The strategy behind Samsung’s Fan Edition products has been hard to understand for the past few years. Obviously, they were supposed to offer high-end features at a more affordable price.
After the Galaxy S20 FE, however, most FE devices haven’t lived up to that promise. Whether it was the poor timing of the S21 FE or the boring hardware of the S23 FE, those phones never felt as affordable as the S20 FE did four years ago.
With the new Galaxy S24 FE ($650), Samsung is offering the cheapest entry into its Galaxy AI ecosystem. Unfortunately, a few hardware changes and a lot of AI aren’t enough to overcome an uncompetitive price.
Samsung Galaxy S24 FE
With just a few hardware changes, AI features you can find elsewhere and a confusing price, Samsung’s Galaxy S24 FE doesn’t do enough to stand out in a competitive midrange market.
Design and display
When I first took the S24 FE out of the box, I thought Samsung hadn’t changed the phone’s design at all. But it turns out I was only half right. The new model has a display that’s 0.3 inches larger than the S23 FE’s 6.4-inch display.
In terms of size, this means the S24 FE is much more similar to the S24+ than the S23 FE was to the S23+. I want you to keep the S24+ in mind when reading this review; the S24 FE is the phone Samsung wants you to consider if everything about the S24+ appeals to you other than its $1,000 price.
Like the S23 FE, Samsung has opted for an AMOLED 2X panel with an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate and 1080p resolution. In addition to being bigger, the S24 FE’s screen is brighter than last year’s FE, offering a maximum brightness of 1,900 nits compared to 1,450 nits.
The S24 FE still lacks the battery-saving LTPO technology found in Samsung’s flagship phones, but as far as midrange phone screens go, the S24 FE easily has the best screen I’ve seen. I think that’s the reason to buy the FE.
The display looks great, especially when scrolling through social media and playing games. It’s easily readable even in bright sunlight. Similarly, I found it to be quite sharp despite having a lower resolution than the S24+’s QHD screen.
It’s great that Samsung offers such a big display on a midrange device, but I’m not a fan of big phones. Obviously, personal preference will dictate whether or not you like the FE’s girth, but for those with smaller hands like me, consider this your warning: it’s not easy to hold.
In North America, the S24 FE is available in four colors: blue (pictured), graphite, gray, and a lovely mint. It may not be made of titanium, but I think the FE looks just as premium as its more expensive siblings. I wouldn’t worry too much about its durability either; the front and back of the phone are protected by Gorilla Glass Victus+, and the whole phone is IP68-certified against dust and water.
Camera
I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect to like the S24 FE’s camera this much. The new phone offers the same hardware as its predecessor. Specifically, it comes with a 50-megapixel, f/1.8 main camera; a 12MP, f/2.2 ultra-wide camera; an 8MP, f/2.4 telephoto camera, and a 10MP selfie camera with an f/2.4 lens.
An extra thing here is the company’s ProVisual Engine. This is the first time Samsung has offered the software on one of its FE phones. Not having used last year’s model, I wasn’t able to directly compare the two devices.
So I did the next best thing: I compared photos I took with the S24 FE to photos I took with the previous Samsung phone, the Galaxy A53 5G, which I reviewed. If I had to point out a difference, it would be that the S24 FE did a better job of maintaining a consistent white balance and properly exposing dark scenes.
Plus, Samsung’s image processing hasn’t changed dramatically in the past few years. There’s no doubt that photos taken with the S24 FE are from a Samsung device. As you can see in the gallery below, almost every image has bright and saturated colors.
Despite not being a fan of Samsung’s image processing, I really enjoyed using the FE’s cameras. Of the three main cameras, my favorite was the telephoto. Thanks to its 32-degree field of view, it gives you 3x optical zoom on the FE’s main camera. That might not sound like much, but when most midrange phones, including the excellent Pixel 8a, don’t come with telephoto cameras, any amount of optical zoom makes you feel like you’re using a more premium product.
In the FE’s case, it’s a great camera too, with a bright f/2.4 lens and built-in optical image stabilization. I’m not usually a fan of portrait mode on more affordable handsets like the S24 FE, but here I felt it made sense as the compression from the telephoto lens leads to better subject separation. I snapped a lot of portraits as the phone did a great job of rendering natural-looking skin tones and background blur.