Well, it’s happened — Samsung has finally gone for an Apple-esque “One more thing” moment. It waited until the very last minute of its Galaxy Unpacked event to preview another brand-new device, the Galaxy S25 Edge. And you know what? It paid off; my interest is piqued. I want to learn more about this ultra-slim flagship, and I want it in my hands as soon as possible.
However, Samsung’s top-secret tease has one rather unfortunate side effect: I’m no longer interested in the standard Galaxy S25 series, and here’s why.
The Galaxy you know vs the Galaxy you don’t
C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
Let’s face it: The Galaxy S25 Edge is so exciting right now because we know nothing about it — or we don’t know very much. We’ve seen the design, so we know that the phone is larger than the Galaxy S25 but smaller than the Galaxy S25 Ultra and comes with two cameras rather than Samsung’s ever-reliable trio, but that’s about it. Maybe we can make an educated guess, like the fact that it will offer 25W or 45W wired charging and carry an overclocked Snapdragon For Galaxy chipset, but the rest is a mystery.
On the other hand, the regular Galaxy S25 series landed with about as much intrigue as a five-year-old doing a magic trick. Samsung did its very best to hype up the new AI features (most of which were co-developed with Google) and talk about its simple, emotive design principles, but we all saw the updates coming from a mile away. It’ll be popular, no doubt, but that’s not the same as exciting. Some things that we hoped for, like magnet-compatible Qi2 charging, didn’t materialize, while pipe dreams like an updated design remained, well, dreams. I listened to the audience clap politely during the Unpacked livestream, but I could tell the crowd wanted a little more.
At long last, a Galaxy flagship that doesn’t just match all the others.
So, when the last moment of an hour-long event preserved just enough mystery, it finally got my attention. I put down the cup of coffee that had been warming my hands and jumped into a Slack thread to see if anyone had known this was coming. Watching the Galaxy S25 Edge come together but never fully turn on made me want ten more seconds of video, purely in the hopes of seeing something new. If it’s going to take on the rumored iPhone 17 Air, the Edge has to have something up its tightly tailored sleeve.
Of course, my excitement came with the usual amount of skepticism. Did I laugh at dubbing a phone with a flat display the Edge when all previous Samsung Edge phones were curved? Sure, but I also loved that Samsung found a way to bring back the branding that made me drool in a Verizon store almost a decade ago. Do I hope that Samsung makes the right choice for its pair of rear cameras (a 200MP wide sensor and a 50MP telephoto)? Yes, but I know I’ll have to wait a few months to find out. And, as a phone nerd, I’m excited to do so. Not much catches me off guard at the rate of product leaks these days, but Samsung finally pulled off something neat.
And, on that note, I think I know where it went wrong with its teaser, too.
Are you excited for the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge?
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“One more thing” shouldn’t be the same thing
C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
While I like that Samsung decided to end its Galaxy Unpacked event with a punch, I think it threw the wrong blow. What makes Apple’s signature “One more thing” teaser so effective is that it’s always different from the main launch. Instead of getting another version of the main thing, you’re getting another thing — you can be excited about the new MacBook or iPad that’s on its way, but you also learn a little bit about something coming even further down the line.
For example, when Tim Cook unveiled the original Apple Watch in September 2014, he did so at the end of an iPhone event. He let iOS fans enjoy that a new flagship phone was coming but gave them something different to look forward to. Cook did the same with Apple’s Vision Pro, debuting it at WWDC rather than using it to draw excitement away from another major launch. If you’re going to tease something big, you can’t do so at the cost of your current bread and butter.
And yet, that’s exactly what Samsung did. It’s given Galaxy fans a reason to sit around and wait for the other shoe to drop — which it will, hopefully, sooner rather than later. It’s made me excited for what’s to come, but it’s done so at the cost of what’s here now.
