Technologies

Samsung’s Superslim Galaxy S25 Edge Is Finally Making Its Debut. Here’s How to Watch

The long-awaited phone is set to be unveiled during a virtual Unpacked event. Here’s everything to know and how to tune in.

At long last, the superthin Galaxy S25 Edge that Samsung teased earlier this year is slated to make its official debut. The company will showcase the phone, and reveal all the highly anticipated specs, at a virtual Unpacked event on Monday, May 12.

Samsung introduced the S25 Edge at its January Unpacked event, and had models of the phone on display, but no one could touch or get too close to them. The company had a similar hands-off display at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in March. At last, it appears we’re one step closer to seeing just how thin — and hopefully light — the latest addition to the Galaxy lineup is.

How to watch the Galaxy S25 Edge unveiling

Samsung’s Unpacked event for the S25 Edge will be fully virtual and will be held on Monday, May 12, at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT).

The event will be livestreamed on Samsung’s YouTube channel, on Samsung.com and on the Samsung Newsroom.

CNET will be covering all the live updates, so be sure to follow along.

The launch of the S25 Edge comes about three months after the release of the baseline Galaxy S25, S25 Plus and S25 Ultra.

What features will the S25 Edge have?

When Samsung first teased the Galaxy S25 Edge, details were slimmer than the device itself. There have been plenty of rumors, though, primarily relating to the phone’s battery and camera. With less space, just how much battery capacity and camera specs could Samsung pack in?

A leak from German tech blog WinFuture earlier this month suggests the S25 Edge will have a 3,900-mAh battery, which is less than both the baseline S25’s 4,000-mAh battery and the S25 Plus’ 4,900 mAh. We’ll have to see if these leaks align with what Samsung unveils on Monday, and, if true, whether the company manages to improve battery efficiency so you don’t really feel that difference.

Regarding the camera, Samsung’s display models showed two lenses on the back. Subsequent rumors have suggested a 200-megapixel wide camera paired with a 12-megapixel ultrawide camera. Samsung has remained quiet on any specifics until now, but confirmed in a post Wednesday that the S25 Edge will indeed feature that 200-megapixel wide camera.

«And thanks to Galaxy AI, the camera transforms into a smart lens that helps recognize what matters to create new memories,» Samsung added. AI capabilities will extend to photo editing as well, it says.

Other rumors from leaker Evan Blass suggest the S25 Edge will weigh 163 grams, measure 5.8mm thick and feature a titanium bezel. It could also be equipped with a Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chip. Blass has also suggested the phone will sport a Corning Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 display, which Samsung confirmed in an update on Thursday, calling the cover «sleek yet strong.»

Additional rumors suggest the Galaxy S25 Edge could have a 6.7-inch AMOLED display with a 2,130 x 1,440 resolution, 12 GB of RAM and 256GB or 512GB of storage. Again, we’ll have to see what the official specs are from Samsung come May 12.

Why is Samsung making a thin Galaxy phone?

So, why would someone want a thin phone anyway?

It appears many phone makers, from Samsung to Apple to Oppo, are eyeing slim phones as the next design iteration to lure in potential customers. Oppo released its super-thin Find N5 foldable earlier this year, which it calls the «world’s thinnest book-style foldable,» measuring just 8.93mm thick when closed and 4.21mm thick when opened. Apple is rumored to be developing an «Air» version of the iPhone 17, a thinner (and presumably lighter) version of its handset. At MWC 2025, phone-maker Tecno showed off its Spark Slim phone concept, a handset measuring 5.75mm thick (skinnier than a standard pencil) and weighing only 146 grams, according to the company.

But thin phones have a big hurdle to overcome: Less space often means a smaller battery, scaled-back camera hardware and less storage. And as it so happens, those are three of the biggest considerations when people buy a new phone, according to a CNET survey from August.

«You can’t just be thin; you have to still have all the bells and whistles of a premium phone,» Nabila Popal, senior director of data and analytics at IDC, told me at MWC in March. «The question is, how are OEMs [phone makers] going to achieve that without compromising the other more important features like battery and camera?»

Popal also noted that the «slim is in» trend is largely an attempt by phone makers to differentiate their products. AI has also been a means for companies to make their offerings stand out, but that’s already become rather ubiquitous. An eye-catchingly thin phone could be one way to grab people’s attention — and dollars.

As Samsung sees it, it’s all about «merging flagship-level performance with superior portability,» it noted in its post, adding, «As our reliance on these devices grows, so do our expectations for them to be portable and lightweight without sacrificing power and innovation.»

Starting Wednesday, eligible customers who reserve the Galaxy S25 Edge can get a $50 Samsung credit toward the device.

We’ll see what’s in store come May 12.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge

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Technologies

I Used to Tell People Wi-Fi 7 Routers Were a Waste of Money. CNET’s Lab Data Just Proved Me Wrong

Technologies

My Camera Test: Comparing the $499 Pixel 10A With the Galaxy S25 FE, Motorola Edge

The Pixel 10A’s cameras are similar to those on the 9A, but it still performs quite well compared to other phones in its price range.

Google’s $499 Pixel 10A uses nearly the same cameras as last year’s Pixel 9A, but I wanted to see how its photos directly match up to its midrange Android rivals: the $650 Samsung Galaxy S25 FE and the $550 Motorola Edge.

I traveled with all three phones around St. Petersburg, Florida, checking how flexible each was in different environments, from bright outdoor settings to an indoor coffee shop and an evening brewery. All three environments can be challenging for the small image sensors on each phone.

