Samsung Galaxy S25 FE review: Has Samsung finally figured out the true value of its FE?

Working hard for that Galaxy S-line 

A perk of Samsung’s FE phones is that these devices feel like premium handsets in hand, which can be satisfying for users who want a good deal without paying the usual price (read: Galaxy S-xpensive) seen in Samsung’s headlining mobiles.

Harkening Samsung Galaxy S25 FE’s budget-friendly approach is the combined cost savings with careful trimming, a simplified design, and more affordable components. Despite the great lengths it undertook to develop a wallet-friendlier flagship, Samsung has not neglected its premium-tier features in areas where you’d interact the most. For example, it features Corning’s Gorilla Glass Victus+ on both sides, which enhances the hand feel with a touch of glass (instead of cheapo plastic covers), a full One UI 8 experience, including Gemini Live.

Samsung is also minimising the compromise that usually comes with such flagship-lite devices. In this case, you’re getting the Exynos 2400 processor, which graced last year’s flagship range (Samsung Galaxy S24/S24+). 

With the promised premium and savings combined into one device, the Galaxy S25 FE should be a reskinned flagship with outsized value, while still performing like one of the best Samsung phones.

But does it? Let’s find out.

Seven years of updates in a glass body

The design looks understated, opting for a monolithic, coloured rear that has minimal distractions, such as thin camera rings and a single cut-out for the LED flash. 

Before you say we’re gassing up the Galaxy S25 FE’s appearance, remember that S25 FE resembles an earlier iPhone (minus a camera block or camera island). Its simplicity isn’t unique, but it’s good that Samsung made the Galaxy S25 FE undeniably pleasant without reinventing the wheel.

One minor design gripe stretches across the phone’s wider girth, preventing smaller hands from holding it comfortably, despite having a typical mobile width of 76.6mm. This is likely the result of harsher straight edges between the display and the trimming (sides). It’s not an issue since we prefer that over an outdated-looking bullnose or waterfall edge.

The design flaw, however, comes from the bottom black bezel that sits below its gorgeous 6.7-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display. It is visibly thicker than the other trims around its panel, since the rest appear evenly distributed. It betrays the S25 FE’s otherwise impeccable aesthetic, which is probably necessary for Samsung to ensure its non-FE models still retain an edge.

The Samsung Galaxy S25 FE also has an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance, matching the resistance level of its flagship Galaxy S25 series handsets. That hasn’t changed since the very first FE phone, which was the Galaxy S20 FE. What did change, however, was that the Galaxy S25 FE would receive up to seven years of OS and security upgrades (the Galaxy S20 FE had only three years of OS upgrades).

Works like the real deal

With the FE having the huge promise of a true flagship experience without the price tag, it stands to reason that the software, One UI 8, doesn’t greatly differ from the ones we’ve already experienced on the Galaxy S25 Ultra, Galaxy S25 Edge, Galaxy Z Fold7, and Galaxy Z Flip7. This makes it the fifth time we’re trying out One UI 8 on a 2025 flagship-tier Samsung phone. 

While we’re glad to skip on diving too deeply into the nitty-gritty details (like Galaxy AI, its integrated visual Gemini search, and more), we still gave the UI a once-over to ensure it’s free of any nasty bloatware. 

Happily, the Galaxy S25 Edge is quite similar to other flagship phones released this year, presenting non-critical apps during setup to obtain your approvals for downloads first (consent is always a huge turn-on). The AI features (photo editing, Filters, Gemini) are all intact, too, so the Galaxy S25 FE checks out with its lower price, yet it provides the full-fat and smooth One UI 8 experience it promised. 

If anything, seeing the UI on so many different Samsung models has led us to realise that the newer, sleeker One UI 8 elements (Now Brief, Now Bar, Search Bar, pull-down menu) aren’t actually congruent with the pillow-shaped app icons of One UI 8. But that’s just nitpicking on our part.

Despite its budget delegation, the Galaxy S25 FE strives to live up to its premium Galaxy S positioning through its display, design, build, protection, and software longevity (Samsung claims seven years of firmware and security support for the Galaxy S25 FE

Imaging performance

We expected an array of rear cameras that covers only the essentials on the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE because of its more affordable positioning. Here are the cameras at a glance before we gush over their decent imaging samples.

• 50MP main, f/1.8 aperture, OIS
• 12MP ultrawide, f/2.2 aperture, FOV 123 ̊
• 8MP telephoto, f/2.4 aperture, 3x optical zoom

It’s worth noting the camera also goes up to 10x, 20x, and 30x zoom, which we’ve also tried.

While we feel that Samsung could’ve given better tuning to keep the overblown sky under control, the Galaxy S25 FE still rocks great images with its discipline in details, colour accuracy, and shadow handling. This is most evident when you use the main camera and telephoto lens.

Yes, these samples are indeed taken on the same day, in the same weather, which leads us to realise that Samsung could’ve really done more to ensure that the sky looks just as great as this second set. Naturally, the 20x and 30x zoom are not as usable even for social media: try and see if you can tell how many carpark lots are available on the red LED signage.

