The Samsung S24 series released in January this year is easily one of our favorite flagship models even to this day, especially the S24 Ultra. It has everything you can think of, but there’s just one problem – all that performance and features come at a price.
For reference, the standard Galaxy S24 starts at PHP 61,990 while the Galaxy S24 Ultra will set you back PHP 84,990 (512GB variant). So if you’re someone on a tight budget, these phones might well be out of your reach.
Now, ten months since the S24 series was released a new member of the family has joined – the S24 FE. It is more affordable than the standard S24, but you trade some performance and features that you would find in the S24.
In fact, you can think of the S24 FE as a bridge between the A55 and the S24. But the important question remains – is worth it the price? Well I suggest you read on to find out.
Table of Contents
Design and Construction
In terms of styling and design, the S24 FE adopts the signature Samsung design language. You have a clean minimalist back panel with the camera lenses in the upper left corner. There’s no camera island either, and you get three individual circles.
As a result, it looks very much like its S24 sibling and even the more affordable A55 but without the raised portion for the buttons. It has the same button layouts too. The volume rocker and power button are on the left side, while the left side is clean.
At the bottom, you’ll find the USB-C port and the loudspeaker, which is now a small slit similar to that on the new Galaxy Z Flip 6 and Fold 6. At the top, there’s the dual-sim card slot, the secondary microphone, and the other loudspeaker.
Some of you might find this bland since it looks like any other Samsung smartphone, but it works. Undoubtedly, the phone looks stylish and the minimalist looks help especially in this pastel blue colorway.
It helps that Samsung didn’t cheap out on the materials used on the phone too. The frame of the S24 FE is made out of aluminum, similar to the S24 series, and it also comes with a glass back panel protected with Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+.
It’s a bit big though, measuring slightly longer and thicker than the S24+. It also weighs a bit more at 213g. But there’s no doubt you’ll feel right at home with the S24 FE if you’ve ever used one of the newer Samsung phones.
Display and Multimedia
Moving on to the screen, you have a 6.7-inch Dynamic AMOLED display with Full HD+ resolution. This being an AMOLED panel, you get very vibrant colors and deep blacks, and I enjoyed binge-watching YouTube videos on this phone. Not to mention, there is support for HDR10+.
Initially, I thought the screen was a carryover from the S24+, given they do have the same size. However, I noticed that the borders on the S24 FE are relatively thicker, especially compared to the ones on the S24 and S24+. Particularly, the lower portion is a bit thicker than the rest of the edges. But despite that, you do get nice viewing angles on this phone.
If you plan on using it outside, you have 1900 nits of peak brightness to work with. While other phones have brighter screens, I find that 1900 nits is more than adequate. I was still able to see everything on the screen even when I was using it outdoors in the hot summer sun.
Gamers will definitely enjoy playing on this phone too. It has a 120Hz refresh rate, giving me smooth animations. I particularly liked playing Genshin Impact on this phone, because of just how smooth the screen is. But we’ll talk more about that later on.
For those of you who like binge-watching on their smartphones, the S24 FE comes with dual stereo speakers. Surprisingly, it has great speakers with decent bass and nice sound quality. The mids are very clear, and they don’t sound muddy even if you max out the volume. When you do max out the volume, it’s also very loud, making it easy for you and your friends to hear what’s happening.
Just like the back panel, the display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+, making it quite tough.
Cameras
The cameras on the S24 series really impressed us this year, especially the S24 Ultra. However, this is where the S24 FE received the short end of the stick. It still features a triple camera system for the rear, highlighted by a 50MP main shooter with PDAF and OIS. However, it only comes with an 8MP telephoto with OIS and a 12MP ultrawide to match. For selfies, you get a 10MP front camera.
When taking photos, the camera doesn’t automatically shoot in 50MP mode, but only captures in 12MP. Instead, you have to toggle that in the settings to fully maximize the camera. When you do shoot in 50MP mode, you lose the ability to use the ultrawide, and zoom is limited to 5x at most.
Based on my experience though, you don’t necessarily need to use the 50MP mode when taking photos. Even shooting at just 12MP, you can capture some great photos that are sharp and clear. The colors are quite accurate too, and the post-processing isn’t overly exaggerated.
Some users might find the images a bit too natural, but I do like the vibe they give off. It’s also perfect if you’re someone who likes to edit the images in post, like how I usually do.
