Fairphone 6 VS Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge

The most striking physical difference between these two phones is thickness. At 5.8 mm, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge is extraordinarily slim — nearly 40% thinner than the Fairphone 6's 9.6 mm body. In practice, that gap is immediately noticeable in the hand and pocket; the S25 Edge belongs to a class of ultra-thin devices that feel almost impossibly flat, while the Fairphone 6 has a more traditional, substantial profile. The weight gap reinforces this: the S25 Edge comes in at 163 g versus 193 g for the Fairphone 6 — a 30 g difference that, over a full day of use, translates into a meaningfully lighter, less fatiguing device. Their footprints (height and width) are broadly comparable, so the volume difference of roughly 110 cm³ vs. 69 cm³ is driven almost entirely by that thickness and weight advantage on the Samsung side.

Water protection is where the gap becomes functionally significant. The Fairphone 6 carries an IP55 rating, which means it can withstand low-pressure water jets from any direction — adequate for rain or an accidental splash, but not submersion. The S25 Edge holds an IP68 rating, certifying it against continuous immersion in water, typically up to 1.5 m for 30 minutes. For users who swim, work near water, or simply want peace of mind dropping a phone in a sink, IP68 is a meaningfully stronger guarantee than IP55.

Neither phone has a rugged build or a foldable form factor, so those are non-factors here. Overall, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge holds a clear design advantage: it is lighter, dramatically thinner, and offers superior water protection. The Fairphone 6's bulkier frame is a deliberate trade-off tied to its repairability philosophy rather than a design oversight, but purely on physical design metrics, the S25 Edge is the stronger performer in this category.

Both phones share the same panel technology — OLED/AMOLED — and are matched on refresh rate (120Hz) and touch sampling rate (240Hz), so the day-to-day feel of scrolling and responsiveness will be essentially identical. Where they diverge is in screen real estate and sharpness. The S25 Edge's 6.7″ display versus the Fairphone 6's 6.31″ is a noticeable size step up, and the pixel density gap — 513 ppi versus 431 ppi — means the S25 Edge renders text and fine detail with meaningfully greater crispness. At typical viewing distances 431 ppi is already sharp, but 513 ppi pushes into territory where individual pixels are genuinely imperceptible even under scrutiny.

HDR support is another meaningful split. The S25 Edge covers both HDR10 and HDR10+, meaning streaming content from compatible services will render with expanded contrast and more accurate highlights. The Fairphone 6 supports neither standard, so it will display that same content without the dynamic tone-mapping benefits — a real difference for users who watch a lot of video. Neither phone supports Dolby Vision, so that is a non-factor in the comparison. On glass protection, the S25 Edge uses Gorilla Glass Victus 2 while the Fairphone 6 uses Gorilla Glass 7i — Victus 2 is Corning's higher-tier offering designed for improved drop and scratch resistance, giving the S25 Edge a modest but genuine durability edge on the screen itself.

Taken together, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge holds a clear advantage in this category. It offers a larger, sharper display with HDR10/HDR10+ support and stronger glass — meaningful upgrades for media consumption and everyday resilience. The Fairphone 6's display is perfectly capable for most tasks, but it trails across nearly every differentiating spec here.

The chipset gap here is not subtle — it is generational. The Fairphone 6 runs on the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3, a capable mid-range chip built on a 4 nm process, while the S25 Edge carries the Snapdragon 8 Elite, Qualcomm's current flagship silicon on a 3 nm node. The Geekbench 6 scores make the performance delta concrete: in single-core tasks the S25 Edge scores 3234 versus 1162 on the Fairphone 6 — nearly a 3x lead — and in multi-core workloads the gap widens further to 10059 versus 3239. In real-world terms, this means the S25 Edge handles demanding applications, heavy multitasking, and on-device AI processing at a fundamentally different level than the Fairphone 6, which is tuned for efficiency over peak throughput.

