Samsung Galaxy S24 FE Review – Almost Up There, For Lesser

Unboxing the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE

Starting off our Samsung Galaxy S24 FE review with the unboxing, it comes in your standard Samsung affair; being simple in nature with a picture of the phone’s rear and name listed on the front of the box. Yes, it’s the usual black box instead of the white box that we’ve seen in previous FE smartphone. Inside the box, we found the following items:

• USB-C to USB-C cable
• SIM ejector pin
• Documentations
• The Samsung Galaxy S24 FE itself

Specifications

SoC	Exynos 2400e, 4nm 1 x Cortex-X4 @ 3.1 GHz + 2 x Cortex-A720 @ 2.9GHz + 3 x Cortex-A720 @ 2.6 GHz + 4 x Cortex-A520 @ 1.95GHz Xclipse 940 GPU
RAM	8GB
Storage	128GB / 256GB / 512GB
Display	6.7″ FHD+ (2340 x 1080) Dynamic AMOLED 2X Display, 19:5:9, 385 ppi Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+ HDR10+ 60Hz to 120Hz Adaptive Refresh Rate
Rear Camera	50MP f/1.8 wide angle camera, Dual Pixel PDAF, OIS 8MP f/2.4 telephoto camera, 3x optical zoom, PDAF, OIS 12MP f/2.2 123˚ ultra-wide LED flash, HDR, panorama 8K@24/30fps, 4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60/240fps, 720p@960fps, HDR10+, stereo sound rec., gyro-EIS
Selfie Camera	10MP f/2.4 80° wide-angle selfie cam, Gyro-EIS, up to 4K 60FPS video
Battery	4700mAh 25W wired fast charging USB-PD, QC2 fast charging 15W wireless charging 4.5W reverse wireless charging
Dimensions	162 x 77.3 x 8 mm, 213g
Ingress Protection	IP68
Software	One UI 6.1 based on Android 14
Colours	Blue, Graphite, Gray, Mint, Yellow

Performance

Starting off with Antutu v10, the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE had a surprisingly strong showing, not just being on par with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip but also outperforming some devices running said chip. I expected it to be worse since the Exynos 2400e should be a slightly down-tuned version of what we got in the mainline S24 but in this benchmark, it managed to beat that as well. Perhaps the lower speeds resulted in better thermal efficiency, leading to better results.

Next up with Geekbench 6, it is mostly the same as before, except now it makes more sense as the standard Exynos 2400 chip beats it by a small margin in both areas. Regardless, it is showing strong CPU performance in both single and multi core tests, which is great.

Moving on to 3DMark, I’m starting to wonder if Samsung might have intentionally made the S24 FE more powerful than with previous FE devices as it outperformed most of the devices we’ve benchmarked thus far, including all Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 smartphones in all tests except for Wild Life Extreme, which it still managed to perform excellently. One thing worth noting is that it’s not as thermal-efficient as the standard S24 as I initially though as it had a stability rating of 64.4%, whereas the latter is notably higher at 73.2%.

Just to make sure we’re not daydreaming, the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE once again made a strong impact in 3D applications as it had the best overall score in our list of benchmarked devices in GPUScore Sacred Path. Only the HONOR Magic V3 managed to beat it, and that’s only for the Official test as it lost out in both Native and VRS tests. If you’re an avid mobile gamer, getting this over any of the other S24 series devices will not mean that you will have to suffer with lesser performance.

Lastly on PCMark’s Work 3.0 benchmark, the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE performed well enough, beating out some Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 smartphones and nearly matching up with the standard S24, which is what we’d normally expect. It’s not a big enough difference to say that it’s truly inferior, especially considering all the other benchmark tests we’ve done. One conclusion you can easily make with this is that it can easily do well as a daily driver across all tasks.

As for battery life, the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE performed better than I expected yet again as it lasted 12 hours and 22 minutes (742 minutes) in PCMark’s Work 3.0 endurance test before it died. This is the kind of battery life that can actually keep you going for two days easily with light to moderate usage, with the only unfortunate thing is that the refresh rate doesn’t go as low as 1Hz like the other S24 series devices as that could further bolster its battery life.

