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If there’s one thing customers want to see from the established phone titans, it’s something new. Years of incremental improvements in processors, cameras and displays can occasionally be exciting, but unless you’re upgrading from a several-years-old model, the differences tend to be relatively minor.

So when Samsung released the super thin Galaxy S25 Edge earlier this year, it got our attention. And, naturally, it sparked speculation that Apple would also release a new slim phone, which arrived last week in the form of the new iPhone Air. (Notably, it’s not the “iPhone 17 Air,” which suggests Apple may treat it as a special case that doesn’t get yearly updates.)

How do these two slim phones stack up against each other? And if you press them together, are they combined much thicker than a regular iPhone 17 or Galaxy S25? I’m here to do the math and compare features.

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iPhone Air vs. S25 Edge price comparison

• iPhone Air: $999. The iPhone Air takes the place formerly held by the iPhone 16 Plus, making it the only model with a screen larger than the iPhone 17 that isn’t an iPhone 17 Pro.

• Galaxy S25 Edge: $1,100. The S25 Edge joins the S25 and S25 Ultra in this year’s Galaxy lineup.

The iPhone Air includes fewer features than the iPhone 17, such as the number of cameras, but includes a larger display, A19 Pro processor and is configured with 256GB of storage to start. Plus, Apple has always applied premium pricing for thin design changes; the original MacBook Air fit into an inter-office envelope and cost $1,799, despite being underpowered compared to the rest of the MacBook line. (Over a few generations it would eventually become Apple’s entry-level affordable laptop at $999, where it still resides.)

The Galaxy S25 Edge price at $101 more could be an attempt to capture more dollars from customers who are looking for a phone that will set them apart, but we’re already seeing occasional steep discounts on it, like this $400 drop.

In both cases, it’s worth noting that the pricing has held up against the Trump administration tariffs so far.

iPhone Air vs. S25 Edge dimensions and weight

Now it’s time to go deep — as in, just how thin is the depth of each phone?

No phone manufacturer describes their phones as being bulky or chunky, even for extra large models like the iPhone Pro Max. And yet the difference between the depths of the iPhone Air and S25 Edge and the standard phones of each respective family is stark.

Not counting the camera assembly, which Apple calls the “plateau,” most of the iPhone Air’s body is 5.64mm thick. The S25 Edge, at its narrowest point, is a hair thicker at 5.8mm. (Both companies list only the thinnest measurement, not including the cameras.) Compare that to 7.9mm for the iPhone 17 and 7.2mm for the Galaxy S25.

The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is actually thinner when open, at 4.2mm, but it also has more surface area to spread out its battery and other components. Other foldables from Chinese companies Huawei, Oppo and Honor also boast thinner bodies than the iPhone Air or S25 Edge, but only when opened.

And when you press the two thin phones together, do they really match up to the typical phone slab you’re carrying now? Combined (and again, not including the camera bumps), the iPhone Air and S25 Ultra are 11.44mm thick, which is more chunky than either the iPhone 17 or Galaxy S25, and even the iPhone 17 Pro Max at 8.75mm. But if you wanted to get closer to an old-time feel, the original first-generation iPhone in 2007 sat at 11.6mm.

Surprisingly, less depth translates to only a little less weight compared to the other models in each lineup. The iPhone Air weighs 165 grams versus 177 grams for the iPhone 17, while the S25 Edge pips in at just 163 grams but gets barely undercut by the Galaxy S25 at 162 grams.

How big is each phone in the hand? While both are pretty similar, the iPhone Air is slightly shorter and narrower at 156.2mm tall and 74.7mm wide, compared to the S25 Edge’s dimensions of 158.2mm tall and 75.6mm wide.

iPhone Air vs. S25 Edge displays

Apple calls the iPhone Air’s 6.5-inch OLED screen a Super Retina XDR display, which has a high resolution of 2,736 x 1,260 pixels at a density of 460 ppi (pixels per inch). It can output a maximum 3,000 nits of brightness outdoors, and just 1 nit minimum in the dark.

Samsung packed a larger 6.7-inch QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X screen into the S25 Edge, which translates to a high resolution display measuring 3,120 x 1,440 pixels at 513 ppi. Its brightness goes up to 2,600 nits.

Both phone’s screens feature adaptive 120Hz refresh rates for smoother performance.

Comparing the iPhone Air and S25 Edge cameras

So far, many of the specs have been close enough to weigh each phone fairly evenly. But then we come to the cameras.

The iPhone Air includes a single rear-facing 48-megapixel wide camera with a 26mm-equivalent field of view and a constant f/1.6 aperture. In its default mode, the camera outputs 24-megapixel “fusion” photos that are the result of an imaging process where the camera captures a 12-megapixel image (using groups of four pixels acting as one larger pixel for better light gathering, called “binning”) and a 48-megapixel reference for additional detail.

Apple also claims the iPhone Air can capture 2x-zoomed (52mm-equivalent) telephoto images that are 12 megapixels in dimension and represent a crop of the center of the image sensor.

The S25 Edge includes two built-in rear cameras, a 200-megapixel wide and 12-megapixel ultrawide. There’s no dedicated telephoto camera, so the S25 Edge also offers a 2x-zoomed crop that shoots photosis 12-megapixels in size.