Graphics performance tells the same story, but even more dramatically. The S25 Edge's Adreno 830 GPU packs 1536 shading units against the Fairphone 6's Adreno 710 with just 128 shading units — a 12x difference that translates directly into smoother frame rates in graphically intensive games and faster image/video processing. Memory bandwidth reinforces this: 85.1 GB/s on the S25 Edge versus 25.6 GB/s on the Fairphone 6 means the flagship can feed its processor and GPU data far more rapidly, reducing bottlenecks under sustained load. The S25 Edge also ships with 12 GB of RAM at 5300 MHz and 512 GB of storage, compared to 8 GB / 3200 MHz and 256 GB on the Fairphone 6 — advantages that compound in heavy multitasking scenarios.

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge wins this category decisively and without qualification. The Snapdragon 8 Elite is one of the most powerful mobile chips available, and every metric in this group — CPU speed, GPU capability, memory bandwidth, and benchmark scores — reflects that. The Fairphone 6 offers solid mid-range performance for everyday tasks, but users who prioritize raw compute power will find no contest here.

The headline difference in this category is the main camera resolution. The S25 Edge leads with a 200 MP primary sensor, compared to 50 MP on the Fairphone 6 — a gap that matters most when cropping into shots or capturing fine detail in bright conditions. However, megapixels alone don't define camera quality, and the supporting specs here give more context. Both phones pair their primary sensor with a secondary camera and offer OIS, phase-detection autofocus, continuous autofocus during video, and a full suite of manual controls, so the shooting experience framework is broadly comparable.

Video capability is another area where the S25 Edge pulls ahead. It records at up to 4320p (8K) at 30 fps, while the Fairphone 6 tops out at 2160p (4K) at 30 fps. For most users 4K is more than sufficient, but the 8K ceiling on the S25 Edge offers significantly more flexibility for cropping in post-production or future-proofing footage. A more practical differentiator for photographers is RAW shooting support: the S25 Edge shoots RAW while the Fairphone 6 does not, meaning serious photographers can retain full image data for editing rather than relying on in-camera JPEG processing. On the front camera side, the Fairphone 6 actually offers a higher-resolution selfie sensor at 32 MP versus 12 MP on the S25 Edge, which could appeal to users who prioritize selfie detail.

On balance, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge holds the stronger camera package for most use cases — its 200 MP main sensor, 8K video recording, and RAW support represent meaningful advantages for photography and videography. The Fairphone 6 counters with a higher-resolution front camera, but that single advantage does not offset the broader capability gap. Users who shoot primarily on the main camera or want professional-grade flexibility will find the S25 Edge the more capable device here.

Rarely in a product comparison does a spec group land this close to a dead heat, but the operating system category is essentially a mirror image. Both phones run Android 15 and share an identical feature set across every privacy control, productivity tool, and customization option in the data — dark mode, dynamic theming, split-screen, picture-in-picture, offline voice recognition, on-device machine learning, and a full suite of notification and app-tracking controls are all present on both devices.

The sole differentiator in the entire dataset is that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge supports PC mode — the ability to connect the phone to a monitor and use it as a desktop-style computing environment — while the Fairphone 6 does not. For users who travel light and want a single device that can double as a workstation when paired with a display and keyboard, this is a genuinely useful capability. For everyone else, it is a non-factor.

This group is effectively a tie, with a narrow functional edge to the S25 Edge solely due to PC mode support. Neither phone has an advantage in privacy features, customization depth, or core Android capabilities based on the provided specs. Users should not let this category meaningfully influence their decision either way.

Battery capacity favors the Fairphone 6, which packs a 4415 mAh cell versus 3900 mAh in the S25 Edge — a 13% difference that, all else being equal, points toward longer endurance between charges. That said, raw capacity is only part of the battery life equation; the S25 Edge's more power-hungry flagship chip and larger display will draw more current, so the real-world gap in screen-on time may be smaller than the mAh numbers alone suggest. On wired charging speed, the Fairphone 6 also holds a slight edge at 30W versus 25W on the S25 Edge, meaning it will top up from empty marginally faster.

The S25 Edge's key advantage here is wireless charging, a feature the Fairphone 6 lacks entirely. For users with a wireless charging pad on their desk or nightstand, this is a meaningful convenience — the ability to simply set the phone down to charge, rather than reaching for a cable, is a quality-of-life difference that compounds over time. It also means the S25 Edge can be charged via compatible accessories like reverse wireless charging pads.

