bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

sponsorType

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

quizIds

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

paywallTypes

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Bloomberg

Samsung Electronics on Monday rolled out a slimmed-down Galaxy S25 Edge smartphone, kicking off a wave of drastically thinner handsets expected to launch this year.
The company’s latest device, which goes on sale in the US on May 30 for US$1,099, is 5.8mm thick and weighs 163 grams, making it about 30 per cent thinner and 25 per cent lighter than the S25 Ultra, the company’s highest-end smartphone.
The new handset is about as light as the base-model S25, but includes more premium features like a titanium frame, 200-megapixel rear camera and high-end artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.
“The amount of weight we’ve pulled out of this device and the slimness of this device is just dramatic,” Blake Gaiser, the company’s head of smartphone product management for the Americas, said in an interview.

“We’ve been hearing from our customers over the last few years that weight and hand feel is something very important to them. As phones are getting bigger and heavier, they’ve really been looking for something that would just disappear in their pocket.”
The launch comes months ahead of Apple’s slimmed-down iPhone 17 model. That device is expected to come in at around the same thickness as the Galaxy S25 Edge and is planned to have a single back camera, compared with two on the new Edge handset.
Gaiser said he was “very confident our customers and others” would find the S25 Edge “very compelling”. Samsung teased the new phone in January without revealing its specifications, price or release date.
The phone has a 6.7-inch screen, matching the screen size on the S25 Plus, as well as 12 gigabytes of memory, and storage options of 256 and 512 gigabytes. At US$1,099, it is US$100 more expensive than the Plus model and US$200 cheaper than the S25 Ultra.
Samsung said it always intended to launch the handset at this price point and that tariffs were not a consideration in this case. The company manufactures devices for the US market in South Korea, Vietnam and India rather than in China, where Apple has long made most its phones.

Still, to make the device one of the thinnest in the industry, there are some trade-offs: The S25 Ultra has a larger 6.9-inch screen and supports the S Pen stylus. The S25 Edge also lacks a 1-terabyte storage option and telephoto cameras for optical zoom.
Users may not care too much about the camera specifications given they are probably buying this phone for the design, but they may be concerned about battery life.
Having less space to include a larger battery pack could affect how long the device can be used on a single charge, though Samsung claims the S25 Edge is capable of all-day battery life.
The internal battery is rated at 3,900 milliampere-hour. That compares with 4,000mAh capacity on the base S25 model and a 5,000mAh pack inside the S25 Ultra. Samsung said AI optimisations are embedded in the software to make the battery last longer than last year’s entry-level Galaxy S24.
The S25 Edge was initially set to debut in April, but its release was delayed, in part due to leadership changes at Samsung. Co-chief executive officer Han Jong-hee, who oversaw the company’s consumer electronics business, died suddenly in March following a cardiac arrest.

The success of the S25 Edge is crucial for Samsung, as its pivotal semiconductor division has faltered in recent years. In the first quarter, strong sales of Galaxy S25 series helped offset declines in the chip division.
During an earnings call last month, Samsung executives said they planned to drive growth through flagship smartphones as the company navigated a challenging global environment marked by shifting tariff policies and economic uncertainty.
When smartphones like the original iPhone arrived nearly two decades ago, companies fought to make their handsets thinner than the competition. It was a key marketing point, especially for older devices like the iPhone 6.
But in recent years, companies abandoned that approach to focus on improving battery life, adding better cameras and inserting more powerful processors. Now, Samsung and Apple are going in the other direction – at least as potentially niche alternatives to their main sellers.
The Galaxy S25 Edge, which will come in black, silver and blue, will not be tied down to retail-store tables with security wires as is normal for pricey devices.
Instead, the company is planning to include what it calls security adhesive that adds minimal weight and size to the phone. That way, potential buyers could try out the product in their hand and pockets as if they owned it, Gaiser said.


China’s shipments of hi-tech goods to EU surge as its exports to US plunge

DeepSeek founder’s doubt leads entrepreneur Luo Yonghao to embrace his gift of gab

Huawei opens HarmonyOS 6 to developers, unveils AI agents and cloud architecture updates

Where is Trump’s ‘all-American’ phone made? Supply chain analysts say Asia, probably China

Smartphones

Samsung debuts Galaxy S25 Edge, as smartphones go slimmer

A Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge smartphone on display during an event at its store in Seoul, South Korea, on Tuesday. Photo: Reuters

A reporter uses a ruler to measure the thickness of the Galaxy S25 Edge handset. Photo: EPA-EFE

A store selling Samsung mobile phones and accessories in Mumbai, India. Photo: Reuters

Apple’s next iPhone model is also expected to be thinner than its predecessors. Photo: Reuters

China said to waive retaliatory tariffs on some US chip imports in sign of trade war thaw

China has reportedly waived retaliatory tariffs on some US chip imports. Photo: Reuters

Semiconductors are seen on a computer circuit board in this illustration picture taken February 25, 2022. Photo: Reuters

From gifted student to AI hero, DeepSeek’s founder Liang Wenfeng inspires a nation

Illustration: Henry Wong

A stall at Mililing village selling zhuangyuan sugar cane juice. Photo: Coco Feng

The class of 1999 at the junior division of Wuchuan No 1 Middle School. Liang Wenfeng is in the top row, sixth from the right. Photo: Coco Feng

Flowers bloom at the campus of Zhejiang University in Hangzhou. Photo: Xinhua

Visitors take photos outside the house of Liang Wenfeng’s grandparents. Photo: Coco Feng

Liang Wenfeng shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a symposium in February. Photo: CCTV

A street sign reads, “I seek deeply in Mililing”, a play on the AI start-up’s name. Photo: Coco Feng

Tech war: founder of Chinese semiconductor equipment maker AMEC renounces US citizenship

The Shanghai headquarters  of semiconductor gear maker Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment. Photo: SCMP

Gerald Yin Zheyao, the founder, chairman and chief executive of Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment. Photo: AMEC

US Nvidia H20 restrictions could be shot in the arm for Chinese AI chips like Huawei’s

The Huawei Atlas 800 inference server displayed at the InnoEX Fair in Hong Kong on April 15. Photo: Reuters

Tech

Big Tech

Tech Trends

Business

Companies

Lifestyle

Gadgets

The US$1,099 device is 5.8mm thick and comes months ahead of Apple’s slimmed-down iPhone 17


The US$1,099 device is 5.8mm thick and comes months ahead of Apple’s slimmed-down iPhone 17.
