Samsung (005930.KS) unveils its thinnest smartphone yet with the Galaxy S25 Edge, now available for preorder. Yahoo Finance Technology Editor Dan Howley joins Wealth to take a look at the phone's design, the camera trade-offs, and whether its ultra-slim build is a direct challenge to Apple's (AAPL) next iPhone.

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Video Transcript

00:00 Speaker A

Well, it's time now for Tech Support, our weekly deep dive into all things technology. Samsung's Galaxy S25 Edge is its thinnest smartphone ever, and it's available for preorder now. Yahoo Finance's tech editor, Dan Howley, got the chance to check it out in person. Dan, I can just imagine myself sitting on this and it immediately just disintegrating or cracking, but what do consumers need to know? And is this a shot at Apple ahead of the so-called iPhone Air?

00:30 Dan Howley

Yeah, absolutely, uh, a shot at Apple. Uh, it's interesting. These companies always know what the other one's doing, so obviously they're, you know, developing this in tandem. Uh, Samsung says they learned a lot from their foldables to manage to get these phones so thin. And as to whether it's sturdy, it's built with titanium. I I got to hold it. It felt as sturdy as any other smartphone, granted I only got to hold on to it for, you know, a couple minutes here and there during during my hands on with it. Uh, here here's the baseline. Starts at 10.99, so, uh, a premium phone. It slots in between Samsung's, uh, Galaxy S25 Plus and their S25 Ultra. Uh, it has a 6.7 inch AMOLED 2X display, basically just a very pretty display. Samsung's known for those, uh, and two rear cameras. It's kind of a bummer because you're paying that 10.99 and you would expect to get three cameras. Uh, this has a regular camera and an ultrawide rather than its telephoto. Samsung says they kind of get around that because the main camera offers up to 200 megapixels. And so they use AI technologies to get 2x optical-like, uh, image quality, and then they can go up to 10x, uh, with the the various AI zooms that they have there. But the big the big deal here is obviously the size, and so this comes in at just .22 inches thick. It is absolutely ridiculous how thin this is when you hold it. Now compare that to an iPhone which comes in at .32 inches, so it's about a 10th of an inch thinner than the iPhone, and then slightly thinner than the the S25 Plus and Ultra, that's, uh, .28 inches and .32 inches. Now, okay, that sounds like nothing on paper, right? You're like, "Well, why do I care about a tenth of an inch here and there?" But truly, when you hold it, I mean, I thought the same thing. I was like, "Well, this is just, you know, we're talking about next to nothing." But it really does make a difference when you're holding on to it. You can reach a little bit more across the screen because it's not as thick. It just feels overall like a more premium device. And also because it's so thin, uh, it's also incredibly lightweight. And so the edge weighs just 5.7 ounces. Uh, that's less than the the iPhone 16 Pro or Pro Max. Uh, the 16 Pro is 7 ounces. The Pro Max is 7.9 ounces. Uh, again, sounds like next to nothing on paper, but in reality, it does make quite a difference, and, you know, you're holding this thing and the the whole time I'm using it, I'm like, "I just chuck this at a wall and get it to stick like a ninja star because it's so thin or, you know, can I whip it like a frisbee?" Samsung's PR team not excited about that idea, so I did not do that. But, you know, when you're holding this with with your iPhone, your iPhone 16 Pro, it it does feel chunkier now, you know, I mean, it's it's something where you're you're holding on to this device, you have this lighter one, you're sliding into your pocket, you know, you're you're typing on it, it just doesn't feel as as bulky. Now, the the trade-off, as I said, you don't get that that camera. They also have to lower the, uh, battery size. They say that they use, uh, different functionalities, uh, some forms of, uh, heat dissipation, uh, and, uh, a their chip allows them to ensure that the battery life is still there, that you'll get all day battery life. But, you know, overall, do people want a thinner phone?

05:20 Speaker A

Yeah.

05:22 Dan Howley

Yeah, I mean, people want physical changes to their phones. They don't really care that much about software, so something like this I think will sell, 10.99 though, it's still kind of up there in price.

05:33 Speaker A

All right, sounds like OtterBox is about to make a lot of money here. Dan, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

05:40 Dan Howley

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