Perhaps the most distinctive spec in this group is the Fairphone 6's removable battery. This is increasingly rare in modern smartphones and speaks directly to the Fairphone's repairability ethos — a user can swap in a fresh battery at home, effectively extending the device's usable lifespan indefinitely without a trip to a repair shop. For longevity-focused buyers, this is a significant practical advantage that no charging speed or wireless feature can replicate. Overall, this category is split: the S25 Edge wins on charging convenience with wireless support, but the Fairphone 6 counters with greater capacity, faster wired charging, and the uniquely valuable removable battery.

Neither phone offers a 3.5mm headphone jack, and both deliver stereo speakers — so wired analog audio is off the table for both, and the speaker experience is at least structurally equivalent. The meaningful differentiation here lies entirely in Bluetooth codec support, which determines the quality ceiling for wireless audio over compatible headphones. Both phones share a baseline of aptX, but each then diverges toward a different high-quality codec ecosystem.

The Fairphone 6 supports aptX HD and aptX Adaptive — the former delivers 24-bit audio over Bluetooth at up to 576 kbps, and the latter is Qualcomm's most advanced codec, dynamically adjusting bitrate for both quality and latency, making it well-suited for both critical listening and low-latency use cases like gaming or video. The S25 Edge takes a different path, supporting LDAC — Sony's high-resolution wireless codec capable of transmitting up to 990 kbps, widely regarded as the highest-bitrate Bluetooth audio codec available and natively supported by a broad range of Sony and third-party headphones. What matters practically is which codec your headphones support: LDAC and aptX Adaptive target different hardware ecosystems and neither is universally superior in isolation.

This category comes down to a codec ecosystem match rather than a clear overall winner. Users with Sony or LDAC-compatible headphones will get more from the S25 Edge; those with Qualcomm aptX Adaptive gear will benefit more from the Fairphone 6. If codec compatibility is not a factor, the two phones are effectively tied in this group — both offer stereo speakers and solid wireless audio foundations, just oriented toward different premium headphone audiences.

Wireless connectivity is where the S25 Edge pulls meaningfully ahead. Its support for Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) is the most significant differentiator — where the Fairphone 6 tops out at Wi-Fi 6E, Wi-Fi 7 delivers substantially higher throughput, lower latency, and better performance in congested environments through multi-link operation. The real-world ceiling on cellular data also diverges sharply: the S25 Edge supports download speeds up to 10,000 Mbps, versus 2,900 Mbps on the Fairphone 6. Both figures exceed what current network infrastructure can typically deliver in practice, but the S25 Edge's headroom reflects a newer and more capable modem that will remain relevant longer as networks continue to evolve.

On USB, the S25 Edge uses USB 3.2 while the Fairphone 6 is limited to USB 2.0. This gap matters for anyone who transfers large files — videos, RAW photos, system backups — directly to a computer; USB 3.2 is dramatically faster and turns what could be a minutes-long transfer into a seconds-long one. The SIM configuration also differs: the S25 Edge supports 2 SIMs and 2 eSIMs simultaneously, versus 1 physical SIM and 1 eSIM on the Fairphone 6 — a practical advantage for users who carry work and personal numbers or travel internationally. Conversely, the Fairphone 6 uniquely offers an external memory card slot, a feature the S25 Edge omits entirely, which is valuable for users who want to expand storage affordably or transfer files via card.

Sensor parity is strong across both devices — gyroscope, accelerometer, barometer, GPS, compass, NFC, and Bluetooth 5.4 are shared by both. The S25 Edge adds ANT+ support, useful for connecting to fitness equipment and sports sensors, while the Fairphone 6 does not. Overall, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge holds a clear advantage in this category, leading on Wi-Fi generation, cellular speed, USB throughput, and SIM flexibility. The Fairphone 6's expandable storage is a genuine counter, but it does not offset the breadth of connectivity upgrades on the Samsung side.

This is the most straightforward category in the entire comparison: every spec in this group is identical across both phones. Both have a video light, neither has a sapphire glass display, a curved display, or an e-paper display. There is simply nothing here to differentiate them.

This group is a complete tie. Neither the Fairphone 6 nor the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge holds any advantage based on the provided data, and this category should carry no weight in a purchasing decision between the two.