Samsung Galaxy S23 FE. That FE stands for Fan Edition and it seems like the fans asked for this. After using it for about 2 weeks or so, I have quite a lot of things to say about this phone and especially the price – we’ll leave all of that at the end so we’ll get started with the technicalities first.
Performance
We’ll start with the performance first. For certain regions of the world, we’re getting the Exynos 2200 chipset. I am excited to test out this chipset since it has the AMD RDNA 2 GPU architecture. I didn’t get to test out this chipset since we got the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 last year for the S22 series.
So, as shown in our gaming test video, the S23 FE had some weird issues. It crashes frequently and the frame rate was just erratic. However, there was a new firmware update after we uploaded the video.
I tried to redo some tests using Genshin Impact to see what has changed and to my surprise – the game is still crashing. It crashed so much that I got this notification. I’m still not sure what’s going on with the instability and it shouldn’t be a software optimization issue since the S22 series was using this same Exynos 2200 chipset in certain regions last year.
After a restart, I eventually got it working again. The frame rate was about the same as before the update – so no, the original gaming test video is not obsolete, and everything I said there still applies – for now.
I was playing it at the highest graphical settings and highest render resolution possible – so if we just revert back to the default render resolution, the frame rate is a lot better and stabler.
Other games we’ve tested won’t be an issue for this phone after all – so watch that gaming test video to know more. Link at the top right corner.
Battery life
Moving on – the battery life. I’m not sure why Samsung gave this phone a 4,500mAh battery instead of a 5,000mAh battery since this phone is about the same size as the A54.
Anyway, I did the battery life twice. Once before the update, and once after the update. And the results are very similar. We did get 10 minutes extra in the test but I think that is within the margin of error.
Still, 10 hours and 30 minutes is quite good, but might have to be a little bit careful for it to last a full day.
Charging speed
And the charging speed. This phone does have 25W fast charging and supports USB-PD PPS and it can reach 100% in about an hour. Pretty decent but I don’t use fast charging personally.
Camera
Now, let’s talk about the cameras. We do have the trifecta of usable cameras here – but other than the main camera, they’re not that high in terms of the megapixel count.
I took a few pictures and they look really good. I don’t have any complaints overall and I think they’re clear, has great colors, and they’re pretty consistent among the 3 cameras. Be it indoors or outdoors, this Galaxy S23 FE takes surprisingly good pictures.
To have a look at all the pictures and videos taken with the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE, take a look at the video at the top of this review.
Screen
And to view what’s shown on the screen, it’s a pretty standard Samsung screen in today’s standard. It’s a 6.4-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X screen with a resolution of 2340×1080 pixels and goes up to 120Hz refresh rate.
And like other Samsung screen color accuracy is as good as ever. We’re getting 100% coverage on both sRGB and DCI-P3 with a pretty high maximum ΔE but a very low average ΔE.
What a lot of people are absolutely furious about is the bezel thickness. It’s not just thick, it’s EXTRA THICC.
I’m not someone who goes crazy over bezel sizes but I do have to say, that this extra thick bezel does cause the phone to feel really wide. Reaching my finger to the other edge is really difficult.
One more thing that I don’t like is the under-display fingerprint scanner. I’m already not a fan of this “technology” and this phone’s scanner is placed way too low, making it not ergonomic to use.
Design
The design of the phone though, is fairly straightforward and minimalist. If you’ve seen what design Samsung is using for the entire year of 2023, then yeah this phone is also using that design too. It’s very clean, honestly.
Usually, Samsung phones will have its IMEI printed below the Samsung logo but for the S23 FE, it’s just not here. I have no idea where they hid the IMEI and this just looks so damn clean.
Software
And of course, it is running on One UI 5.1 on top of Android 13. All of the One UI features like Samsung Wallet, Edge Panel, and everything else – are still the same. I still love all of these features. All of the ecosystem features are the same too – you can watch our video here to know more.
Few more things to mention
And speaking of that, this phone is indeed using a USB 3 port at the bottom and has Samsung DeX too if we plug it into an external display.
You even have the usual two SIM card slots alongside support for a few eSIMs too.
Should you buy the Galaxy S23 FE?
And we’ve arrived at the end of the review. There is one burning question that I want to ask everyone – since this is a phone within the FE family – it stands for Fan Edition, by the way – which fan asked for this phone at this price?
For us here in Malaysia, it starts from RM2,999 for the 128GB model and I highly recommend you get the 256GB model – which is RM3,299. And I just think that the price is unjustifiable. I think Samsung knows this too as they straight up offered a RM300 instant rebate the moment this phone was available for sale. Certain platforms have an even heavier discount – so make sure to hunt for the best deals before making the purchase. I’ve seen the price go down as low as RM2,107 for the 128GB model.
Now, assuming that you are buying it at a heavily discounted price, then I’d say yes – this phone is actually worth the price. You get good cameras, great ecosystem features, and also the ever-fantastic Samsung One UI software. It’s just that I’m not sure why Genshin Impact in particular kept crashing when I tried to launch it. Other games are fine.
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Thanks a lot for the review. Thoroughly explained. Thanks again.