The Samsung Galaxy S24 FE is here! The « FE » used to stand for « fan edition, » but it doesn’t anymore. Still, is this phone really for fans?
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When Samsung first launched its line of “FE” products, it readily admitted the moniker stood for “Fan Edition.” The idea was to slightly water down its most popular flagship products to make them still rock-solid devices but less expensive overall. Eventually, though, the company dropped the Fan Edition nomenclature and just kept the FE label. Today, the company launched the latest entry in this family: the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE.
Obviously, this isn’t a Fan Edition phone because Samsung doesn’t use that term anymore, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking that the FE line is still where Samsung puts new editions of a product designed with its fans in mind. After playing around with the Galaxy S24 FE a bit today in New York City, I came away impressed while simultaneously questioning whether or not this phone is anything Samsung fans would actually want.Samsung Galaxy S24 FE design
Physically, the Galaxy S24 FE is a dead-ringer for the Galaxy S24 Plus. Technically, the two phones aren’t the same size, but they are pretty close. Regardless, if you just looked at the Galaxy S24 FE, you’d be forgiven for mistaking it for a Galaxy S24 Plus.
Design-wise, Samsung barely changed anything. There are still totally flat aluminum rails all around the device. There’s a glass back and a triple-lens rear camera system, with each lens arranged neatly in a column in the upper left. Honestly, it seems like Samsung’s designers just looked at the Galaxy S24 Plus and then hit “CTRL-V” for the Galaxy S24 FE.
The two phones share the same display size at 6.7 inches while also sharing the same 120Hz refresh rate. They don’t share the same resolutions, though: the Galaxy S24 Plus is capable of hitting 1440p, while the Galaxy S24 FE can only go as high as 1080p. Still, in my brief time with the phone, I barely noticed the resolution difference. It was still a beautiful, crisp, and fluid display, just as I would expect from a Samsung flagship.
There is one semi-significant difference between the construction of the two phones, which is the glass used. The Galaxy S24 Plus uses Gorilla Glass Victus 2, while the Galaxy S24 FE uses a slightly older Gorilla Glass Victus Plus. Still, this is a huge upgrade over the Galaxy S23 FE, which was using the much, much older Gorilla Glass 5.
With this high-end glass and an IP68 rating, the Galaxy S24 FE should be very durable. As always, we still recommend keeping it in a case.
Finally, the Galaxy S24 FE comes in four colors here in the United States: Graphite, Gray, Blue, and Mint. The blue colorway is very much a baby blue, and I didn’t like it at all. The Mint color was nice, but I would probably go with gray if I had to choose. It’s more fun than the boring Graphite color while not being quite as in-your-face as the Mint or Blue colorways. Notably, there is a yellow model, too, but it is only available in select countries, and that doesn’t include the US.Not too many other upgrades this year
Internally, the Galaxy S24 FE doesn’t change much from what we saw in the Galaxy S23 FE. It has the same amount of RAM (8GB), the same starting level for internal storage (128GB), and the same charging speeds (25W with a cable and 15W with a wireless charger).
We also don’t see any hardware changes with the cameras. There’s a 50MP primary sensor, a 12MP ultrawide, and an 8MP telephoto with 3x zoom.