The front-facing selfie cameras on each phone are quite different. The iPhone Air introduces a new 18-megapixel camera with an f/1.9 aperture. But the increased resolution over the S25 Edge’s 12-megapixel selfie camera isn’t what’s notable. Apple calls it a Center Stage camera because it has a square sensor that can capture tall or wide shots without physically turning the phone, compared to the 4:3 ratio sensors in typical selfie cameras. It can adapt the aspect ratio based on the number of people it detects in front of the camera: a traditional portrait orientation when you’re snapping a photo of yourself, for example, or switch to a landscape orientation when two friends stand next to you in the frame.

iPhone Air vs. S25 Edge batteries

When it comes to concerns, the battery life of thin phones tops the list. The insides of most phones are packed with as much battery as will fit, so making a phone slimmer naturally means removing space for the battery. With either model, you end up sacrificing battery power for design. But how much?

Apple does not list the iPhone Air’s battery capacity, but claims “all-day battery life” and up to 27 hours of video playback. It also sells a special iPhone Air MagSafe Battery add-on that magnetically snaps to the back of the phone and works only with the iPhone Air. In her review, CNET’s  Senior Tech Reporter Abrar Al-Heeti drained the battery in 12 hours over a phone-intensive day, but did end a more typical day with 20% remaining.

The S25 Edge includes a 3,900 mAh battery that Samsung claims will play up to 24 hours of video playback. (Come on, phone manufacturers, our phones aren’t televisions left running in the background.) In her S25 Edge review, Al-Heeti noted that the phone also generally lived up to Samsung’s own “all-day battery life” boast, saying, “Ultimately, you’ll get less juice out of that slimmer build, but S25 Edge offers just enough battery life to make me happy…But the S25 Edge has shifted my priorities. I’m enjoying the sleek form factor so much that I’m willing to make some compromises, even if that means I have to be sure to charge my phone each night, which is something I tend to do anyway.”

It’s worth noting that both phones support fast charging when using a 20W or higher wired power adapter, going from zero to around 50% charge in 30 minutes.

iPhone Air vs. S25 Edge processor, storage and operating system

The iPhone Air is powered by Apple’s latest A19 Pro processor, the same one found in the iPhone 17 Pro models (compared to the A19 in the stock iPhone 17). Apple doesn’t list the built-in memory, but we suspect it includes 8GB of RAM (which is recognized as the minimum amount to run AI features such as Apple Intelligence). The base storage configuration is 256GB, with options to order the iPhone Air with 512GB or 1TB capacity. It ships with iOS 26, the latest version of the operating system that Apple released widely this week.

The S25 Edge is run on a Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, the same one that powers the other S25 models. It includes 12GB of RAM and is available in storage capacities of 256GB and 512GB. The phone comes preinstalled with Android 15.

iPhone Air vs. S25 Edge all specs

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A mathematical model shows memory capacity is maximized when represented by seven features. The study links this to the potential for seven senses, with applications in AI and neuroscience.

Skoltech researchers have developed a mathematical model to study how memory works. Their analysis led to unexpected insights that may advance the design of robots, artificial intelligence, and our understanding of human memory. The study, published in Scientific Reports, suggests there could be an ideal number of senses. If that is true, then humans with five senses might actually benefit from having a few more.

“Our conclusion is, of course, highly speculative in application to human senses, although you never know: It could be that humans of the future would evolve a sense of radiation or magnetic field. But in any case, our findings may be of practical importance for robotics and the theory of artificial intelligence,” said study co-author Professor Nikolay Brilliantov of Skoltech AI. “It appears that when each concept retained in memory is characterized in terms of seven features — as opposed to, say, five or eight — the number of distinct objects held in memory is maximized.”

Modeling memory engrams

Building on a framework established in the early 20th century, the team focused on the basic units of memory known as “engrams.” An engram can be described as a sparse network of neurons distributed across different brain regions that activate together. Its conceptual content is an idealized object defined by multiple characteristics.

In human memory, these characteristics map to sensory inputs. For instance, the memory of a banana would include its image, smell, taste, and other sensory details. Altogether, this forms a five-dimensional representation that exists within a larger five-dimensional space containing all other stored concepts.

Over time, engrams can become more refined or more diffuse depending on how frequently they are triggered by external stimuli acting through the senses, which in turn recall the memory of the object. This process represents how learning strengthens memories while disuse leads to forgetting through environmental interaction.

“We have mathematically demonstrated that the engrams in the conceptual space tend to evolve toward a steady state, which means that after some transient period, a ‘mature’ distribution of engrams emerges, which then persists in time,” Brilliantov commented. “As we consider the ultimate capacity of a conceptual space of a given number of dimensions, we somewhat surprisingly find that the number of distinct engrams stored in memory in the steady state is the greatest for a concept space of seven dimensions. Hence, the seven senses claim.”

Maximizing conceptual space

In other words, let the objects that exist out there in the world be described by a finite number of features corresponding to the dimensions of some conceptual space. Suppose that we want to maximize the capacity of the conceptual space expressed as the number of distinct concepts associated with these objects. The greater the capacity of the conceptual space, the deeper the overall understanding of the world. It turns out that the maximum is attained when the dimension of the conceptual space is seven. From this, the researchers conclude that seven is the optimal number of senses.

According to the researchers, this number does not depend on the details of the model — the properties of the conceptual space and the stimuli providing the sense impressions. The number seven appears to be a robust and persistent feature of memory engrams as such. One caveat is that multiple engrams of differing sizes existing around a common center are deemed to represent similar concepts and are therefore treated as one when calculating memory capacity.

The memory of humans and other living beings is an enigmatic phenomenon tied to the property of consciousness, among other things. Advancing the theoretical models of memory will be instrumental to gaining new insights into the human mind and recreating humanlike memory in AI agents.

Reference: “The critical dimension of memory engrams and an optimal number of senses” by Wendy Otieno, Ivan Y. Tyukin and Nikolay Brilliantov, 15 August 2025, Scientific Reports.
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-11244-y

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