Samsung Galaxy S25 FE Review
Check out the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE they said, “Sure” I said.
Last year, after several years of happily using an Apple iPhone 11, a family member offered me a Samsung Galaxy S21 that wasn’t working. He told me if I could get it functional again, I could have keep it.
Well, I got it going so have been using it ever since.
It’s not so unfamiliar territory
This wasn’t the first time I’d dabbled with Android, though: Before I moved to an iPhone I was using an early Samsung Galaxy so I was familiar with the ecosystem – and besides, I haven’t completely cut ties with Apple devices: An iPad still sits on the coffee table, pulling double duty as a streaming screen and a sketchpad. But using the S21 reminded me why I’d enjoyed Android phones in the first place: the flexibility, the customisation, and Samsung’s particular knack for packing a lot of phone into a relatively sensible package. So when I was offered the chance to spend a couple of weeks with Samsung’s Galaxy S25 FE, I didn’t hesitate.
The FE line has always been interesting — phones that borrow heavily from Samsung’s flagship playbook, then trim things back just enough to land at a more approachable price. Coming from the S21, it also felt like a useful point of comparison: how far has Samsung moved things on in a few short generations? On paper, the Galaxy S25 FE looks like a confident continuation of that philosophy. It’s essentially a pared-back take on the full-fat Galaxy S25, built around a 6.7-inch AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. That alone makes it feel immediately more modern than my ageing S21, particularly when scrolling, gaming, or just mindlessly doom-scrolling before bed.
Under the hood of the Galaxy S25 FE
Powering it all is Samsung’s Exynos 2400 chipset, paired with 8GB of RAM — more than enough for day-to-day use, multitasking, and the occasional burst of productivity. Yes, it’s less powerful than Samsung’s flagship S25 but not everybody needs the fastest, most powerful phone in a company’s range. The camera setup is reassuringly familiar, but still capable: a 50MP main sensor supported by a 12MP ultra-wide and an 8MP telephoto offering 3x optical zoom. There’s also a 12MP front-facing camera, which, thankfully, avoids the temptation to chase megapixels at the expense of natural-looking photos.
Here are a couple of candid ‘Good Dog’ shots to show off the camera, who can resist a happy pooch shot.
Storage comes in 128GB or 256GB flavours, and a 4900mAh battery rounds things out, promising enough endurance to comfortably get through a full day without the low-battery anxiety creeping in by mid-afternoon. Specs aside, the Galaxy S25 FE feels like Samsung doubling down on what it does best: Delivering a phone that feels premium where it counts, without pretending to be something it isn’t.
At the time of writing this, I could pick up an S25 FE for anything between $860 to just over a $1000. A full phat S25 costs much, much, much more than that.
In Summary
After time with the Galaxy S25 FE, it’s immediately clear that this is a more refined, more confident device, one that’s less about flashy headline features and more about a polished, dependable experience that perhaps proves you don’t really need to have a company’s flagship phone anymore and for someone rediscovering Android after a few years away, that’s a very welcome place to be.
