OPINION: Samsung’s newest ‘Fan Version’ smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE, was launched this week and it comes with a complete host of adjustments. Nevertheless, it nonetheless has the identical outdated downside as earlier entries in Samsung’s FE assortment.
Don’t get me fallacious, I’m fairly a fan of the brand new Samsung Galaxy S24 FE. It provides a complete bunch of upgrades in comparison with final 12 months’s Samsung Galaxy S23 FE, together with a lift in display screen dimension from 6.4- to six.7 inches, slimmer bezels and an elevated most brightness of 1900nits that ought to make the cellphone simpler to make use of in brilliant daylight.
There’s additionally a a lot less complicated method to the processor than final 12 months; somewhat than getting both the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 or Exynos 2200, a year-old flagship chipset on the time of launch in 2023, the S24 FE will get the identical 2024 flagship Exynos 2400e wherever you occur to buy the cellphone.
That’s a extra energy-efficient model of the chipset discovered within the Galaxy S24, representing a two-year soar in processing energy. That ought to translate to important efficiency good points from this 12 months’s FE – although I’ll have to attend till I’ve totally reviewed the cellphone earlier than I can say for certain.
There’s additionally a bigger 4700mAh cell that Samsung claims ought to enhance battery life by just a few hours regardless of the bigger display screen, and it, after all, comes with the identical Galaxy AI options because the flagship S24 vary, together with current additions like Sketch to Picture launched on Samsung’s foldables in July.
So, what’s the problem then? It’s the £649/$649 asking worth.
When checked out singularly, that may be a fairly good worth for a somewhat premium cellphone with nice processing energy, Galaxy AI smarts and a trio of cameras together with the identical essential sensor as that of the flagship Galaxy S24.
The issue is that you would be able to get the full-fat Samsung Galaxy S24 for much less proper now, having been available on the market for practically 10 months, so why would you go for the marginally much less succesful mannequin?
It’s not only a slight low cost both. On the time of writing, the common Samsung Galaxy S24 may be discovered on Amazon for beneath £600 within the UK. That’s not solely an enormous saving in comparison with its £799 RRP, nevertheless it’s additionally cheaper than the Galaxy S24 FE.
Actually, I wrote one thing related concerning the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE a bit beneath a 12 months in the past, and plainly Samsung actually hasn’t learnt its lesson.
It’s not a easy repair both; launch the cellphone sooner and it’d cannibalise gross sales of the flagship Galaxy S24 vary, however releasing it later implies that the flagships have dropped massively in worth, even when they nonetheless have excessive RRPs.
The opposite possibility, if Samsung does persist with its late-year launch schedule, is to make the Galaxy FE a bit bit cheaper – although with excessive growth prices and costly parts, that’s definitely simpler stated than completed.
It’s arguably not as huge of a problem this 12 months with the cellphone’s bigger display screen bringing it nearer to the 6.7-inch Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus than the common 6.2-inch S24, which does have a tendency to remain round its £999 RRP, however I nonetheless really feel that the common Galaxy S24 could be the higher purchase of the 2 – and a less expensive one, at that.