Is There A Problem With Samsung Galaxy S23 FE? 🤔 Full Review After 2 Weeks

This is the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE, a smartphone that challenges the very definition of exceptional value and quality.

In this in-depth review, and after using this phone for 2 weeks, I have discovered some really great things about the phone, like its battery performance, the cameras, and the display.

So, what’s the problem? Is it the Exynos 2200 chipset? Well, let’s find out!

 

Price

Now, I’m going to unconventionally start off this review by letting you know the current price of the phone – this exact variant (8GB+128GB) is going for RM2,699 (~US$ 577).

Considering that, that is quite an attractive price point. So, with that figure in mind, let’s dive into this in-depth review.

 

Design

Samsung definitely nailed the basics of a great smartphone with an overall design and build quality, and that is something that I really appreciated when I used the phone daily. 

The phone feels comfortable in the hand thanks to its part glossy finish, which is paired with the matte sides and in turn makes the phone less slippery compared to other smartphones with a similar aesthetic and build quality. 

But the only thing that I would probably slightly nitpick is the weight of the phone, and of course, the thicker sides too, because if you prefer a lighter or a thinner smartphone, then this might not be the right choice for you.

Despite having its reasonably-sized battery, which I’ll discuss more later, I suspect the glass back contributes significantly to the phone’s overall weight.

Now, that is actually not a huge deal because that is to be expected for a sort of a premium feel to the phone. But what I can say is that when I was using the phone daily, it has never been an issue for me, especially with the added assurance of an IP68 rating.

Also, noteworthy is the inclusion of USB Type-C 3.2 port, offering much faster speeds than most phones within the same price bracket. And yes, that includes the iPhone 15 Series too.

 

Display

While the design and build quality felt like a flagship, when you start looking at the display, though, here’s where you start to realize, ah, it’s not a flagship. And this is not because of the refresh rate, as it still has a 120Hz refresh rate and of course, the great quality of the Dynamic AMOLED 2X display.

But the obvious non-flagship trait is the bezel at the sides. Other than that, the screen’s durability is not as great as the flagship S23, since this FE variant comes in Corning Gorilla Glass 5 instead of Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2. So, I would advise for you to put on a case just for the sake of protecting the screen. 

However, if you feel like you still want to take the risk by using the phone without a case, here’s where Guard Genius would be the best bet for you, who is the sponsor of this post.

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They have also committed to contributing SDG12, which is the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 12, to have a more sustainable future. So, by going with their services, you can reduce e-waste, conserve resources, to have a more sustainable and equitable world. 

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So other than the thicker bezels and the screen durability, that is the only compromise here because beyond that, you are presented with a high-quality 6.4-inch FHD+ display and quite a high 1,450 nits of brightness. At this level of brightness, it is particularly impressive, so bright that you think that your screen has been sipping on liquid sunshine! 

You’ll notice it even more when viewing HDR content, even on apps like YouTube. And as for Netflix, it has Widevine L1 playback specification with HDR10 support as well. 

So yeah, having a really bright screen for the price also means that the visibility isn’t compromised when using the phone outdoors in daylight, which I find the screen to be extremely useful, especially taking photos in very bright daylight, which brings me to the next topic, which is the performance of the cameras. 

 

Cameras

As mentioned and shown in my first impressions review, when I compared this phone against the S23 side by side, besides the slight difference in color, which you can adjust the saturation in post if you really need to, you’re indeed looking at close to a flagship-level quality photo on the phone, especially during the day. 

 

Ultrawide

The ultra-wide lenses perform great with no signs of a fish-eye or a barrel distortion kind of effect. The edges tend to be a tiny bit soft, but that is only if you pixel-peep really close because all in all, you’re looking at a great ultra-wide camera during the day.

 

Main

And it’s always great when smartphones keep its color reproduction identical when you switch from the ultra-wide lens to the main lens, and that is the case over here. On this main lens, you can really see the 50MP camera really shine. 

 

Zoom

Then the 3x dedicated optical zoom also performed really well, although at only 8 megapixels, as seen in these daytime shots. 

 

Rear Portrait Mode

Portrait mode for plants, flowers, and human subjects performed really great too, even with some high amounts of backlighting. And it also did a really great job for pets too. 

