Samsung Galaxy S23 FE review

The Samsung Galaxy FE line of smartphones has found its audience thanks to its balanced characteristics and more moderate price compared to full-fledged flagships. The company decided to jump from the Galaxy S21 FE to the S23 FE to avoid confusion in the current lineup. So, Samsung Galaxy S23 FE is a new "people's" flagship of Samsung that has finally arrived for review at gg. Today we will tell you how interesting and successful it turned out to be.

Samsung continues to develop the idea of slightly more affordable flagships with the FE (Fan Edition) label, and the new Galaxy S23 FE turned out to be quite interesting. Speaking in general about the user experience and key features of the smartphone, it is extremely difficult to identify any critical flaws. The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE has everything you need for a modern, almost flagship smartphone. It has a good screen with high brightness and great colours, a versatile set of good quality cameras, and a powerful processor whose performance is enough for even the most demanding mobile gamers. To this we should add a glass and metal body with full IP68 protection, like the flagships. Convenient One UI 6.0 shell on the latest Android 14 and loud stereo speakers. Among the complaints that may not suit some people, we can only mention the heavy weight and wide bezels around the display. The smartphone turned out to be really massive and larger than the Galaxy S23+ with a larger diagonal screen.

But the main problem is the price of the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE. There are a lot of interesting competitors in this price range. Starting with the Galaxy S22 and Galaxy Flip4, which are now cheaper. You can also add the iPhone 12 as an alternative on a different OS. And the Moto Edge 30 Ultra, which costs almost one and a half times cheaper, has a more interesting Qualcomm processor, a good set of cameras, supports 125W fast charging (and has a power supply included), but has only formal IP54 splash protection.

Glass and metal

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE

Android smartphone with a 6.4-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120 Hz, a Samsung Exynos 2200 processor, 8 GB of RAM and 128/256 GB of built-in memory. The main camera is equipped with three modules, the case is protected against dust and water according to the IP68 standard, the back cover is made of glass, the frame is made of aluminum.

Current price on Amazon

5 reasons to buy Samsung Galaxy S23 FE:

• High-quality Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with a refresh rate of 120 Hz
• High performance;
• Versatile set of cameras that take good pictures
• Loud stereo speakers
• Android 14 with the convenient One UI 6.0 shell

2 reasons not to buy Samsung Galaxy S23 FE:

• High price and strong competitors
• Wide bezels and heavy weight

Quick Transition:

1. What does Samsung Galaxy S23 FE come with?
2. What does Samsung Galaxy S23 FE look like?
3. How good is the screen of Samsung Galaxy S23 FE?
4. What are the ways to unlock Samsung Galaxy S23 FE?
5. Performance, sound and battery life of Samsung Galaxy S23 FE
6. How user-friendly is the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE interface?
7. How do Samsung Galaxy S23 FE cameras take pictures?
8. Five things you need to know about this smartphone

What does Samsung Galaxy S23 FE come with?

The FE line suffered the same fate as the company's flagships. Therefore, the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE comes with only a cable with a Type-C connector on both sides (i.e. Type-A power supplies will not work), a tray pin and documentation.

What does Samsung Galaxy S23 FE look like?

At first glance, you can see the similarity between the design of Samsung Galaxy S23 FE and the company's current flagships. But if you look closely, it becomes clear that we are looking at a more affordable model. First of all, due to the rather wide bezels around the perimeter of the screen, which are more typical of models in the mid-range price segment. Although, given the price, Samsung Galaxy S23 FE is still a sub-flagship. With its 6.4-inch screen, it's a bit bigger and heavier than the Galaxy S23+ with a 6.6-inch display. This is hardly a problem, although it may be important to some users. The front panel is protected by 5th generation Gorilla flat glass. The front camera is in a small round hole with a barely noticeable silver frame. Above the screen is the earpiece speaker.

The frame is made of aluminium with a very nice matte finish. In profile, you can see that the smartphone is not very thin. But from the point of view of usability, this can be called a plus: Samsung Galaxy S23 FE holds firmly in your hand. On the less pleasant side, the transition between the panels and the frame is quite sharp, which some may not like. The buttons are in the usual place, they are large enough for easy use.

The tray and an additional microphone are located on top. On the bottom of the smartphone is the main speaker, Type-C and two more microphones.