As for charging speed, this is what we got with a 3rd party 100W GaN charger starting from 2% battery life:

• 15 minutes = 28%
• 30 minutes = 57%
• 45 minutes = 73%
• 60 minutes = 89%
• 75 minutes = 100%

If you want to compare it to the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, click right here.

Camera

The Galaxy S24 FE’s camera performance is solid across all lenses. The main 50MP camera delivers detailed, natural-looking photos with good colors, though dynamic range and contrast could be improved. The 12MP Quad-Bayer binned shots are high quality, and using the full 50MP mode provides more detail at the cost of larger file sizes. In low light, the main camera does well, but photos can be noisy. A dedicated Night mode helps reduce noise.

The 3x telephoto camera captures detailed shots with good color and dynamic range, but noise is present, especially in low light. The ultrawide camera, though wide with minimal corner softness, lacks autofocus and has some fisheye distortion. It performs decently in low light but suffers from noticeable noise. The 10MP selfie camera produces sharp, well-colored photos with good skin tones and dynamic range, though the lack of autofocus is a drawback. Overall, it delivers reliable, high-quality selfies with a forgiving focal plane.

The Galaxy S24 FE’s rear triple camera system appears similar to the S23 FE but includes some hardware updates. The main camera remains the same as the S23 FE, featuring a 50MP Samsung ISOCELL GN3 sensor with 1/1.57″ sensor size, dual-pixel PDAF, and an f/1.8 OIS lens. However, the telephoto camera has been downgraded from a 10MP Hynix sensor to an 8MP Omnivision OV08A10 sensor with phase detection autofocus and OIS. The ultrawide camera is unchanged, using a 12MP sensor with a fixed-focus 13mm lens. The selfie camera, borrowed from the Galaxy S20 series, is 10MP with a 25mm focal length and no autofocus.

The Good

There are a good number of reasons to consider getting the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE. For starters, you get mostly the same design from the S24, complete with IP68, dual glass and aluminum chassis. The key difference here is the glossy rear finish and instead of Victus 2, you get Gorilla Glass Victus+ for both front and rear, which is still great to have. It looks pretty much the same as the S24 and S24 Plus, so the FE will not look far cheaper or out of place by any means.

You also get a flat 6.7-inch display that is almost on par with its brethren. It’s still the same Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel, with peak brightness being a little lower at 1,900 nits (as opposed to 2,600 nits), which is still plenty bright for most consumers. While it does have an adaptive refresh rate mode, it goes from 60Hz to 120Hz as opposed to going as low as 1Hz. This is understandable as they still need to make it distinct from the mainline S24 series, but for most people, you likely won’t be able to tell the quality apart unless you’re comparing it with the Ultra.

Adding to its multimedia prowess is its stereo speakers, consisting of a front-facing speaker via the earpiece and a bottom-firing speaker. To me, it seems undiscernible from the mainline S24 series as it sounds loud and produces great quality audio for smartphone speakers; decent in mids, excelling in highs while lacking in bass. With volume that is more than adequate for most consumers, this is certainly quality you’d expect from a flagship-caliber smartphone.

For those of you who are wondering, the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE does have access to the full suite of Galaxy AI, which is great as it means you get to access it at a lower price point. As for a brief summary of the Galaxy AI features includes, I’ve listed them right below here:

• Live Translate = A real-time two-way call translation that works via the native Phone app. Currently supports up to 13 languages but will add more in the future. It might have a little bit of trouble depending on how you enunciate words but works fine for the most part. I just wished it was a little faster but that’s expected to improve over time.
• Chat Assist = You can let the AI write a message in different tones, such as a friendly or professional tone, based on what you’ve written to convey things more aptly depending on the recipient. You can also translate messages using it, with the same 13 languages being supported for now. I wouldn’t overly rely on it as it can make you sound more robotic or convey a completely different personality compared to your own writing style.
• Circle to Search = You can highlight any picture, video, or text within the display and immediately search it up on Google without leaving the app that you’re on. Arguably the most convenient tool to pop up and one I foresee many people make use of moving forward. The use of the S Pen makes this feature more intuitive to use.
• Note Assist = Using the Samsung Notes app, you can turn your notes into something far better by letting Galaxy AI create summaries, handle the formatting, spellcheck, translate, and more. For people like me who lack the creativity to make our own notes pop out better or have the tendency to write in ways only we ourselves can understand, this is a godsend.
• Transcript Assist = Using the Voice Recorder app, you can get the audio to be automatically transcribed, complete with the ability to identify when different speakers are talking. At times, it might have trouble getting the right word down due to how some words are enunciated and if they can be heard clearly but for the most part, works pretty well.
• Interpreter = A 2-way real-time translation tool where you can select two different languages and have a conversation. This is perfect for travelers and the UI design makes it easy for two people to look at the screen and communicate but the 13 language limitation means there are a lot of places out there you still can’t make use of it yet.