 

Selfie Regular & Portrait

As expected, the phone did a really good job on the selfie photos, especially on the portrait selfie pictures, with amazing dynamic range at the background and amazing edge detection too.

 

Night Ultrawide

However, at night, you will start seeing the ultra-wide lens slightly degrading, where the images can be a bit washed out unless you’re really stable when taking photos at night using the ultra-wide camera, because if you are stable when taking the shots, the balance of both is really great. And, of course, the overall image quality.

 

Night Main

Like the daytime shots, the main lens at night performed exceptionally well. Not only were they sharp, but once again, the balance of the highlights and shadows were lovely, with no noticeable noise in the darker areas of the image. 

 

Night Zoom

And the 8MP telephoto lens or the 3x zoom image was decent, not the best at night, but I would pass it off as decent, especially if your hands are steady. 

 

Night Portrait

However, Samsung’s image processing works wonders when it comes to the portrait mode shots even at night, with great subject-to-background blur and edge detection.

 

Night Selfies

To my surprise, the nighttime selfie did perform pretty great, especially with a not so high megapixel count. Now, as long as you have any source of light, you are good to go, whether it’s for the regular or portrait selfie images. 

 

NIGHT VIDEO RECORDING

*Note: Sample Video Footage are available in my YouTube video]

4K Video Daytime – Rear

As for video, the ultra-wide lens quality was really nice, and so was the image stabilization as well. And the same can be said for the main lens too. 

 

4K Video Daytime – Front

Then the video for the front camera did very well, making it a perfect vlogging phone. 

 

4K Video Night – Rear

Once again, the video footage for the main lens was way superior compared to the ultra-wide lens when using it at night. So, I would recommend just using the main lens all the way, even for its image stabilization. 

 

4K Video Night – Front

Then the nighttime footage for the front camera was decent, but once again, I would recommend looking for as much light as possible to get the utmost best quality. 

 

Performance

The biggest complaint from almost every reviewer is the fact that it uses the Exynos 2200 chipset.

Oh, for God’s sake! So what? I don’t get what the problem is because it doesn’t get hot enough to fry an egg, and it performs adequately well during general use or even more of a performance needs, where I did not see any issue over here. 

Gaming on Genshin Impact was really great (Medium Graphics, 60FPS, Motion Blur on) and the device did maintain a cool temperature throughout, where it only became slightly warmer to the touch when I was updating the software and during taking photos in very harsh daylight. But that is to be expected, since our Malaysian weather is hot, haze, hot, haze, hot, haze, sometimes it rains.

Another thing worth mentioning is the fact there are two Performance profiles under the Battery Settings, which is Standard and Light, so you can toggle accordingly to how and when you use the phone. I personally think that this flexibility is great, which I always left it at Standard. 

In case you did not know, this Exynos 2200 4nm chipset, which a lot of people complain about, does support Hardware Enabled Ray Tracing too, which makes the chipset more future-proof, especially for gaming.

Besides gaming, I have absolutely no issues using the phone daily. As of the timing of this review, the phone was at One UI version 5.1 on the latest security patch on the 1st of October. 

Then the phone has support for DeX mode and tons of customization, including the GoodLock customization app. Samsung promises 4 years of software updates and 5 years of security updates on the phone, again, another future-proofing done over here.

Speaking of the number 5, yes, this phone has support for 5G. The connection was great. Wi-Fi speeds were great with this Wi-Fi 6E modem on the phone, and Samsung Pay support too.

 

Battery

So, with the thickness of the phone, at first glance, I thought that this would come with a huge 5,000mAh battery inside, but it came with 4,500mAh instead.

Now, that initially concerned me, but the good news is that the battery life using the phone daily proved to be quite impressive, at an average close to 6 hours and 11 minutes of screen on time, and close to about 8 hours of overall use when I was at 10% battery with dark mode turned on. 

And knowing the fact that this phone has wireless charging, again, for this price factor, it is very much appreciated.

 

Conclusion

In a world of smartphones where price often dictates expectations, this Samsung Galaxy S23 FE is a device that demands a double take. Its design is a delight, and the display shines even under the glare of a midday sun. 

Yes, there are some quirks with the cameras at night, but for the price that it offers, it is indeed not a big deal. While the Exynos 2200 chipset stirs up debates, it remains cool under the pressure of performance.

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