Samsung has taken the wraps off the new Galaxy S25 Edge today, and from what we’ve seen so far, it seems like a solid, skinny flagship. You get all the bells and whistles of a top-tier device made by arguably one of the best Android OEMs today, but there’s one thing that stands out in a bad way about the phone. I’m talking about its tiny 3,900mAh Li-ion battery as well as its slow charging speeds that top out at 25W. 

I would give Samsung some slack about the battery for their newest slim star if not for the fact that TECNO’s SPARK Slim has a 33% bigger battery despite being a hair slimmer. Granted, the phone is a concept phone as of the moment, but its state when we saw it at Mobile World Congress a few months ago suggests that the brand is almost ready to start production for their device. 

The Galaxy S25 Edge highlights what I think is Samsung’s institutional fear over battery and charging technologies, which was the result of the unfortunate launch and double recall of the Galaxy Note 7. You can draw a direct line from that unfortunate event to Samsung’s conservative approach to charging speeds and battery capacities. While the caution is understandable, Samsung faithful are being let down by this omission.

I think any flagship phone should ship with fast charging speeds of 50W at a minimum. The fact that the vanilla S25 only has a 25W charging speed just doesn’t cut it, considering how much you’re paying for it, especially when you compare it to similar devices at the same price range. 

Samsung, the Galaxy Note 7 was almost a decade ago. We know it hurt, but please, start trusting big batteries again. You can safely stuff a 6000mAh battery in a flagship phone without blowing up. And please, make it so that your flagships charge faster than the budget phone I bought for my niece. It’s not a great look that the supposedly #1 Android OEM is being outclassed by manufacturers that aren’t particularly known in the west..