The Samsung Galaxy S25 FE hits most of the right notes for a premium “fan edition” phone, but at its full RRP, you can do better.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Good value at its introductory price… | … but not particularly good value at its RRP |
| 7 years of OS and security updates | Galaxy AI will soon cost you money. How much money? Nobody knows. |
| Nice colour choices | Cameras haven’t changed much from the S24 FE |
Score: 3/5
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In this review
Samsung Galaxy S25 FE Specifications
Samsung Galaxy S25 FE Design
Samsung Galaxy S25 FE Camera
Samsung Galaxy S25 FE Performance
Samsung Galaxy S25 FE Battery Life
Samsung Galaxy S25 FE Verdict
Ethical disclaimer: The Samsung Galaxy S25 FE used in this review was loaned to me by Samsung Australia for the purposes of this review, and it’ll be going back to Samsung directly. As always, whether or not a product stays with me has no impact on my reviews which remain independent. Ethical disclosure is important, and at ART, it’s always disclosed upfront. For more on ART’s Ethics position, see here.
Design
There’s a quite easy way to describe the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE. Take a Galaxy S25 phone – ideally the Galaxy S25+ is the closest near match – and… well, in a lot of respects, that’s it.
The Galaxy S25 FE (FE stands for “Fan Edition”, because in Samsung’s mind fans… don’t want to spend money on the things they’re passionate about…?) is the successor to the Galaxy S24 FE, a phone I truly adored last year.
Also read:
Samsung Galaxy S24 FE Review
Samsung hasn’t technically (more on this later) upped the pricing for the Galaxy S25 FE, so it should be a slam dunk of a phone in value terms, right?
Not so fast.
While the style of the Galaxy S25 FE is absolutely reminiscent of the more full-fat Galaxy S25 phones, to keep the price lower, Samsung has lowered some specifications.
It features a 6.7 inch 2340×1080 pixel 120Hz Dynamic AMOLED 2x display at 1900 nits, which is a decent offering, though the closely size-comparable Galaxy S25+ has the same size display at a resolution of 3120×1440 at up to 2600 nits.
Keeping that comparative flow going, the Galaxy S25 FE measures in at 161.3×76.6×7.4 mm and 190 grams. The Galaxy S25+ weighs the same, but drops the same screen size into a slightly smaller frame at 158.4 x 75.8 x 7.3 mm.
That’s not quite the insane thin frame of the Galaxy S25 Edge, but the point here is that while Samsung is aping its own design style, it’s not quite giving you the same thing as the near identical looking model in the existing range.
In terms of colour choices, the Galaxy S25 FE comes in Navy, Jetblack or Icyblue finishes. The model loaned to me was the Jetblack variant, a rather more matte finished black than you’ll find on most smartphones. It’s slightly slippery in the hand, and if it were my daily driver, I’d definitely drop a case on it.
From a durability standpoint, the front screen is wrapped in Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+, slightly down from the Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 found in the flagship Galaxy S25 phones, though all of them share the same IP68 water resistance rating.
As always, I don’t do the whole often-scientifically-fraudulent damage testing you see on some YouTube videos, especially given this was a sole loaner phone.
What I did notice on the Galaxy S25 FE after I’d been using it for a while was that it had picked up a couple of smaller abrasions on the matte back of the phone. I’m not entirely sure how (sorry Samsung!) — I’m quite careful with phones in every way — but it does make me feel that this is a phone that definitely would benefit long term from having a case wrapped around it.
Camera
Samsung’s premium cameras have fought hard for their position in the flagship camera phone market, but for the Galaxy FE phones, it’s long been a question of what value they offer that doesn’t outshine their pricier siblings in a given year. For last year’s Galaxy S24 FE, that meant you got 50MP Wide, 12MP Ultra-Wide and 8MP Telephoto 3x sensor at the rear, along with a 10MP front-facing sensor.
For this year’s Galaxy S25 FE, you get a 50MP Wide, 12MP Ultra-Wide and 8MP Telephoto 3x sensor at the rear, along with a 12MP front-facing sensor. The big change here at least on paper is in the front-facing selfie camera, but otherwise Samsung hasn’t made all that many changes.
The S24 FE’s cameras were ones that I found generally pleasing for day-to-day use, though like much of Samsung’s output they did suffer a little bit from slightly over-saturated colours with their default post-processing. It’s not surprising then, that the Galaxy S25 FE delivers much the same kind of experience.
Regular shots in daylight are generally decent, but that’s just table stakes really; you can easily get a mid-range phone that does decent everyday photos without spending premium or even near-premium money.