For a deeper dive into Galaxy AI and its respective features, click right here.

Another plus point of the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE is its pricing. The retail price is set at RM3,299 for the 256GB variant whereas the 512GB goes for RM3,599. There’s also a special promo price right now where you can get each variant with an RM300 discount to sweeten the deal. While I would recommend getting the S24 Plus previously, this FE model changes that as I feel like it makes more sense to get this as you get at least 90% of what the S24 Plus at a noticeably lower price. Sure, it’s only 8GB RAM but RAM Plus is good enough to help make up the difference to some degree.

Lastly, the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE comes with 7 years of guaranteed software upgrades together with 7 years of major security updates, just like its siblings. Previously, they were holding the record with 5 years of software upgrades but with this, they are clearly not backing down from Google’s own Pixel 8 offering as it matches them evenly with this. Simply put, you can use this smartphone and be well updated until the year 2031, which is quite insane to think about.

The Bad

Of course, the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE has its share of drawbacks. For starters, it uses a virtual proximity sensor instead of a hardware one. This means that you are bound to face inconsistencies when using it like with phone calls. At times, it will unintentionally shut off the display and touchscreen functions despite your ear not being on the earpiece, which can be annoying. A physical proximity sensor would solve that as it’s a common issue with virtual proximity sensors in general.

While the display quality can mostly match up with its siblings, the one thing I don’t like is that the bezels are a bit too thick for my liking. It makes the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE look more outdated than it actually is. It’s not overly huge and you will get used to it eventually but if you’re already used to much thinner bezels like with most flagships this year, it can be a bit of an eyesore.

It’s worth pointing out that the Galaxy AI in its entirety is still fairly new, and like any other AI-based applications, it needs a lot of data to work flawlessly or even come close to it. As such, don’t expect it to be the perfect solution as it has plenty of room for improvements, especially language support. Even with English, a slightly different pronunciation could lead to different results. Moreover, there is a footnote on the official website which states that “Galaxy AI features will be provided for free until the end of 2025 on supported Samsung Galaxy devices”, so while it is free for now, there is a chance it might require payment in order to use it starting 2026.

Another thing worth noting is that the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE is on the heavier side. At 213g, it might not seem like much for this size but when you consider the fact that the base model S24 is 168g while the S24 Plus is 197g, it seems more notable. 16g is definitely enough of a difference to feel but it’s not necessarily a dealbreaker. Ultimately, it depends on you and your pockets / bag.

Lastly, I feel like the launch time is a bit too close to the next generation Galaxy S series launch. If we’re basing it off of previous launches, the S25 series is expected to launch in January 2025, which is just 2 to 3 months away from now. It would make more sense to launch this alongside the Samsung’s foldable lineup to give a bigger gap but as it stands, it makes more financial sense to wait for the S25 series. I would only recommend this if you need to buy a smartphone within this month or you’d rather spend as little as possible for a flagship-level Samsung smartphone.

Samsung Galaxy S24 FE Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy S24 FE maintains the Fan Edition proposition of solid value for a flagship-caliber device, and this is the best one they have created yet. It’s a good device that can easily last you for several years, but whether you should get one or not is dependent on whether you’d rather wait for the new S25 series and if your budget allows you to. As it stands, it’s certainly hard to find something as good as this for this price.

At the end of our Samsung Galaxy S24 FE review, I award this smartphone with our coveted Gold Pokdeward.

Big thanks to Samsung Malaysia for sending us this smartphone for the purpose of this review.