With a price of RM3,099, that is higher than what the POCO F7 Ultra costs, but lower than the Nothing Phone (3). So, if your question is, how well does this Samsung Galaxy S25 FE stand out compared to the rest? Well, I’ve been testing this phone for the past 2 weeks, and the answer might not be as obvious as you think.
Design & Build
I went with the Jet Black color as Samsung really nailed this Jet Black matte color very well with the nice armor aluminum rails at the side. And the camera rings also had the same aesthetics as the sides as well, looking very similar to the S24 Ultra’s camera ring.
It also has a matte finish all around the phone, not only at the rear, but also at the sides too. And you really like how it feels in your hands because of this matte finish, as I did when I was testing this phone daily. And the rear and the front glass have the Gorilla Glass Victus+ protection.
But this is about 23 g lighter than last year’s S24 FE which also has a 200 mAh bigger battery and is slimmer than before too. But the only caveat about this is the fact that if you love typing the phone on a surface, it will wobble a bit towards the bottom right because of the camera arrays mentioned earlier.
But yes, you’re looking at a phone that has the most iconic Samsung look to a phone, a phone that has its own recognizable design from a distance.
Display
And that is something that we can see for the display as well. So, this has a 6.7-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2x display with up to 120 Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of 1,900 nits. If all of this sounds familiar, yes, it is because it is the same as last year’s model. But did I have any issue with last year’s model? Nope, it was awesome and so was this.
One major thing that I love about this particular FE variant is this flat display because watching videos and just using the phone daily was really nice. Stereo speakers were decent, not as good as their flagship phones.
And the in-display fingerprint sensor was very responsive and quick to unlock too, but there were times where it was a hit or miss. But that is understandable because it’s using an optical fingerprint sensor, not the ultrasonic ones that you get on the flagships.
Then the bezels were nice and thin, but some might prefer to have a more symmetrical bezels all around the phone because this has a slightly thicker chin. Again, this didn’t bother me at all, especially if you use a darker wallpaper or even looking at the price range, right? So totally not a dealbreaker.
Software
But there’s one thing that nobody can complain about, especially this year, is the phone software. Out of the box, this comes with One UI 8 based on Android 16. And as usual, the software experience was very smooth and optimized and even very customizable as well.
And what’s extra sweet is that all of the AI features that the flagship has, it’s also here too. Features like the Generative Edit to easily remove objects and to fill in the gaps. And even the latest Audio Eraser feature also works very well on this phone.
So if you want a Galaxy phone, specifically on the AI features without buying a flagship, this phone is it. And of course, Google’s Gemini integration is also here as well, which most mid-range phones within this price bracket don’t have this level of combo of AI of Galaxy AI and Gemini AI together.
But of course, all of these software features are topped up with the fact that this has 7 years of OS and security updates, way ahead from the POCO F7 Ultra’s 3 years, and Nothing’s 4 years. So, yes, Samsung has just mastered the software game in smartphones, especially in the Android world.
But remember, Samsung also has the unique Good Lock app, which is just another multiverse of its own. And if you wish to know more about the Good Lock app using on this particular phone, do let me know at my YouTube video’s comment section and I’ll do a dedicated video on how to customize your Samsung phone to the best using the Good Lock app.
Camera
But another area where the software optimization plays a huge part was the phone’s cameras. Hardware wise, this has a 50 MP main, a 12 MP ultrawide, and an 8 MP telephoto lens, which is the same camera module as last year’s S24 FE. But there’s an improvement in almost every area except just two areas which still makes this phone look like an FE model for this particular area.
Ultrawide
Firstly the ultrawide lenses were awesome, perfect dynamic range and no edge distortion, something that I expected to do very well.
Main
And another area which is expected to look good is of course the main lenses and even up to the 2x zoom as well.
But remember when I said there are two areas which are not perfect. Firstly is the color shift between the 2x and the 3x mode, probably because of the lower quality of the telephoto lens.
And here’s where the Nothing Phone (3) and the Pixel 10 had better performance when it comes to the color shift consistency throughout all of the lenses or even the different zooming modes. But when it comes to the 2x zoom, it was still great even with the color shift as well. And you can further zoom up to 20x and the max zoom is up to 30x zoom.