The front-facing selfie camera sees a small jump up in sensor quality to 12MP and f/2.2, delivering decent shots to fluff up your ego.
Or in my case, depress me, but that’s not the Galaxy S25 FE’s fault, really.
On the telephoto front, you’re not limited to just the 3x optical zoom, though predictably issues crop up if you push it too far.
The Galaxy S25 FE supports up to a maximum of 30x zoom, well below the 100x “Space Zoom” of the full Galaxy S25 Phone such as the Galaxy S25 Ultra.
Here’s how that pans out. The following are just sample images; I wasn’t going for a spectacular shot, but instead looking to see how each zoom level affected image quality.
A park bench in the distance, as seen with the wide lens. Dramatic, sure, and also perfectly fine.
Shifting to 2x zoom — not the standard optical length, essentially a crop of the wide lens – works well enough.
3x Optical zoom — its maximum true optical length — is likewise satisfactory.
10x is a hybrid zoom, and it’s arguably the “sweet spot” for image quality generally.
Don’t blame me for the beer can, I didn’t put it there.
20x zoom is pushing it, as image quality starts to degrade noticeably.
30x zoom looks poor, but then these extreme zooms often do.
30x zoom on living creatures is markedly worse.
Stick to 10x or less — this was a 3x zoom — and you can get decent results.
Cat photos are a must for any camera test. I’m sure you agree.
No dedicated macro mode, but the Galaxy S25 FE can work acceptably well for close-ups.
Performance
The Samsung Galaxy S25 FE, like its predecessor, keeps its price lower by opting away from the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite For Galaxy processor found in the full-fat Galaxy S25 phones, instead opting for an Exynos 2400 processor matched up with 8GB of RAM and either 128GB, 256GB or 512GB of onboard fixed storage.
That’s a choice that Samsung’s made, but it’s one that leads to some rather challenging comparisons, because the reality here is that the Galaxy S25 series has been out for some time, and it’s genuinely not that hard to find the lower tier models such as the Galaxy S25 or Galaxy S25+ for around the same price point as the new Galaxy S25 FE commands… in a way.
So how does that compare against phones sitting in the $1,099-$1,399 price bracket Samsung says is the RRP for the Galaxy S25 FE? Let’s take a look at CPU performance first by way of Geekbench 6’s CPU test:
The comparison there with the Galaxy S25 Edge isn’t because you can suddenly get the S25 Edge this cheap – it’s because it’s the closest analogue I’ve got to the Galaxy S25+, which very much does sit in the same price space as the Galaxy S25 FE does.
That’s because the S25+ is a phone that came out some months ago, and it’s expected that we’ll see its successor in early 2026. It features the same processor as the S25 Edge and can be had at around the same price as the Galaxy S25 FE, but the performance gulf here is not a small one.
What’s also not small – and what doesn’t help to sell the Galaxy S25 FE as a worthy successor to the excellent S24 FE – is the tiny gap in CPU performance. It’s technically better, but the margin is so small as to be imperceptible.
However, this isn’t quite the whole story of the Galaxy S25 FE’s performance, and that’s down to Samsung’s rather unusual pricing for this particular phone early on in its lifespan.
I’m well used to phones, especially Android phones dropping in price over time, which naturally enough does enhance their value – the S25+ being a good example in this case.
Samsung is rather short-circuiting that, offering the Galaxy S25 FE 128GB version for $849 rather than $1,099 if you buy one before October 15th 2026.
Not quite a pre-order deal – it’s available in Australia from the 26th of September – but one that does change its value rather markedly.
So how does it look if I compare against phones in that price bracket instead?
That’s a comparison that does favour the Galaxy S25 FE a whole lot more, though I must stress that this is only temporary pricing… well, sort of.
Having your new phone sell for such a discount will, I think, create some significant price pressure, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see the Galaxy S25 FE drop to similar pricing faster that most Android phones do over time.
In mid-October, however its price will rise, unless Samsung wants to fall rather spectacularly foul of false advertising laws.
GPU performance also tells a similar two-tier story. Here’s how the Galaxy S25 FE stacks up against both tiers of phone pricing using 3DMark Wild Life Extreme:
It is downright disappointing to see the Galaxy S25 FE fall below the performance of its predecessor here, because that’s not what newer phones should do. Again, at that lower pricing, it’s a good deal, but at its full RRP, it does not compare well at all.
Like its full-fat Galaxy S25 siblings, the Galaxy S25 FE comes with Samsung’s promise of 7 years of OS and security updates, which is always pleasing to see.
