Nearly seven months after the launch of its flagship Galaxy S25 series, Samsung has just announced its annual FE addition.
Short for “Fan Edition”, the new Galaxy S25 FE is hailed by Samsung as a “gateway into the broader Galaxy AI ecosystem”. But what really is the difference between the Galaxy S25 FE and the entry-level Galaxy S25? Will you miss out on features by opting for the FE?
While we’re yet to conclusively review the Galaxy S25 FE, we have compared its specs to the four-star Samsung Galaxy S25 and highlighted its key difference below.
Keep reading to learn more about the handset and whether it has a chance at making it into our best mid-range phone list.
Price and Availability
The Samsung Galaxy S25 FE is available from today, with a starting RRP of £649 for its smallest 128GB model. At the time of writing, the S25 FE also comes equipped with six months of Google AI Pro, which includes access to features like Flor, NotebookLM and more.
In comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S25 has a more expensive starting price of £799 for its 128GB handset. However, as the phone launched earlier this year, it’s not uncommon to find a price drop for it.
Samsung Galaxy S25 runs on Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy
The Galaxy S25 FE doesn’t run on Samsung’s custom version of Qualcomm’s flagship processor like the rest of the S25 series. Instead, Samsung uses its own Exynos 2400 chipset.
You might remember that Samsung caused controversy with the Exynos 2400 chip with the 2024 Galaxy S24 series. While customers in the US could get the S24 or S24 Plus running on Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy, those in the UK and Europe were given Exynos 2400 instead and many worried there would be a discrepancy with performance.
However, we still concluded that Exynos 2400 was able to compete with the then-flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy chip. While we’re yet to conclusively review the S25 FE, in our hands-on we found the handset “felt smooth enough during use” and handled average tasks with ease.
Samsung also claims its 13% larger vapor chamber should keep the phone cooler for longer, but we’re yet to confirm this ourselves.
Samsung Galaxy S25 has different camera resolutions
Although both the S25 and S25 FE are fitted with three rear cameras, they differ with their exact offering. Although both are fitted with a 50MP main lens, the S25 is made up of 12MP ultrawide and 10MP telephoto lenses too.
The S25 FE, on the other hand, is made up of the same 12MP ultrawide and 8MP telephoto as last year’s S24 FE. With this in mind, we can assume that its photography prowess will be similar to its predecessor although Samsung has promised that its upgraded ProVisual Engine should help boost image quality, but we’re yet to test this ourselves.
Although we found the Galaxy S25 to offer fairly consistent results, we did note that compared to the likes of the iPhone 16 or Pixel 9, it doesn’t quite match up and won’t sit in our best camera phone list.
Rear of Galaxy S25 FE
Rear of Galaxy S25
Samsung Galaxy S25 FE has a larger display
Despite sporting the same overall design as the Galaxy S25 series, the FE resembles the Galaxy S25 Plus, thanks to its similar sized display. At 6.7-inches, the S25 FE is considerably larger than the S25’s 6.2-inch display.
Despite the size difference, both sport the same Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with HDR10+ capabilities and a 120Hz refresh rate. However, it’s worth mentioning that the S25 FE’s display isn’t LTPO-enabled, which although disappointing isn’t really all that surprising.
Samsung Galaxy S25 FE supports faster charging
Samsung doesn’t tend to offer heaps of battery life or particularly fast charging with its handsets, especially compared to some of the best Android phones.
While we found the S25’s battery to be decent overall, and able to comfortably last a day, the handset lets itself down with its charging speed support. In fact, the S25 only supports up to 25W or 15W wireless, and we determined that the former took approximately 90 minutes to reach 1-100%.
Not only does the S25 FE have a larger battery capacity at 4900mAh, although that’s unsurprising considering it’s a bigger phone, but it also supports faster 45W charging too. We’ll update this article once we know what a promise of 45W translates to in real use.
Samsung Galaxy S25 FE comes with One UI 8
At the time of writing, the Galaxy S25 FE is the first of the series to run Samsung’s latest software One UI 8 which is based on Android 16. However, it’s worth noting that the rest of the S25 range is scheduled to receive the update in the coming weeks, though an exact date is currently unknown.
With One UI 8, the S25 FE supports all the Galaxy AI features we’ve gotten used to, from the photo editing suite, to tools like Circle to Search and the recently launched Now Brief too.
Early Verdict
Considering the Galaxy S25 FE not only borrows many features from the pricier Galaxy S25 but also includes some unique features like faster charging support and Android 16, the handset seems like it could be a brilliant option for anyone who wants the Galaxy S25 experience but without forking out for the privilege.
We’ll update this versus once we review the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE.
