One of the most important categories in the smartphone market is turning out to be “value flagships”. It targets two categories of buyers. First, people who are interested in flagship phones but want to first get a taste of it without splurging on flagship price tags. Second, there are those who simply want a great phone and no matter how attractive premium flagship phones are, they are not willing to pay too high a price.
This is where Samsung comes in. It’s the only company that can boast of manufacturing phones in the budget segment as well as top-of-the-line devices (we mean absolutely high-end). Of course, the South Korean company takes “value flagships” seriously. Last year, somehow we didn’t get to see something like a Galaxy S22 FE but considering the many hiccups the pandemic threw at us, it’s good to see the company deliver Galaxy S23 FE.
The phone has a metal chassis which makes it easy to grip
You could be wondering what flagship elements are missing here. Well, it’s a small list of features that you may not even be keen on. Samsung has got it perfectly right when it comes to delivering elements that make a great value flagship.
Power of three
Here's a picture straight out of the main camera under uneven lighting
The Galaxy S23 FE comes six-seven months after the launch of the Galaxy S23 series. One look at the new phone and you will realise what the company’s flagship phones look like.
It’s got a design that’s similar to that of Galaxy S23. There’s the same floating camera design with aluminium rings around the cameras. It’s minimal. There is Gorilla Glass 5 shielding the front and the back and the device comes in a range of colours, like graphite, mint and purple. Personal favourite? Mint.
It made sense that Samsung made the S23 FE slightly bigger than the S23 (6.1-inch display). You get a 6.4-inch FHD+ 120Hz Dynamic AMOLED 2X display. There is variable refresh rate, which helps with power efficiency. Coming with a matte aluminium frame, the phone weighs 209g. A quibble: The bezels are slim but it could have been slimmer, given the fact that this is an entry-level flagship phone.
Let’s talk about the brownie points Samsung wins with the S23 FE. There is IP68 rating, meaning the phone can withstand a quick dip. Also present is wireless charging and Samsung Wallet support, which I absolutely adore. Samsung Wallet allows you to add your cards to tap and pay via NFC. This also has good stereo speakers, a fast USB-3.2 Type-C port, a fast in-display fingerprint scanner, and, of course, a very good display, which can achieve peak brightness of up to 1,450 nits.
There are value flagship phones that offer either IP68 rating or wireless charging but rarely both. On top of all this, there is a telephoto camera. Enjoy the power of three!
Staying on with the display, there is nothing to fault about it because it’s smooth, bright and vibrant, producing true-to-life colours.
The big picture
Moving to the camera department, the main camera is 50MP with OIS, a 12MP ultra-wide angle camera, and an 8MP telephoto lens, capable of 3x optical zoom and 30X digital zoom. It’s a set-up that doesn’t fail and is consistent.
The photos have the typical Samsung style with rich colours, very good dynamic range and a high degree of detail. Even low-light shots seem like they are taken from a high-end flagship phone, thanks to Samsung’s Nightography algorithm.
Samsung hasn’t cut corners in the camera department. The ultra-wide angle shots are good while the 3x optical zoom shots are very sharp and detailed, and a special mention needs to be made for the portrait mode with 3x zoom.
Zero comprises on the video front: The phone supports 8K video recording (at 24fps) and videos from the phone are very stable. I am not a big fan of 8K yet but I love to shoot 4K@60fps, which you can do on this phone. What I like most is that while shooting at 4K, I can turn the camera around (to selfie) and go into vlogging mode without having to stop recording. The front 10MP camera is well-engineered.
Flagship performance
Ensuring you get the most out of hardware is excellent software implementation. It comes with One UI 5.1 on top of Android 13. The phone will get four OS updates and five years of security patches. The battery is fairly big at 4,500mAh. While there’s no charger in the box, it supports 25W charging.
Colours are true-to-life no matter the lighting condition
How about the processor? In India, the device is powered by Exynos 2200, which is a 4nm processor. There is support for ray tracing and there is vapour-chamber cooling. In terms of storage, the device has up to 256GB storage and 8GB LPDDR5 RAM. Benchmark scores are excellent and performance is sustained. Some critics in the past have said that Exynos gets warm. Well, if you play games for a long time at a stretch, all phones warm up slightly but temperatures remain under control. The performance on the S23 FE has been very good.
Should you buy it?
Except for the bezels, the Galaxy S23 FE leaves me with nothing to complain about. It’s understated and works the way a flagship is supposed to.
There is a stereo speaker setup where the earpiece works as the secondary speaker and you also get Dolby Atmos support. The sound quality is rich and detailed. You get support for DeX mode, you get lock screen customisation, you get modes and routines and a lot of other features.
The main camera on the Galaxy S23 FE is quick and you won't notice any shutter lag
Samsung has got the basics right and ensured that Galaxy S23 FE has all the makings of a flagship device. Looking at the pricing and feature set, I can only say that this is a solid performer.
At a glance
Device: Samsung Galaxy S23 FE
Price: For the 8/128 GB variant, MOP is Rs 59,999 and net effective price is Rs 49,999; for the 8/256GB variant, MOP is Rs 64,999 and net effective price is Rs 54,999
High notes
Excellent performance
Top-of-the-line camera
Great mix of hardware and software
Good design philosophy
Enough battery power
The combination of telephoto, IP68 rating and wireless charging is perfect for the price
Muffled note
Bezels could have been narrower