Portrait
Portrait mode during the day, one word, fantastic for humans and objects where there are three different focal lengths to choose from. Portrait selfie was also great with a typical wide option too as seen over here.
Night
Then the nighttime photos were a little bit of a mixed bag because the ultrawide lenses at night were one of the second weak points of the phone’s image quality. So that was the second area which was not so great.
And one thing to note is that while there is a dedicated Night Mode on the phone, I prefer to use the regular mode to take photos because the Night Mode makes it a bit unreal, especially at the skies area as seen in this picture of the Shanghai Oriental Pearl Tower, it was more orange instead of remaining pure black.
Then the 10x zoom at night was still good, but you would see a drop in quality from 20x zoom at night onwards.
Video
[Check my YouTube video for all the sample video footage]
Video-wise, it can record up to 8K 30 fps, so, you can expect great quality footage.
There’s also an option for 4x and 5x zoom in this particular 8K mode, which believe it or not, I wouldn’t recommend using it because it does bring down the quality significantly.
So just stick to the 4K cameras where the ultrawide, the 1x recording and even the 3x recording for the 4K was really nice. Not so sure about the 12x max zooming for video recording, so try not to use that.
Stabilization wise, the rear lens was also really good, but only up to 3x, so try not going beyond that.
And as expected, the front video quality and the stabilization was really good. So was the dynamic range as well, recording up to 4K 30 fps.
But once again, the nighttime footage was not as good. Even the stabilization for 8K was a little jittery and even worse for the ultra wide 4K mode, but it was better and improved on the main lenses. So, if you want better details, it’s best to take the static type of shots even at 8K as well as it does capture the quality better.
But the front video at night was not as superior as the daytime recording, however, still usable.
Battery
There’s one place where the phone software has kind of made its magic true which is the phone’s battery. This has 4,900 mAh of battery which is using the lithium ion battery. So it’s not using the silicon carbon, the thin ones.
While that doesn’t sound like a lot, but again, the software optimization takes this through 2 days where the initial battery drain was about 47 minutes for the first 10%, which was way better than something like the Google Pixel 10 where in the middle of the day I was still getting 2 and 1/2 hours at 59% battery life.
Then when using the phone a lot for gaming, playing videos, and using social media the whole entire day and even scripting on the phone, I got an average of 4 hours of screen on time and sometimes even more during heavy use. And as mentioned, this was during the two-day use. And of course, at 17% battery with dark mode turned on. Still not a lot, but still very manageable, especially within this price range.
Because the biggest improvement is that this phone supports up to a 45W of fast charging that can charge this phone from zero to 100% at around the 1 hour mark. And then there’s also the 15W Qi2 supported wireless charging. So this is a hit from the Nothing Phone (3) since there is no Qi2 wireless support for the Nothing Phone (3), and the Pixel 10 has a lower wired and wireless charging speeds.
Performance
So with this kind of a battery performance, the next question you might ask is that how is it like when it comes to the overall performance of this phone, especially with the very infamous Exynos chipset?
Well, firstly, it comes with 8GB of RAM and my unit is the 256GB storage variant as there’s also a 512GB storage variant too. The Exynos chipset is a 2400 which is not the same as last year’s 2400e. So this time around it is slightly faster.
I know the moment that you hear Exynos your eyes went like O.O, but I’m here to tell you that on a day-to-day usage it works exactly like a Samsung flagship, extremely smooth with no issues or any signs of lag or jitters. When I was using the phone daily especially for gaming I tested Genshin Impact, and yes it played very well with barely any heat even for playing games for a long period.
Conclusion
So, with this, while the price might not be as competitive as the other phones mentioned at the beginning of this video, if your priority is low light, ultra wide lenses or the fastest charging, then the POCO F7 Ultra gives you more raw value.
But while this beats the Nothing Phone (3) in a lot of areas, the biggest selling factor of this or any Samsung phone in the year 2025 is the software. Whether or not it’s the image processing for the photos and videos or just using the phone as your main device. So, if I had to choose a phone within this price range, I would just recommend for you to get this Galaxy S25 FE instead.
[Watch the full video on YouTube here]
Related:
- NEW Samsung Galaxy S25 Series Hands-On! | Galaxy S25 Ultra, S25 Plus & S25
- Nothing Phone (3) vs Samsung Galaxy S25: Same Price, But Don’t Be Fooled!
