Galaxy S25 Edge lacks a zoom camera, but is that a big deal?

The Galaxy S25 Edge is the thinnest flagship phone Samsung has made, and there were naturally some sacrifices the company had to make, even if the list of sacrifices isn’t as long as you would expect.

The most notable one is the lack of a zoom camera at the back. The Galaxy S25 Edge is the first flagship smartphone from Samsung after 2019 that comes with a dual rear camera setup, not counting its foldable Galaxy Z Flip lineup, and that’s something that could put off some potential buyers.

Thanks to its 200-megapixel primary camera, the Galaxy S25 Edge does offer more powerful digital zoom than most phones. But how good is that digital zoom, especially compared to the 3x optical zoom offered by other non-Ultra Galaxy S flagships?

At up to 10x zoom, the maximum allowed on the Galaxy S25 Edge, it holds its own surprisingly well against the Galaxy S25 and S25+. This might be due to the underwhelming performance of the 3x camera on the S25 and S25+, but ultimately, it’s the results that count. In that regard, the Edge is unlikely to disappoint most users.

In the gallery below, you can check out a scene that we captured at 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x, and 10x zoom with the Galaxy S25 Edge (left) and the Galaxy S25 (right). This should give you a pretty good idea of the quality you can expect if you use digital zoom on the Edge.

Here's another scene captured at the same zoom levels on a Galaxy S25 Edge (left) and a Galaxy S25 (right):

What about zoom beyond 10x? As mentioned earlier, the Galaxy S25 Edge doesn't support it. And while the Galaxy S25 and S25+ technically can zoom further, the image quality beyond 10x isn't really usable as their telephoto cameras have a mere 10 megapixels to work with.

For serious zoom performance, the Ultra models in Samsung's Galaxy S series are the only real choice. The Galaxy S25 Ultra, Galaxy S24 Ultra, Galaxy S23 Ultra, and Galaxy S22 Ultra have a similar 10MP 3x zoom camera compared to their non-Ultra counterparts. But they also have an additional telephoto lens capable of 5x or 10x optical zoom, and that makes all the difference.