Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge or iPhone Air is a better choice?

After a decade of smartphone brands pushing the limits of what flagship phones can be, Samsung and Apple are trying something different. Both the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge and iPhone Air are under 6mm thick, an impressive feat. Both have cut back on features and hardware to achieve it.

 

So, should users who want to own a super thin smartphone choose Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge or iPhone Air? Let's find the answer through the following article!

The iPhone Air's smaller screen helps it fit into a slim, lightweight design

Samsung tries to do too much with the Galaxy S25 Edge

 

When designing the Galaxy S25 Edge, Samsung used the Galaxy S25 Plus as a benchmark. The former has the same display, processor, and chassis design as the latter. This approach has its pros and cons. Larger-screen phones are more popular—that's why most 'mini' phones have disappeared from the market—and the Galaxy S25 Edge's 6.7-inch AMOLED display helps it stay competitive. The larger screen also limits the Galaxy S25 Edge's compact feel.

The iPhone Air has a 6.5-inch OLED display; it's a screen size we haven't seen on an iPhone since 2019's iPhone 11 Pro Max. It's a smart move on Apple's part. It feels more spacious and premium than the iPhone 17 , but it's much more compact than the Plus or Max phones. It's a few millimeters shorter and narrower than the Galaxy S25 Edge, making it a compact phone to hold.

 

In terms of display quality, both the iPhone Air and the Galaxy S25 Edge offer excellent image quality. At 513 ppi, the Galaxy S25 Edge's display looks sharper than the iPhone Air's, which has a pixel density of 460 ppi. The iPhone Air is slightly brighter, but the difference in brightness between the two phones is 400 nits.

By far the most underrated aspect of the iPhone Air and Galaxy S25 Edge's design is their weight. Samsung has made the Galaxy S25 Edge weigh 163 grams, which is hard to argue with for a 6.7-inch smartphone. The iPhone Air is no slouch either at 165 grams, but it's smaller overall. Both phones are easy to hold or toss in a pocket while running, not only because they're thin, but also because they're light.

Samsung's Galaxy S25 Edge wins hands down in performance

The iPhone Air has power limitations that you'll notice in everyday use.

The A19 Pro chip that powers the iPhone Air is down on performance, so it's not really a significant upgrade over the base A19 chip in the iPhone 17. Benchmarks show the iPhone Air slightly outperforming the Galaxy S25 Edge in single-core CPU performance and slightly behind in multi-core CPU performance. However, real-world experience with the iPhone Air paints a bleaker picture.

 

You'll notice the iPhone Air's performance drops in everyday use, and Apple knows it. There's even an Adaptive Power mode that's enabled by default, which allows for "performance adjustments" including "reducing screen brightness, allowing some activities to take longer, or enabling Low Power Mode at 20%." Many people love this feature, and it's also available on all iPhone 17 models. You'll notice the effect more clearly on the iPhone Air due to its tight performance and temperature thresholds.

Benchmark	Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge	iPhone Air
Geekbench 6 (single-core)	3,016	3,668
Geekbench 6 (multi-core)	9,588	9,365
3DMark Wild Life Extreme (score)	5,769	3,816
3DMark Wild Life Extreme (FPS)	34.55	22.90

Certain tasks cause the iPhone Air to overheat and slow down, like downloading lossless songs from Apple Music—a specific use case, but not unexpected. The phone gets hot to the touch, UI animations slow down, and the battery drains. In other cases, the iPhone Air freezes completely, to the point where it doesn't even respond to a factory reset.

There's no similar situation with the Galaxy S25 Edge. In testing, the Galaxy S25 Edge clearly beats the iPhone Air in graphics tasks, such as mobile gaming.

Somehow, the iPhone Air always offers better battery life

Even with a smaller capacity, optimizations make the iPhone Air shine

Surprisingly, the iPhone Air is the winner in terms of battery life. Phones take time to optimize and index after initial setup, which is why battery life is often poor in the first few days of use. With the iPhone Air, it takes a week or two for the phone to learn your habits and adjust its battery life accordingly. Once it gets past this rough patch, the iPhone Air starts to deliver truly outstanding battery life.

 

You'll always get about 6 hours of screen-on time on a full charge of the iPhone Air. On some days, battery life is even better.

On the other hand, the Galaxy S25 Edge's battery life is so bad that you should seriously consider it. The phone has a larger battery than the iPhone Air, but there's still a catch. Remember, the Galaxy S25 Edge has the same screen and chip as the Galaxy S25 Plus. Although the S25 Edge's battery is 1,000mAh smaller than the S25 Plus. Perhaps the Galaxy S25 Edge's hardware is simply consuming more power than the battery is designed to handle, resulting in shorter battery life.

The Galaxy S25 Edge often loses 30% to 40% of its battery life after an hour of use. It's disappointing to only get 3 or 4 hours of use per charge. Without Qi2 magnetic charging, the shorter battery life significantly impacts the experience.

The iPhone Air and Galaxy S25 Edge both have great cameras

They just don't have many cameras.

 

The iPhone Air and Galaxy S25 Edge have excellent main cameras. Samsung has brought the 200MP camera from the Galaxy S25 Ultra to the Edge, so it's capable of sharp, detailed photos. Meanwhile, Apple has taken the trusty 48MP sensor from other iPhones and used it as the sole camera on the Air.

The cameras on the iPhone Air and Galaxy S25 Edge can capture everything from sporting events to concerts. Samsung's slimmer phone is more versatile, with a 12MP ultra-wide lens with a 120-degree field of view alongside the main camera.

 

From left to right: Galaxy S25 Edge 1x, iPhone Air 1x, Galaxy S25 Edge 2x, iPhone Air 2x, Galaxy S25 Edge 0.6x

The telephoto lens is being ditched for the first time in years, and with main cameras as good as these phones, it doesn't matter.

The iPhone Air is missing some features.

Galaxy S25 Edge integrates too much

After months of testing, it's clear that the iPhone Air and Galaxy S25 Edge have a lot of shortcomings. The iPhone Air feels like it was created to prove a point rather than to be a great smartphone. There are so many cuts, increasing the likelihood that a missing feature will become a major drawback. Many people can live without a camera, good performance, long battery life, or stereo speakers, but the loss of video output over USB-C is really annoying.

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge has the opposite problem. It tries to cram a bunch of flagship features into a device with a battery that doesn't have great capacity. Those extra features won't help when the phone runs out of juice by lunchtime.