You can install two SIM cards in the tray. There is also support for eSIM.

The back cover is also made of Gorilla Glass 5. There are cream, mint, black and purple variants, all glossy. The purple version looks the most interesting. The mint one came to the editorial office of Gagadget.com . In person, it's very light, the mint shade is almost imperceptible, it looks quite calm, one might say neutral.

All three rear camera modules have silver metal frames. The cameras protrude noticeably above the body and dust immediately collects near them.

The smartphone has IP68protection, just like older models. So, formally, it should be able to withstand immersion in water to a depth of 1.5 m for 30 minutes. As mentioned above, the smartphone is quite large and heavy: 158x76.5x8.2 mm, 209 g.

How good is the screen of the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE?

The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE is equipped with a flat 6.4-inch AMOLED screen.The resolution is 2340x1080 (19.5:9 aspect ratio), and the pixel density is about 403 ppi. The manufacturer promises a peak brightness of 1450 cd/m², and there is support for HDR10+. The maximum refresh rate is 120 Hz, and the user has two modes of operation. 60 Hz and adaptive 60-120 Hz. The rest of the settings are quite standard for Samsung smartphones: brightness, dark and light themes, interface and text scale, eye comfort (automatic colour temperature adjustment depending on the ambient light) and two colour display modes with colour temperature adjustment.

The screen is of high quality, and there are no significant complaints about it. The brightness margin is sufficient, viewing angles are maximum, and the colours are saturated. There is a greenish tint typical of AMOLED at certain angles, but the effect is minimal. Measurements have shown that the maximum brightness in "Bright" mode is 489.357 cd/m². The colour gamut is much wider than sRGB. The colour temperature and RGB components are close to the reference values.

In the "Natural" mode, the colour gamut is close (but not exactly the same) as sRGB, and the maximum brightness is slightly lower: 471.004 cd/m². Other indicators are close to Bright mode.

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE screen comparison with other models:

What are the ways to unlock Samsung Galaxy S23 FE?

The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE smartphone has a typical modern set of biometric identification features. First of all, it's an optical fingerprint scanner in the screen. It works well, there were no errors during use. But the speed is far from record-breaking, as the Galaxy S23 flagships have much faster scanners. The front camera is responsible for face recognition, so it works as expected. It works very quickly in good lighting conditions. There are standard additional features: recognition only with open eyes, as well as increasing the brightness of the screen when recognising in low light. In some cases, it really helps.

Performance, sound and battery life of the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE

Flagship line Samsung Galaxy S23 received the top processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform for Galaxy. In turn, the younger Samsung Galaxy S23 FE decided to install its own flagship processor from the previous Galaxy S22 line, namely Samsung Exynos 2200. The exception is the US version, which received the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. Samsung Exynos 2200 is a 4-nanometre octa-core processor with one ARM Cortex-X2 core clocked at 2.8 GHz, three ARM Cortex-A710 cores at 2.5 GHz, and four energy-efficient ARM Cortex-A510 1.7 GHz. Graphics are handled by the jointly developed with AMD Xclipse 920 accelerator based on the RDNA 2 architecture with support for ray tracing and Variable Rate Shading (VRS). Although the Exynos 2200 is slightly inferior to Qualcomm's solutions, it is a powerful processor with enough performance for the vast majority of tasks. It has 8 GB of RAM, with 128 GB or 256 GB of internal storage. We are reviewing the junior version. And, in fact, now it's no longer an option: after installing the basic set of applications, benchmarks, a couple of heavy games and downloading music, there is about 10 GB left. There is no MicroSD slot, so it's better to look at the 256 GB version right away.

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE Performance Tests

In synthetic tests, the smartphone demonstrates not top-end, but very high results:

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE Performance Stability

In Throttling Test, the processor drops performance by up to 85% in 15 minutes of maximum load, which is generally quite normal. But the case heats up very noticeably. Although this does not happen in everyday use.

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE performance in games

Of course, top-end Qualcomm processors are best suited for mobile gaming. But the Exynos 2200 also feels very good in modern games. Diablo Immortal on high settings (ultra is not supported) demonstrates almost stable 60 FPS. XCOM 2 with quality priority - 30 FPS (seems to be frequency locked).

