At this point, the Galaxy S26 Edge — Samsung's rumored follow-up to the Galaxy S25 Edge that debuted earlier this year — feels a little bit like the Schrödinger's cat of phone updates. It's simultaneously cancelled or on course to arrive with the rest or the Galaxy S26 lineup next year.
The cancelled claims surfaced after a news report cited less-than-encouraging Galaxy S25 Edge sales that caused Samsung to abandon plans to include an Edge in the S26 lineup, possibly as a replacement for the neither fish-nor-fowl Plus model. Prominent leakers echoed those claims, and now reports have Samsung pushing back its phone launch to late February/early March as it scrambles to get the Galaxy S26 lineup back in shape.
Before you mourn the update that never was, though, consider this Galaxy Club report that claims there's still a Galaxy S26 Edge in the works somewhere in Samsung HQ. This model would be even more slim than the 5.8mm thin Galaxy S25 Edge while working in other improvements like a newer chipset and bigger battery.
If I had to guess — and failing confirmation from Samsung one way or the other, that's all any of us can do — I imagine those initial reports about the Edge being a goner are probably correct. And yet, I really hope that claims of its demise have been greatly exaggerated and that we do wind up seeing a Galaxy S26 Edge at the next Unpacked event.
That's not necessarily because i'm a Galaxy Edge fan, per se. But I do like to see phone makers trying something new and I think it would be a mistake for Samsung to scrap a promising phone after just one iteration.
The appeal of thin phones
By and large, we want phones to have large screens, but we also want them to be portable, and those two demands are often at odds. The Galaxy S25 Edge solves that with the aforementioned thinness supporting a 6.7-inch display. The Edge is light, too, weighing in at just 5.75 ounces. Contrast that with the Galaxy S25 Plus, which has the same size screen but carries an extra ounce of weight.
You'd expect a phone that thin and light to face durability issues, but Samsung really did a good job of toughening up the Galaxy S25 Edge. It's got a titanium frame, which lends it an air of structural stability, while the Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 covering and IP68 water and dust resistance rating means the Edge can handle what life throws at it.
I've argued in the past that phones like the Galaxy S25 Edge and iPhone Air should offer more than just a slender design, and I still believe that. But as the first swings at a new kind of form factor, these thin phones impress.
And in a way, the Edge does offer something besides thinness. Thanks to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor inside, it can deliver equivalent performance to any of the other flagships in Samsung's lineup, and it offers the same suite of Galaxy AI tools. You're not compromising on performance with the Edge.
Addressing the S25 Edge's trade-offs
Ah, but you are making some compromises, and that may be what undid the Edge if rumors of its demise are true. The phone lacks the telephoto lens found on other S25 models, even the cheaper Galaxy S25 FE. So that limits your flexibility when it comes to taking photos — something that's hard to swallow for a phone that starts at $1,099.
More significant is the battery life gap between the S25 Edge and other Samsung flagships. Because of its limited internal space, the Galaxy S25 Edge doesn't have much room for a big battery, and its staying power suffers as a result.
On our battery test, where phones surf the web until they run out of power, the Galaxy S25 Edge lasted 12 hours and 24 minutes. That's a better-than-average time relative to other smartphones, but compared to Samsung's premium Galaxy S25 models, it's far off the pace. The S25, S25 Plus and S25 Ultra all last more than 15.5 hours on our test — and the bigger ones post some of the best phone battery life numbers we've seen this year.
You'd imagine that Samsung would try to address that with a Galaxy S26 Edge release. Renders of that phone suggested Samsung was going with an iPhone Air-like design that might have increased the internal space available for a battery. At an rate, rumors tipped the new version to feature a 4,200 or 4,300 mAh power pack, which would have been an upgrade from the S25 Edge's 3,900 mAh cell.
Why the Edge deserves another chance
Apart from the trade-offs, you also have to wonder whether the Galaxy S25 Edge was a victim of timing. The phone came out at the end of May — four months after the main S25 models hit stores. You'd imagine people in the market for a new Samsung flagship had already bought their phone by the time the Galaxy S25 Edge was on the scene, and those willing to take a chance on a unique design may have been holding out for the updated Samsung foldables that arrived later in the summer.
The only way to know for sure would be to release the Galaxy S26 Edge at the same time as the other new models. But from the sound of things, Samsung apparently has opted not to take that chance.
It's a pity because a Galaxy S26 Edge would be a more worthwhile addition to Samsung's lineup than yet another Galaxy Plus. The problem with the Plus is that it shares too many features with the standard Galaxy S model to really be a viable alternative to Samsung's Ultra offering. And while the Plus may enjoy battery life and camera advantages over the Edge at the moment, that's not to say that future versions of a Galaxy Edge couldn't reverse that.
Unfortunately, barring any reports that the Edge is still a going concern, it sounds like we're never going to find out. And the Galaxy S26 lineup will be a little bit more dull because of that.
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