Brady Snyder pointed out in his iPhone Air review, “Two things can be true: it’s not a gimmick, but it’s also not a replacement for a telephoto camera.”
However, for all of its technological wonder, reports claim demand for the iPhone Air just isn’t there.
In the case of the Galaxy S25 Edge, Samsung can just chalk it up to a failed experiment for whatever reason it wants to give. With the iPhone Air, I believe Apple released this phone as a test to gauge feedback, durability, and production, as the company prepares to release its first foldable device. Basically, it was a way for Apple to make back some of the R&D money it’s already spent, so don’t be surprised if this is a “one and done” release for Apple, too.
Waste of time, money, and resources
That’s not something Samsung has to really worry about, as the company already released its “testing grounds” device with the Z Fold Special Edition late last year. It was only released in South Korea, but it allowed Samsung to get some feedback before rolling out a very similar (if not identical) design to what we now have with the excellent Galaxy Z Fold 7.
At the end of the day, this is why the Galaxy S25 Edge didn’t make much sense to begin with. Samsung already offers a strong balance of devices with the S25, S25 Plus, and S25 Ultra, and there really wasn’t anything that differentiated the Edge. Well, besides offering a fourth phone that didn’t last as long and wasn’t as versatile, it also cost $100 more than the S25 Plus. It had too many compromises.
Maybe it was just a way for Samsung to try to cut into some of Apple’s market share before the iPhone Air was released. Or maybe there were other plans in store that had to be ditched for one reason or another. But as we’re starting to see, the masses don’t really care about ultra-thin slab phones anymore, especially if they’re making too many sacrifices.
It’s neat, if it’s on sale
Don’t get me wrong, the Galaxy S25 Edge is a cool phone, but you should really only consider picking one up if it’s on sale or if you have an old phone to offset the cost. Or, of course, you can find a deal offering the best of both worlds.