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE Wireless and sound

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE features dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6e, Bluetooth 5.1 LE and NFC for contactless payment. Support for global positioning systems: GPS, A-GPS, Glonass, Galileo and Beidou. The smartphone reproduces stereo sound through the main and earpiece speakers. The volume is more than fine, the margin is very good. The quality is not the best, there are still not enough bass. But only top flagships can boast of this. There is support for virtual surround sound Dolby Atmos.

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE battery test

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE is equipped with a 4,500 mAh battery . In terms of battery life, this is a typical modern smartphone. In everyday use (calls, email, messengers, browser, YouTube, some music and a camera), we have a day of work. If you add games or benchmarks, you'll need to charge it in the late afternoon. The smartphone supports 25W fast wired charging (50% in 30 minutes is promised), but we couldn't test it due to the lack of a suitable power supply. Wireless charging at 15 W is supported, as well as reverse wireless charging for accessories.

How user-friendly is the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE interface?

At the time of the review, the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE is already running on Android 14 with the proprietary OneUI 6.0 shell. There are no drastic changes compared to One UI 5.1 on Android 13. Some things have been redrawn a little, some non-critical features have been added, so in general, you won't have to get used to the new shell. The tips section on the smartphone itself contains a brief description of the improvements, and the full list can be found at. The changes that Samsung highlights include: quick camera resolution switching, additional protection against malicious content in apps and other downloaded content, more photo and video editing options, a new Studio video editor, transferring Samsung smartwatch data using Smart Switch, quick copying between different devices using the same Samsung account, and two-handed transfer of icons or content.

Everything else is quite familiar: desktops, widgets, a separate application menu, various system navigation options, and many customisation options (themes, colour scenarios, etc.).

The App Manager is as functional as ever with Samsung. In addition to the standard options for switching, closing all applications and switching to split-screen mode, there is an option to open applications in a window, make them translucent, or minimise them to an icon.

The Edge sidebars remain unchanged:

The Labs section has some additional gesture controls to quickly switch to split screen mode, open an app in a window, or switch to one-handed operation.

And the standard set of Samsung branded apps.

How does the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE camera capture?

The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE rear camera includes three modules. The main one at 50 megapixels with f/1.8 aperture. It has phase detection autofocus and optical stabilisation. The second module is a telephoto at 8 megapixels with f/2.4 aperture and 3x zoom, with phase detection. The third one is an ultra-wide-angle at 12 MP, f/2.2, 123° viewing angle. Without autofocus, although there are already much cheaper smartphones that have ultra-wide with autofocus. The maximum video resolution is 8K@24fps. The front camera has a resolution of 10 MP, f/2.4. A completely versatile modern set of cameras for all your basic shooting needs.

The camera app is not much different from previous Samsung models, so we have the usual carousel of modes that can be edited. All the main settings are on the viewfinder screen, including flash, zoom, timer, resolution (as we've already mentioned), aspect ratio, video settings, filters, and more.

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE camera examples

The main camera takes great pictures in almost any conditions. With sufficient lighting, the colours are natural and the detail is high. The night mode does its job well and the level of detail is not significantly reduced. But the colours are no longer as natural, which is quite usual.

Ultra-wide camera:

The telephoto camera takes very good pictures, even in low light:

Example of video shooting with Samsung Galaxy S23 FE

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE is very good at shooting video. The video is not too jerky, the jelly effect is minimal, and the stabiliser works perfectly:

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE

• High-quality Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with a refresh rate of 120 Hz
• High performance;
• Versatile set of cameras that take good pictures
• Loud stereo speakers
• Android 14 with the convenient One UI 6.0 shell

Check price

Quick review of the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE: four things you need to know about this smartphone

• Samsung Galaxy S23 FE is a slightly simplified and more affordable member of the Galaxy S23 line.
• Inside is the flagship processor of the previous Samsung Exynos 2200 line.
• It has a glass and metal body with IP68 protection.
• It runs on almost Android 14 with the proprietary One UI 6 shell.0.

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Samsung Galaxy S23 FE
An affordable representative of the flagship Galaxy S23 line

$599.99

For those who want to know more:

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• Motorola Razr 40 review: the most affordable folding smartphone
• Samsung Galaxy Fold5 review: title champion in the heavyweight division