Samsung's new $650 Galaxy S25 FE is getting some of my favorite features seen on the more-expensive $1,000 Galaxy S25 Plus, with a number of hardware tweaks that bring down the price. Samsung revealed the phone as part of its Thursday morning Galaxy Unpacked livestream, which also features new Galaxy Tab S11 tablets.
The Galaxy S25 FE launches with the company's One UI 8 overlay for Android 16, which we first saw on Samsung's new Z Fold and Z Flip phones last summer. One UI 8 has a refined design and AI features like Now brief for summarizing what's coming up for your day.
The Galaxy S25 FE supports 45W wired charging when used with a power adapter that supports those speeds. Mike Sorrentino/CNET
But what I'm particularly excited about are the S25 FE's bigger battery and faster charging speeds compared to the prior models. The S25 FE will get 45-watt wired charging, which matches the Galaxy S25 Plus, and will power a 4,900-mAh battery. Samsung claims this will charge from 0% to 65% in 30 minutes, as long as you use it with a wall charger that supports that speed.
The S25 FE also supports 15-watt wireless charging, and Samsung describes the phone as "Qi2 Ready" -- which means that the phone doesn't have Qi2 magnets for accessories, but you can get a case that has the magnets to use them with wireless chargers or wallets. This is something I hope we see change with next year's Galaxy S26 phones, especially now that magnets are included in Google's Pixel 10 line, but this does mirror the Galaxy S25 line.
The Galaxy S25 FE is on the left, and looks slightly thinner than the Galaxy S24 FE on the right. Numi Prasarn/CNET
The S25 FE is a smidge thinner and lighter than last year's S24 FE, but it does otherwise look quite similar to last year's phone. The S25 FE uses Samsung's Exynos 2400 processor, which is the same as what's in the $900 Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE that I recently reviewed. It likely won't be as powerful as the Qualcomm chip in the more expensive Galaxy S25, but it should be powerful enough to handle lowlight photography, Galaxy AI features and most apps and games. It has a similar camera system to last year's phone as well, with a 50-megapixel wide lens, 12-megapixel ultrawide and an 8-megapixel telephoto lens that supports a 3x optical zoom. Its selfie camera is also 12 megapixels.
The phone has a 6.7-inch AMOLED display, the same as last year's FE, with a 120Hz refresh rate and 1,900 nits of brightness. It comes in four colors: navy, icy blue, jet black and white.
The Galaxy S25 FE will come in (L to R) navy, icy blue, white and jet black. Mike Sorrentino/CNET
We'll have to test out the phone, but the FE mirrors a lot of what we see on the Galaxy S25 Plus. Similar body, display, battery, charging speed and software, but in exchange are a series of small stepdowns in terms of specs.
... continue reading