Samsung Galaxy S25 FE review: A phone that silently wins many a battle

The quintet seems complete. With the Galaxy S25 FE joining Samsung’s current flagship lineup as the new entry point, that basically means it now this, followed by the Galaxy S25, the S25+, the impressive Galaxy S25 Edge over to one side, and the powerhouse that is the Galaxy S25 Ultra. There are “special colour” variants in there too for certain phones, to be considered. There may well be an argument that for a flagship portfolio that should be perhaps more streamlined, one could understand Samsung’s intention of offering the widest possible choice.

The camera troika is led by a 50MP main wide sensor, alongside an 8MP telephoto with 3x optical zoom, and a 12MP ultra wide. (Vishal Mathur/ HT Photo)

It mustn’t have been easy for Samsung to do what they’ve done with the pricing, with the Galaxy S25 FE, the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25+ absolutely not overlapping on price. Creditable. The Galaxy S25 FE is priced ₹65,999 onwards, and as has been the case in the years past, FE still represents Fan Edition. The interesting thing is. While it sits below the Galaxy S25 in terms of price, the specs are actually closer to the Galaxy S25+ — screen size, certain camera sensors, battery size and charging speeds. That is the foundation for Galaxy AI suite parity across the flagship line-up, one of Samsung’s key pitches for this year’s phones, and as I’ve noted earlier, Galaxy AI has seen a generational change, focusing on refinements and utility. It is prominent here too.

Samsung’s design cues are pleasing to the eye, and this shade of Navy blue really has my vote. It’s subtle, yet different. The frame is something called enhanced armour aluminium, not to be mistaken with Armor aluminium 2 used in the Galaxy S25+, but still an upgrade over the standard metal nonetheless. Costs have to be saved at some point. The Galaxy S25 FE feels great to hold, and having come from heavier phones in recent weeks, feels pleasantly light too. More elements of cost saving become noticeable as you use the phone. The fingerprint sensor isn’t ultrasonic, but that being said, accuracy and responsiveness isn’t at all a challenge. Despite the larger 6.7-inch screen size compared to a Galaxy S25 (that’d be 6.2-inches), the resolution is the same — still crisp enough.

It’s a slightly higher capacity battery than last year, which also translates into more reassuring real world usage on a single charge. You’ll get close to 11 hours of active screen time, which means you may get through a day and a half worth of workdays before needing to charge this again. For a fairly slim phone, with powerful enough specs, that’s quite efficient. I’d draw this to a collective of Samsung’s software side optimisations, as well as the generational improvements the Exynos 2400 brings to the table.

This is as good a point as any to talk about the experience in general, defined as much by the underlying hardware, as it is by One UI 8. Samsung has certainly kept the familiarity intact, and there are subtle changes here and there that’ll be noticeable along the way. In the performance stakes, the Exynos 2400 sits more in the ring with phones powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 or the Mediatek Dimensity 9400, and that also helps differentiate with the higher spec siblings. The base configuration that’s on sale is one with 8GB memory and 256GB storage, and an upgrade gets you 512GB storage instead at this time. A 12GB memory option wouldn’t exactly have felt out of place, and who knows it may join the party later, but this does more than enough to hold ground against the Nothing Phone (3) and the Vivo X200 FE.

You’ll notice some heating when stressed (this is particularly felt around the frame), and that’s something I’ll attribute to the somewhat limited memory that’s available for often more process intensive apps or usage scenarios. At this point, a slight dip in performance is noticeable. But when you aren’t in the midst of a long 4K video recording session or half an hour into a proper video gaming session, the Galaxy S25 FE holds the performance poise perfectly.

The camera troika is led by a 50-megapixel main wide sensor, alongside an 8-megapixel telephoto with 3x optical zoom, and a 12-megapixel ultra wide. This seems to be carrying forward the legacy of its predecessor, and Samsung must be hoping the image processing pipeline improvements work their magic. To quite an extent, that is very much the case. The main camera returns detailed and well balanced photos, particularly in the daytime or in good light. You could point out that colours aren’t typically as vibrant as flagship phones tend to be these days, but the intent is clearly towards accuracy here.

Contrast seems to be more restrained at times, which would require a quick dip into the editing suite. 3x telephoto results bring considerable detail, and while portraits don’t often have a lot of perceptible depth, they’re quite balanced in terms of the silhouette and finer details on a subject’s body. Just an observation, make sure the Night Mode is on when shooting in low light, because that’s what the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE seems to work better with — else you risk photos looking a tad too soft, with some noise around subjects.

For Samsung, and their broader 2025 flagship phone line-up is concerned, the Galaxy S25 FE plays a very specific role. Or two, actually. First, the price point that reduces the outlay required to get into the flagship territory (and not everyone’s comfortable with a smaller screen, which means you’re looking at ₹65,999 versus ₹99,999 for the Plus option). Secondly, this will hold fold till around this time next year, taking advantage of cash backs and discount schemes along the way. That’s when its successor renews the mission. Samsung has done well to balance specs with pricing, and therefore the overall experience as we’d see it. The competition landscape has choices aplenty, but the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE has the substance to remain a contender in the decision making process.