I tried the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge - one thing will make or break it

has just announced all the UK release details for the brand new, very thin Galaxy S25 Edge, and I am one of the first journalists to get my hands on it. It's an impressively slender piece of kit, but after an hour or so admiring its slimmed-down dimensions, it has left me with more questions than answers.

The original Motorola Razr showed the world phones could be thin in 2004. Ten years later in 2014 the iPhone 6 Plus tried the same trick for smartphones but spawned the Bendgate saga, where some phones literally bent because they were so slim.

Just over another ten years on, and Samsung is first out of the gate to make phones thin again with the Galaxy S25 Edge, with Apple rumoured to be cooking up a thinner 17 for later this year possibly called the iPhone 17 Air.

So, why are we back here again? I believe this time around it points to a lack of ideas from smartphone makers, who are struggling to tempt people into buying their handsets as often as those firm's finance officers would like.

You don't need a new phone every year, so phone companies are trying to convince you otherwise.

But back to the Galaxy S25 Edge. I had the chance to go hands-on with the new £1,099 phone in London at a top secret event last week, and guess what? It is thin!

Samsung has delivered on the promise of a much narrower phone. The Edge's body is just 5.8mm thick - that's slimmer than the regular S25's 7.2mm, the S25 Plus's 7.3mm and the S25 Ultra's 8.2mm.

Millimetre differences don't sound like much on paper, but they make a huge difference to how this phone feels to hold. The S25 Edge is impressively thin, and certainly awoke my inner nerd. I have always loved small tech, and will forever sing the praises of the and (RIP).

But what struck me more was just how light the S25 Edge is. It weighs 163g, just one gram more than the S25, and less than the 190g S25 Plus and 218g S25 Ultra. The is 7.8mm thick and weighs 190g.

The S25's dimensions, combined with its weight, make it feel truly feather-light.

But with a large QHD 6.7-inch display, very similar to the one on the S25 Plus, the S25 Edge is a little hard to hold in one hand. Though it's amazing Samsung has crammed all the componentry into the shrunken body, one thing it can't slim down is the cameras.

The dual rear lenses (one fewer than every other S25, there's no telephoto) poke out the top right corner of the phone, causing it to tip the device a little unless you're holding on with two paws. To be fair, Samsung is using the same 200MP main sensor you'll find in the , but while the firm says the module is 18 percent slimmer, these lenses protrude far more noticeably than on other phones.

You get Android 15 with Samsung's One UI 7 software, an ultra-wide camera, 12MP selfie camera, 120Hz screen with Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2, tons of AI features via Galaxy AI and Google Gemini and a choice of silver, black or light blue models.

What you're left with is a phone with the screen of the S25 Plus with the rounded-corner design and main camera of the S25 Ultra - and one big unanswered question.

Until I and other reviewers get to test the S25 Edge longterm, we simply have no idea how the phone's battery will perform. The Edge has a depleted 3,900mAh cell, less than all three other S25 models, which could result in less than stellar battery life.

I've got very used to most smartphones lasting two days on a single charge. Samsung says, vaguely, that the S25 Edge has "all day battery life".

The Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, Qualcomm's current best mobile processor used across the whole S25 line up, could improve efficiency on such a small battery, but we'll have to wait and see. Likewise with regards to general performance, I need to see if Samsung has managed to keep thermals in check with this ultra-thin phone.

The company says it has worked out how to keep the phone cool when playing high-end games, but it's hard enough in a phone twice the thickness with room for cooling systems.

At the end of the day, the S25 Edge is Samsung flexing. It probably won't sell as many units as the rest of the S25 line, especially as it costs more than the S25 and S25 Plus, but it's a shot across the bow at Apple and other Android rivals that Samsung can still do something new.

But is it that innovative? Phones got thicker after the iPhone 6 Plus debacle so that they did not bend in half and had room for bigger batteries, ergo much longer battery life.

Consumers are holding onto phones longer because phones got better. The S25 Edge is a very impressive phone to behold, but if it's more fragile and has worse battery life than your current phone, it's not going to be the upgrade for you.

The S25 Edge is and goes on sale May 30. It costs £1,099 for 256GB or £1,199 for 512GB.

Express.co.uk hopes to have a review of the Galaxy S25 Edge in the coming weeks.