While I find the cameras on all three phones to have different strengths and weaknesses depending on the setting, I’m quite impressed with how the Pixel 10A keeps up. In my tests, the photos include lots of detail, even though certain settings appear to involve a lot of processing to improve them.

Wide and telephoto cameras

Starting with photos taken on the sidewalk in downtown St. Petersburg, I notice that all three phones handle bright sunlight slightly differently, especially how it’s depicted on the street.

For the Pixel 10A, the sun provides a slight exposure mark over the Bay First sign at the top of the frame, but it remains fairly cordoned off to focus on the rest of the streetscape. Zooming in, you can see the Century 21 location, but the street is captured in the most detail, with the phone’s camera maintaining its natural gray color.

For both the Galaxy S25 FE and the Motorola Edge, the sun has a more pronounced effect on the rest of the image. The pavement’s color is notably brighter. I also find both the S25 FE and the Edge have slightly more clarity on the business signs on the Bay First building, including the aforementioned Century 21 logo.

Since the S25 FE and the Edge each include a telephoto camera that supports 3x optical zoom, I took a photo at that zoom with each phone. The Pixel 10A uses digital zoom on the phone’s 48-megapixel wide camera, but a lot of the scene’s detail remains preserved.

The Pixel’s zoom photo provides a clear view of the 7th St N sign, the trees and the plants. However, if you look further back at the next intersection, you’ll notice that the 7th St S sign and the Colony Grill are much harder to see. It’s those smaller details that are captured by the S25 FE and the Edge, both aided by telephoto cameras, making them more visible.

Of the three zoom photo examples, I feel like the S25 FE has the best color reproduction while also retaining details like the signs further back. Even though the photo was taken with the S25 FE’s 8-megapixel telephoto camera rather than its 50-megapixel wide camera, the colors remain complementary when comparing the 1x to the 3x. Meanwhile, the Edge’s 10-megapixel telephoto camera looks quite a bit different from the 50-megapixel wide camera — the whole image has a more yellowish hue.

Ultrawide cameras

Moving inside the Southern Grounds coffee shop, I decided to use the ultrawide cameras to capture my sausage, egg and cheese on toast. The three photos came out wildly different.

The Pixel 10A’s 13-megapixel ultrawide and S25 FE’s 12-megapixel ultrawide have a more balanced set of colors and details, in my opinion. The wheat toast appears lighter in the Pixel’s photo than in the darker hues captured by both the S25 FE and the Edge.

When zooming into my notebook, however, the Pixel and S25 FE captured more of the page markings, details that blur together more in the photo taken by the Edge. While the Edge’s 50-megapixel ultrawide camera is a higher-spec number, I noticed it had a harder time distinguishing toast levels, giving more of it a darker look. If I hadn’t eaten it myself, I’d have thought it was burned based on the Edge’s photo.

Night photography

Moving over to a nighttime setting, I used the three phones to take photos outside of 3 Daughters Brewing. I felt like all three did a decent job at producing the colors of the building, but they differ in how they handle light sources.

Both the Pixel and the S25 FE tone back the glare produced by the various lighting fixtures. Meanwhile, the Edge’s photos show noticeable streaks that dominate the sky. When inspecting the photos more closely, I find that the Galaxy captured a sharper view of the furniture, like in the Connect 4 set next to the blue chairs in the center of the frame. The same details are visible in the Pixel’s and the Edge’s depictions of the scene, but they appear smudgy by comparison.

This type of scene needs to take advantage of a phone’s processing power in order to iron out visibility issues, and I do find that the Edge appears to come up short here in this regard, with a lot of noticeable image noise.

Selfies

Each phone takes selfies with noticeable differences in style and color choices. For this test example, I’m in a well-lit daytime room with natural light from a window. The 12-megapixel front-facing camera on Google’s Pixel 10A brightened up my face as if there was a light in front of me, and captured a decent amount of the details of my hair and face.

The front-facing camera on Samsung’s Galaxy S25 FE shows a noticeably darker color tone, but it still captures a similar shade of orange on the wall behind me. Of the three photos, I felt like the S25 captures the most details, including strands of hair, and defaulted to a closer crop than the other two.

The photos taken by the 50-megapixel selfie camera on the Motorola Edge feel a bit smoothed out. The orange color on the wall is noticeably different from the Pixel and the S25 FE, though it does capture a lot of my face details, from hair strands to the fabric textures on my shirt.

The $499 Pixel 10A camera keeps up and, in some cases, exceeds the detail captured by the slightly more expensive $550 Motorola Edge and $650 Galaxy S25 FE. I’m quite impressed by how the Pixel camera handles colors and low-light environments, but the phone’s processing work sometimes makes scenes appear brighter than they are in real life.

The Galaxy S25 FE is no slouch either, with a third telephoto lens for capturing more detail farther away. While I did find the Motorola Edge to struggle in low light, it is one of the lowest-cost phone options currently available for someone who must have a 3x optical telephoto camera.

But if you can live without the telephoto lens, the Pixel 10A’s low cost and photography abilities will likely be a good fit for most people.

Google’s Pixel 10A Looks Stylish for a Low-Cost Flagship Phone

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Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for March 14 #741

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for March 14, No. 741.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Does today’s date seem memorable to you? If so, today’s NYT Strands puzzle might be easy. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: A math teacher’s favorite dessert.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: 3.14

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

RITE, SPIT, TIPS, STAT, STATE, GIVE, RUST, FINE, LAZE, SURE, PEAL

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

VENT, CRUST, FRUIT, EDGES, GLAZE, FILLING, LATTICE

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is HAPPYPIDAY. To find it, start with the H that’s six rows down and three to the right from the upper-left corner, and make — well, a pie shape.