You also get access to Samsung’s “Galaxy AI” suite of features, but unlike the OS/security updates, these won’t likely be free for the life of the phone. Samsung’s position has long been one that it will offer its own in-house AI platform free for Galaxy S phone owners through to the end of 2025, at which point…?
Honestly, I don’t know.
I’ve asked Samsung about this at every opportunity, and the company remains tight-lipped, which isn’t a promising sign that it’s decided quite what it will charge for its AI features, or at least that it can’t decide how it should announce that to consumers.
Pricing in this space is tricky to predict; Google charges $32.99/month for its Google AI Pro or $409.99/month for Google AI Ultra, and while I doubt the lesser set of features in Galaxy AI will command that kind of pricing, it’s going to cost you something to keep it going.
For those not fans of AI, you can switch these features off, so buying the Galaxy S25 FE isn’t necessarily tying you into a lifetime of subscription fees.
Battery
In an era where so very many Android phones pack in 5,000mAh batteries, Samsung has thought slightly differently when it comes to the Galaxy S25 FE.
Usually when I write something like that, it’s because it’s got a larger than usual battery, but in this case, Samsung’s gone the other way, with a 4,900mAh power pack underneath the Galaxy S25 FE’s frame. 100mAh might not make a huge difference in day to day testing, and this does match up to the Galaxy S25+’s battery capacity, but still, less is… less.
Does this make a difference to the actual battery endurance, however? As always, it depends. You can read more about how I test batteries here, but first stop in my testing regime was my standard YouTube test regime to get some comparative scores.
At first, this did not go well, with the Galaxy S25 FE reporting a 1 hour score of just 90%, the exact tipping point where a phone may struggle to last a day.
Picking it up, I realised it was quite hot, far more than just the simple task of video streaming should lead it to. I let it cool down, charged and re-tested a number of times, because it’s downright unusual for a premium phone to drop to those kinds of levels, and I couldn’t discount the idea that some other app was doing something janky in the background.
Fresh tests did not lead to the same thermal problems, so at first I treated the Galaxy S25 FE’s first test as an outlier. With that test ignored, here’s how the Galaxy S25 FE compares against both premium (full priced) and more mid-range (introductory priced) handsets:
The Galaxy S25 FE still sits in the lower tier of usage even with that earlier figure excised; with it in play it would be considerably worse than every other phone tested. More anecdotal usage failed to replicate that particular use case scenario, though I did find the phone to be more on the ordinary side when it came to more ad-hoc battery usage.
As with most phones these days, there’s no charger in the box with the Galaxy S25 FE. It’ll charge at up to 45W with a USB-C wired charger, or up to 15W wirelessly. Like its S25 siblings, it’s “Qi2 ready”, which is Samsung-speak for supporting the faster charge rates of Qi2, but not the magnetic alignment feature unless you spend more on a magnetic alignment case.
Samsung was never really likely to introduce magnetic alignment for an FE series phone, but I’m hopeful it will do so for the Galaxy S26 series when that lands in early 2026.
Samsung Galaxy S25 FE: Alex’s Verdict
At launch, Samsung’s selling the Galaxy S25 FE at a significant discount, and I don’t think that’s accidental. Prelaunch bonuses are nothing new, but they typically take the form of a memory upgrade or perhaps a free case or similar. Cutting the price down from $1,099 to just $849 does put the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE into a different price bracket where it’s a much better proposition if you’re particularly keen.
The problem here is that at the time of writing, the Galaxy S25 FE is only going to be that price during its early sales period, with at least one retailer listing that price as available until the 15th of October, which creates a very unusual quandary for any reviewer.
I’ve compared it against phones that sell at its “full” retail price, because in order to sell it without falling fall of fair advertising laws, Samsung’s going to have to bump the price up at that time.
At the same time, it does set a price expectation for the Galaxy S25 FE, and one that feels more likely will be seen in market more often than not.
Which does create the slightly unusual situation for a “new” phone where it’s a decent deal if you get it at its lower price point, but a far worse comparison if you’re paying the full market rate, especially considering it’s not markedly improved over the Galaxy S24 FE it replaces.
That’s compounded however by the fact that we’re likely to see full Galaxy S25 pricing tumble even more in the coming months, because the clock is ticking on the reveal of the Galaxy S26 lineup.
As such, while there’s little “wrong” with the Galaxy S25 FE, it’s also not a phone that looks good in a comparative sense. Not a bad buy, but make sure you get it at the right price, and that you can’t do better for the same money at the time of purchase.
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Samsung Galaxy S25 FE: Pricing and availability
The Samsung Galaxy S25 FE retails in Australia from $1,099.
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