It popped up for a few seconds like a Marvel post-credits scene. One could also say it was reminiscent of an Apple “One more thing…” moment that we haven’t gotten in quite a while. All-around, it was a nostalgia-inducing event. And perhaps, it was the nostalgia that made me think about the whole “Edge” branding and where it might have gone.
See, some of you youngins may not remember, but Edge used to stand for something completely different from “slightly thinner than a Galaxy S25+”. So, let’s take a look at the pink-colored past, for a second:
A brief history lesson: the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge
Similar to the current Galaxy S25 Edge, the OG Samsung Galaxy Note Edge dropped out of nowhere at a Samsung Unpacked event way back in September of 2014.
Galaxy Note Edge vs Galaxy Note 4 — this is what the future looked like!
See, the event itself was about the Galaxy Note 4. And while we had heard very faint rumors about Samsung experimenting with a curved screen, the rumor mill did not prepare us for what came after — the Galaxy Note Edge, which was a Note 4, but with the right side of its screen curving deep into the frame of the phone. Still have no idea how Samsung managed to keep it a secret.
So, it was our first look at the futuristic smartphone design with a screen that curves towards the edges. Though, nowadays, I might as well call it “retro-futuristic”, as the market has apparently rejected the curved screens. Samsung moved away from them, and anyone still doing them is making sure the curve is super-tight, at the very end of the screen.
And I do think that was a huge missed opportunity. Every curved phone after the Galaxy Note Edge did the curved screen “the wrong way”. It was mostly done for looks, and not really for enhanced user experience.
The Galaxy S6 Edge was the prettiest Samsung phone ever. But the Edge Panel wasn’t useful — note that it blurs the entire screen
See, the way the Note Edge did it is, its curve was so prominent and so deep towards the frame of the phone, that it had enough room there to fit an extra taskbar with icons. Yes, we had a sort-of-taskbar experience well before the folding phones of today made it a thing. It was my first experience of true multitasking on a smartphone, because you could call up any app from the side taskbar. You didn’t need to go into an apps carousel or even see your homescreen.
Curved with purpose
It could also house specialized stripe-sized widgets, like a ruler, popular tweets, email notifications, or stock information.
Yes, the edge panel persists today — it’s on Samsung phones, and it has been copied by some manufacturers for their own phones. It’s typically a small, semi-transparent handle at the edge of the screen, which you can “pull” inwards to expand into an app drawer or widget.
However, it’s not the same. Imagine those widgets living permanently on the side of your screen instead of having to be called up every time — that’s what the Galaxy Note Edge was.
Instead of developing that “geeky aspect” of the curved screen design, Samsung chose to go more “mainstream” next, with the dual-curved Galaxy S6 Edge, which had shallower arches and no room for specialized widgets. It was all for looks.
Why didn’t people like the Edge screens?
Peak… Samsung… design
Edge screens look cool, I think everyone agrees, but their impracticality was their downfall. For one, a big arch starts cutting into on-screen content, and nobody wants to watch a semi-curved video or play a game that warps towards the phone frame, right?
So, Samsung pushed the curve out closer towards the bezels. That resulted in color distortions at the very end of the image, as you were technically looking at the OLED pixels “at an angle” — since the screen is angling away from you to make the curve.
Then, there’s the fact that it was pretty tough to find and install a proper screen protector on any of these.
So, the users kept complaining, and Samsung kept pushing the curve away, until it vanished from the Galaxy S24 Ultra completely.
In an alternate universe, Edge still means “one side of the phone is a second screen”
When I first heard the Galaxy S25 Edge branding, I truly thought “Wait, are they making a separate curved screen variant just for us geeks? Oh no, it’s just a thin phone”. That would’ve been cool — trying to pick up from where the Galaxy Note Edge once left off, develop the side widgets and interactions further, right?
But no. Instead, Samsung is taking the Edge name and putting it on something unrelated — now it means “thin”. Yuppie, I guess.
This kind of reminds me of how Apple’s iPad Air is anything but thin nowadays — it’s the iPad Pro that should be named Air, but I digress. I think that the “Air” branding is a bit too tainted now, and the rumored “super-thin” iPhone may be named something else.
#NotMyEdge gang, where are you at? Do you want Samsung to take a proper stab at this concept it once abandoned?
