Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge review
A flagship with just two cameras
The Galaxy S25 Edge features a set of two cameras on the back, skipping the long focal lengths entirely. Obviously, it's because the current design doesn't allow huge camera bumps and telephoto cameras tend to be bulky systems.
Instead, the S25 Edge features a standard main camera and an ultrawide shooter. The 200MP primary sensor is borrowed from the Galaxy S25 Ultra - 200MP ISOCELL HP2. The ultrawide is taken from the S25/S25+, but with added autofocus this time around.
The selfie camera is uses the same 12MP shooter across the entire S25 family, so no surprises there.
Daylight photos
Main camera
The S25 Edge's main camera produces excellent photos, even if they are just a tad below the industry standard for a true flagship phone in 2025. It's perhaps no surprise that the images look identical to the ones we got from the S25 Ultra - same camera hardware, same ISP, same software, same post-processing.
Main camera photos
This means you can enjoy sharp and detailed photos with wide dynamic range, accurate color temperature and likeable, close to natural colors without going overboard with the saturation.
Despite the added detail, sharpness is unsatisfactory, to say the least, in the 200MP shooting mode. You might want to stick to the binned 12MP images.
200MP main camera photos
Here are some portrait photos too.
Portraits: Photo mode • Portrait mode
2x crop zoom
The 2x zoom photos are pretty good. There's minimal loss in sharpness, and the post-processing is identical to the 1x mode. So despite the absence of a dedicated zoom camera, you can still get excellent 2x photos out of the big 200MP sensor.
2x crop zoom photos
Again, when taking photos of people at 2x, we're getting decent results but with even less definition of the subject's face.
2x Portraits: Photo mode • Portrait mode
Ultrawide camera
The ultrawide photos aren't bad, but not necessarily flagship-level. There are the occasional soft patches on high-detail surfaces, and the dynamic range is more limited compared to the main camera, so you will get clipped highlights or crushed shadows occasionally. It's a good thing that it has autofocus, though, so it doesn't matter if you are shooting objects that are further away or close ones.
Ultrawide camera photos
Color reproduction seems conservative, but not bland and the macro mode that the AF enables is pretty good. You can get sharp and detailed close-ups. Our only issue is the automatic switching between cameras - it's unreliable. When you get close to a subject, the software switches between the main and the ultrawide camera, but it can sometimes be a bit annoying. It's good that you can turn this off, though.
Macro photos
Selfies
It's hard to say anything bad about the selfies. The 12MP shooter is tried and tested for several generations now, and it produces excellent selfies with natural colors, skin tone, wide dynamic range and plenty of detail. It can get a bit soft in indoor scenes with limited lighting, but that's to be expected. Having AF is also most welcome if you like to do unusual angles at odd shooting distances.
Selfies
Low-light photos
Main camera
The low-light photos with the S25 Edge are far from ideal for a phone in this class. The camera system rarely switches to the dedicated Night mode, so you'd have to opt for it specifically. As a result, you will get rather soft and noisy photos. You can even see some clipped highlights on some of the scenes and contrast needs adjusting too.
On a more positive note, the color reproduction and color temperature are accurate. We also like the balance of highlights/shadows, meaning the shadows are naturally darker but without losing detail. Perhaps that's the reason why the system lets more noise in to preserve as much detail as possible.
Low-light: Photo mode • Night mode
Switching to the dedicated Night mode fixes some issues. For instance, the noise-reduction algorithm is much more aggressive and clears the scenes of all the grain. The post-processing adds some much-needed sharpness, even if it's artificial. The Night mode also improves contrast and adds color saturation, making the photos more likable. It also tends to brighten up the shadows.
Interestingly enough, the dedicated Night mode takes sensibly more time than competing solutions.
2x crop zoom
The 2x zoom photos are surprisingly good in a low-light environment, as long as you use the dedicated Night mode. Without it, you get even noisier and softer stills than the 1x Photo mode.
2x zoom low-light: Photo mode • Night mode
Ultrawide camera
The ultrawide pictures are okay, but not flagship-level. Even with the dedicated Night mode, the stills aren't terribly sharp, but they are decently detailed, with a wide dynamic range and colors and contrast that match the main camera's processing.
Ultrawide low-light: Photo mode • Night mode
Video recording
The S25 Edge has the same video recording capabilities as the rest of its Galaxy peers. It can go up to 8K@30fps with its main camera. The Pro mode unlocks a 24fps video recording mode in 8K and 4K. The ultrawide and selfie cams cap at 4K@60fps.
The HDR video recording has been upgraded to 10-bit HDR video (up from 8-bit last year). There is also a new Galaxy Log video mode where you intend to do the color grading of the footage later yourself.
Another video-related feature in OneUI is the new AI audio eraser in the Gallery, which allows you to adjust the volume of certain types of sounds in your videos after they've been taken - you get a choice of speech, music, wind, nature, crowd and noise.
Now off to the actual video footage.
You can check out the playlist below, which includes multiple video samples.
The primary camera's footage leaves nothing more to be desired. It's clean, with a wide dynamic range, has plenty of detail and is pretty sharp. Colors are punchy, but not too much. We can say the same about the low-light clip. It's very clean, with good contrast and excellent sharpness.
The ultrawide, although not particularly sharp even in favorable lighting conditions, delivers similarly good videos. It's not 4K-level sharp, but it gets the job done. We can't say we like the low-light ultrawide video, though. It's very soft, noisy and with clipped highlights.
Video stabilization is, as usual, solid. No complaints there.
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