Samsung released its new “budget flagship” in early September. Galaxy S25 FE. Compared to its predecessor from last year, the Galaxy S24 FE includes some interesting improvements and is overall another excellent flagship from the Korean giant. Let’s take a closer look at it in our review today.
Package Contents: What to Expect
The Galaxy S25 FE comes in a sleek black box with a white silhouette of the phone on the front. More important, of course, is the packaging itself, which is not surprising. As with other phones. Galaxy In it you will find only the essentials, that is, apart from the device itself, only a charging/data cable with USB-C terminals and a needle forinIncludes tab for SIM card slot and some user instructions. As you probably already know, Samsung and other smartphone manufacturers can’t include a charger due to an EU regulation passed last fall, so we don’t blame the Korean giant. However, there’s nothing stopping you from including at least a basic case or screen protector. Because whether you like it or not, the packaging is just a recommendation letter from the manufacturer, and it says a lot. And this tells us that Samsung wants to save money at any cost.
Design and manufacturing: Samsung just knows.
Design has always been a strong point of Samsung smartphones, and the Galaxy S25 FE proves it. The phone has a familiar look: a flat screen with thin bezels, a round hole in the center and three separate rear cameras. Unlike its predecessor, the bezels are slightly narrower and the phone is slightly thinner, specifically 7.4mm in the center. (front to 8 mm), and also much lighter, weighing only 190 g (against 213 sol). Overall dimensions 161.3 x 76.6 x 7.4 mm; Compared to its predecessor, the phone has become not only thinner, but also slightly smaller in height and width. (pkeeping the same screen diagonal).
On this occasion, the back has a matte finish, which gives the smartphone an elegant look. We tested the black version. option, and the phone is also available in three other colors: Navy Blue, Light Blue, and White.
In terms of processing, the Galaxy S25 FE has an aluminum frame, Gorilla Glass Victus+ on the back and an IP68 certification, which means it can be submerged in water up to 1.5 meters for 30 minutes and is dustproof. Of course, there are no squeaks or creaks to be heard anywhere, everything fits together perfectly, as you would expect from a Samsung phone. Galaxy S24 FE The only drawback is that the phone wobbles on the table due to the individual cameras, but this is not significant.
The screen is faulty.
The Galaxy S25FE has a 6.7-inch Dynamic LTPO AMOLED 2X display with a resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels, a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz, and a maximum brightness of 1900 nits. These options seem to be exactly the same as the Galaxy S24 FE, right? However, there is a rather fundamental difference hidden in the word LTPO (abbreviation of Low temperature polycrystalline oxide)This technology for OLED panels allows you to change the refresh rate from 1 to 120 Hz depending on what is displayed on the screen. Technically, the Galaxy S24 also has a variable refresh rate that can be adjusted, but it only allows you to switch between 60Hz and 120Hz modes. The “more detailed” variable average refresh rate on the Galaxy S25 FE thus saves much more battery. With this feature, Samsung has brought its current flagship model even closer to being a flagship model.
As for the screen quality, it is, as expected, exceptional. It provides perfect sharpness, excellent color reproduction, wide viewing angles and flawless readability even in direct sunlight. It should be added that the screen is protected by the same glass as the back, and that it includes an optical fingerprint reader, which worked perfectly during our tests.
He has a lot of power.
The Galaxy S25 FE includes the Exynos 2400 chip that debuted in the high-end last year. Galaxy S24 (rather, it was used by the international Galaxy S24 and S24+ models.). It’s still very fast, as performance tests show, scoring 2,113,083 in AnTuTu and 1,975 in the single-core test and 6,526 in the multi-core test on Geekbench. Its performance is sufficient for graphically demanding games such as Shadowrun Legends and Battle Prime, which we tested and run quite smoothly. However, during long gaming sessions, the smartphone, like its predecessor, heated up a lot (this also applies to elite models, not only budget ones).
Like the Galaxy S24 FE, which uses a slightly slower Exynos 2400e chipset, it has a responsive Galaxy. The S25 FE is snappy, lag-free, and everything runs smoothly, whether browsing the web, opening apps, or multitasking. In addition, it has 8 GB of RAM and 128 or 256 GB of internal storage. (We tested the 256GB variant).
Durability is slightly better than last year
The Galaxy S25 FE is powered by a 4,900mAh battery, which is a 200mAh increase from last year. Does this have practical implications? Yes, but very little. The Galaxy S24 FE in normal use, which in our case means Wi-Fi always on, a few hours of gaming and the occasional photographing While the video recording lasted about a day and a quarter, its successor can do it for several more hours. However, if autonomy is not accurately measured, this improvement is unlikely to be noticeable in practice.
