Samsung Galaxy S25 FE: Review

The latest Galaxy phone is an attempt to pander to the crowds. 

After all, why would it even be dubbed the Fan Edition, and include promotional materials that touted flagship essentials, but fan edition price if it were not interested in anything but mass take-up?

But here's the thing. It's not a bad idea to keep people engaged with your brand and to bring down the price a little in a cost-of-living crisis where technology keeps going up in price and appearing out of reach for many casual users just looking to want to keep up.

Unlike the recent Galaxy Fold phone which offers premium output for a whopping price, this latest device keeps everything that people love about the Samsung range of phones and drops some of the processing while removing some of the price. It's not a bad compromise when all is said and done - if you're willing to forego some minor points.

At just 190g, this phone, with its tough aluminium frame, is easily one that can slip handily into pockets and bags and not feel cumbersome when being removed. With a sleek and polished design that obviously doesn't sit flat on its front due to the three cameras on the back, the phone clearly has a penchant for looking good, if not sitting perfectly in place.

But by now, most Samsung users will be willing to live with that.

Talking of the camera, the 50MP camera performs reasonably well, but when zoomed in from large distances, it does start to lose some of the finesse of previous devices and some of the fidelity of imagery as well.

For context, these images are taken from a distance and show that the closer the zoom goes, the more the picture loses some of its crispness in some of its outer edges. 

The main object in it is still clearly presented, but the surrounding parts that make up the photo are less so. 

(The first image on the left is on a normal magnification, the second is at 30 times the magnification).

But just as impressive is the AI quality of work done in the photo as well, meaning photos can be tweaked after nights out, or even if a family picture doesn't quite go to plan.

This sleeping cat on the bean bag was quite happy to have a snap taken but would have been less happy to see itself removed from the image. 

Yet with the use of the AI tools, the work is easily done and also leaves an image that's both well-defined and can even pick up the indentations the cat's body would have left on the bean bag.

With the image even having shadows in the drop, it demonstrates that the editing software is still as powerful, no matter what level of phone you're using.

When it comes to the basics too, the Galaxy S25 FE doesn't hold back either.

Calls are crisp and clear, with no sign of dropout no matter whether you're on the move - or your caller is. Equally, wireless and Bluetooth technology work well and ensure an ease of execution that's likely to appeal to users just looking at wanting a phone that works for daily use as well.

(Though the lack of anything but a single SIM holder for the phone is a minor disappointment, particularly for those people who use different SIM cards for work and home life).

When it comes to battery, the review unit's been running under power saver, simply because for the first 24 hours, it seemed like it was burning through what it had at an extraordinary rate. But by shifting that, the phone's required less charging and while a quick 40-minute burst of power via a USB-C is more than enough to deliver nearly 50% of the original charge, regular use at a power-saving level makes this last much longer and within normal parameters.

And with its AMOLED display, watching video, surfing the web or just doing emails is more than comfortable enough for prolonged periods of time, with brightness never being too much for any user to handle.

Ultimately, the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE is a phone that will keep Samsung users happy and will attract some new users into the fold. Maintaining the quality and still delivering a premium product at a lower price will always come with compromises, but thankfully, this phone makes those compromises less noticeable and continues to ensure that Samsung's tech needs to be at the forefront of everyone's wishlists when Santa comes calling later this year.

A Samsung Galaxy S25 FE was provided for a loan trial period for the purposes of this review.