In sheltered areas, the Galaxy S25 FE takes on a darker contrast tuning, with some details missing in the plants’ foliage and the wooden rack. Perhaps the Leica-like aesthetic is a plus point for some users. It would be nicer if Galaxy S25 FE were capable of vibrant, sharp, and true-to-life photos that look like they came from the premium Galaxy S lineup.

In summary, Galaxy S25 FE’s photo-taking feels serviceable, which is sufficient for most users who want to remember what they’ve seen and experienced. More professional shooters with greater photo needs will have to put in some editing work to get the artistry they desire (e.g. using Pro mode).

Benchmark Performance

As mentioned, the Galaxy S25 FE is packing Exynos 2400, the same processor on the Galaxy S24/S24+, so this flagship-lite phone does have former flagship components. However, Samsung has many more modern ~S$1,000 Android phones to contend with, and we picked some of the recent and popular ones to compare below.

From the charts, it’s clear that users who want raw performance have better options in the same price range. However, the fact that it works just as well as a flagship Samsung from before (just ask others who also use the same phones) means that Galaxy S25 FE does live up to its current promise of flagship features at a lower price. Our normal use also revealed nothing exceptionally strange or bad during the review period.

Battery life

Our battery benchmark uses PCMark for Android’s Work 3.0 Battery Life, with results shown in minutes. This controlled benchmark simulates real-world usage, such as web and social media browsing, video and photo editing, parsing data with various file formats, writing, and more. 

The Samsung Galaxy S25 FE’s 4,900mAh battery managed nearly 12.5 hours of uptime on our standardised battery test. It has a good uptime, lasting the better part of the day (with 20% more to spare, per our battery benchmarking parametres). Unfortunately, it was surpassed by other budget flagship contenders with either larger capacities or better power efficiency. 

A good example here is the Xiaomi 15T Pro, which can last nearly four hours longer on a MediaTek equivalent processor. On paper, using a former flagship Exynos processor sounds like a great deal for Samsung fans because of the cost savings, but the Exynos series has hardly been at the forefront of raw performance or battery consumption compared to other major chip designers.

Wired battery charging on a universal third-party charger took less than 45 minutes to hit the 50% mark, but almost two hours for a full 100%. Perhaps Samsung’s charging discipline falls on the safer side of things, but the brand did not provide its compatible 45W charger for us to see whether it can go beyond the standard charging rates.

Conclusion

There are many ways to perceive the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE. It’s not going to be the best of anything specific, but the things it does well collectively present a valuable handset that satisfies mainstream users who also aren’t looking for anything beyond “I just want a good enough phone that doesn’t cost that much”.

Hygiene factors, like IP68 rating, eSIM support, and the option to buy 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB physical storage make Samsung’s flagship-lite alternative a comfortable pick, because there’s little need for Android users to make any major lifestyle changes to accommodate a Galaxy S25 FE in their lives. Samsung kept the stuff that really mattered to your everyday use, even if it’s not the sexiest, headline-grabbing parts.

It also stayed mostly true to its Galaxy S positioning: it used a processor from the flagship phones of its previous year, but at the same time ensured its design, function,and software stayed intact. It even covered the little bits like the glass finish and USB-C port with 3.2 Gen 1 speeds. That also applies to Galaxy AI, photo-editing, and Gemini assistant functionality on Galaxy S25 FE being congruent with its mainline phones.

This time, what it lacks (and why the FE phone is cheaper than the mainline Galaxy S) are really for folks who chase after the best. Besides the obvious power differences afforded by Exynos, its wireless connectivity standards aren’t as new as Wi-Fi 7 or Bluetooth 6.0. However, if you’re already invested (financially, emotionally, and logistically) in getting the newest and coolest tech, the Galaxy S25 FE also wouldn’t be the right fit to begin with.

Another surprise was the launch prices: S$948 (128GB), S$1,038 (256GB), and S$1,218 (512GB). Samsung briefly brought back a 128GB storage option for the true penny pinchers who don’t mind relying on cloud storage, but also didn’t drastically hike the prices for other storage options. 

It seems the Koreans have a clearer idea of what to do with their FE range, unlike in the early days when it was simply a cheaper Snapdragon-enabled phone. Now, it offers nearly everything a full-bodied Galaxy S with One UI 8 can, featuring decent cameras (main, ultrawide, telephoto), battery life (more than 12h), and design (doesn’t feel cheap). If you’re not as picky as we are, the Galaxy S25 FE would look even more attractive to you.

The versatility offered by Galaxy S25 FE is also its Achilles’ Heel — being good enough at everything for less than S$1,000 also means someone else can do at least one other thing better at the same price. That is where the differentiation begins and really starts to split users apart. You have the Xiaomi 15T Pro (256GB for S$799), Poco F7 Ultra (S$256B for S$869), Vivo V60 (256GB for S$699). Each of these has a clear advantage over the Galaxy S25 FE, be it in camera performance, the choice of chipset, or significantly longer battery life. 

With how experimental Android phones are (and the flexibility they offer), it falls upon Samsung to make its FE the ultimate, undeniable best pick among decent alternatives. They seem to be going in the right direction for now, despite the pressure from their competitors. It still remains a safe choice, especially if you’re buying it for loved ones who don’t know better.

The Samsung Galaxy S25 FE is on sale now at the official Samsung Online Store in Navy, Icyblue, Jetblack, and White.

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