The Galaxy S25 FE also charges faster than its predecessor, supporting 45W charging. (against 25 watts). However, in practice this is again only a small improvement from 0 to 100. The phone charges for about an hour, that is, approximately 15 minutes faster. It should be added that the smartphone supports wireless charging with a power of 15 W. (Compliant with the Qi2 Ready standard.) and reverse wireless charging.
One UI 8: In a sign of smaller, but therefore more useful news
Galaxy S25FE The software runs on an add-on. One UI 8, which is based on Android 16. Compared to the One UI add-on, number 7 brings with it smaller, but no less useful innovations. Among the most significant is a new clock style with a new font that debuted in this year’s puzzles. Galaxy Z Fold7 and Z Flip7. Redesigned Quick Share features, now with a cleaner interface, separate tabs for sending and receiving files, and more flexible attachment options; a redesigned weather app that is now much more visually appealing and has new, smoother animations that respond to the current weather; a gallery-recommended wallpaper feature that offers images for your home or lock screen background; automatic sorting of screenshots by categories in the gallery, integration of Live Updates from Android 16 and a read-aloud feature, modes and routines and YouTube apps to the panel now, and last but not least, a new 90:10 aspect ratio and a live call transcription feature called Call Captions. As expected, the software package includes a full set of artificial intelligence features. Galaxy AI.
Some Samsung apps, such as Gallery, have seen minor UI changes, such as circular menu buttons, and the extension also uses a new background blur effect, but otherwise it looks largely the same as One UI 7, with just a few tweaks. Samsung has promised seven years of software support for the phone, which means seven major system updates and seven years of security updates.
It takes photos and videos, like its predecessor, very well.
The Galaxy S25 FE has exactly the same rear camera setup as its predecessor, i.e. a 50MP primary camera, an 8MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom, and a 12MP camera. Ultra-wide-angle lens with 123° field of view. The main camera can record videos with a resolution of up to 8K at 30 frames per second.
With the same parameters, the phone continues to take photos and videos comparable to the parameters of high-end smartphones a few years ago. In particular, the main camera produces clear and very high-quality images during the day, with a high level of detail, a more than solid dynamic range and fairly accurate color reproduction. The quality of night photos is also very good: they are quite sharp and well lit, the colors are quite accurate.
Daily videos (Records in 4K resolution at 60 frames per second frames per second) they are pack They’re also good, with low noise, high detail, solid dynamic range, and fairly realistic colors. However, at night the quality of recordings leaves much to be desired; Like their predecessor, they have too much noise and loss of detail, and focus problems. One can only hope that… the Galaxy S26 FE will finally bring some improvements in this regard.
As for the front camera, it has improved every year; now it has a resolution of 12 MPx. (vs. 10 megapixels) and is probably coming about the sameThe sensor that Samsung used in the Galaxy S25 series (except that it doesn’t have autofocus.). The quality of selfies has improved slightly compared to last year, but they are difficult to see with the naked eye. In addition, the front camera records video in 4K resolution at 60 frames per second.
A successful “budget banner” initiative with desired improvements.
Let’s summarize briefly: The Galaxy S25FE is, from our perspective, a very successful “budget flagship” that has some nice improvements compared to the Galaxy S24 FE, such as a slimmer profile, less weight and more depth. The variaIt has a higher screen refresh rate, a larger battery capacity, and faster charging. However, it should be noted that the improvements in battery life and fast charging are minimal, almost symbolic. Thanks to its matte back, it also doesn’t slip out of your hand like its predecessor, which may be important for some users.
There aren’t many downsides, one of which is at least 256GB of storage, which is the maximum capacity the phones are limited to. Galaxy for the middle class. No doubt it wouldn’t hurt Samsung to offer 512 GB of storage for a smartphone that is clearly not in the middle class. Another drawback can be excessive heating during long gaming sessions. and the unconvincing quality of night videos.
If you are a Galaxy owner. In the case of the S24 FE, it’s probably not worth upgrading despite the improvements mentioned above, but in the case of older “fan flags” it’s worth considering. Galaxy Overall, we recommend the S25 FE to those looking for a well-designed and well-equipped smartphone that’s durable and affordable. Its current price is more than reasonable, even though Samsung offers it for almost 19,000 kroner in its official online store. (exactly from 18,790 kroner)which is not so little, you can get it several thousand cheaper.
Galaxy You can buy the S25 FE here