One thing I did notice is that the ultrawide isn’t the best, especially in low-light conditions. When using ultrawide, the drop in quality is very noticeable, especially when compared to the main shooter. The edges of the subject aren’t as sharp and even the subject looks a lot softer. As mentioned earlier this is more noticeable in low light coupled with the added grain and noise.
As for the telephoto, it’s not that bad. The drop in quality doesn’t begin unless you go beyond 3x zoom, which is what I expected. It can go up to 30x zoom, but the image quality at that point is significantly degraded. Still, you can make out some details and the phone’s post-processing helps. All things considered though, you will find yourself taking photos mainly on 1x up to 3x zoom most of the time.
In terms of video quality, the S24 FE can record up to 8K@30FPS. Even at 8K, there seems to be some form of stabilization to help you capture more steady footage. For those that like shooting at 60FPS, there’s also 4K@60FPS.
However, Super Steady mode only works at QHD (2K@60FPS) max. The difference in quality from 8K is quite noticeable, but in exchange for super smooth footage, it is worth it. As for the video quality, it’s similar to what you’d expect in the photos. Check out our sample photos and video below to see how it captures content.
Aside from capturing photos and videos, one feature of the S24 FE’s camera I enjoyed is Bixby Vision. It works with Samsung’s new AI features, and allows you to discover what item is in front of the camera.
Just point the camera at the thing you’re interested in, and it will give you various results of what that item is. It’s a cool feature to have, especially if you want to know more about an object, and don’t know what it’s called.
OS, Apps, and UI
As with the newest Samsung smartphones, the S24 FE runs on OneUI 6.1 based on Android 14 from the factory. As you would expect, it’s pretty much the same OS we’ve come to love, but with the addition of a bunch of AI features.
I’ve already mentioned one of those in the camera section, Bixby Vision. But aside from that, you also get the usual suite of AI features like the new circle-to-search function There’s also note assist, AI eraser in photo mode, and perhaps my favorite feature, interpreter.
The interpreter feature automatically translates a different language into English using a more casual conversation style. It’s not as smooth as the one on the Galaxy Z Flip 6 we tried since you only have one screen, but it is still nice to have it at your disposal. All of these features can make your life easier, but at the same time, you don’t need to use them if you don’t want to.
Like before, there’s barely any bloatware apart from the usual Samsung apps.
Performance and Benchmarks
Under the hood, the Samsung S24 FE runs on Exynos 2400e chipset with up to 3.1GHz clock speeds. Our unit comes with 8GB of RAM, which can be virtually expanded by another 8GB, and 128GB of internal storage.
It’s not a lot, and there’s no microSD slot to expand storage further though. So if you want more space, you will have to buy either the 256GB or 512GB variant.
For those unfamiliar, the Exynos 2400e is a new chipset that debuted on the S24 FE. Paired with just 8GB of RAM, you might think this phone won’t be as capable as the S24 in the performance department. But after using it, it’s surprisingly fast and capable.
It easily handled day to day tasks with ease, and even loading the AI features were fast too. Even though I left several apps running in the background, the phone didn’t slow down.
But what really surprised me was how capable it is for gaming. I played Genshin Impact on this phone, and it was very smooth. Even with all the graphic settings maxed out, I did not experience any lags or framerate drops at all. Together with the nice screen and speakers, it was enjoyable to play Genshin on this phone.
One thing I did notice is that the S24 FE tends to heat up quite fast. Even after just playing for 15 to 20 minutes, you can feel the back panel already heating up. Surprisingly, this did not cause any issues with the gameplay at all. Genshin was still running very smoothly, even with a lot of things happening on screen.
Considering how it performed with Genshin, I wasn’t surprised to see that it scored well in the benchmarks. It had a score of almost 1.5 million on Antutu, which was genuinely a surprise. You can check out the other scores below.
Antutu – 1497518
PC Mark Work 3.0 Performance – 17844
3DMark Wild Life – Maxed Out
Geekbench 6
CPU Single-Core – 2082
CPU Multi-Core – 6464
GPU OpenCL – 13906
GPU Vulkan – 14739
Before the S24 FE, the previous FE models suffered a lot in terms of performance. So it’s nice that Samsung addressed it with this new one.
Battery and Connectivity
Given how capable the Samsung S24 FE is, you might think that the battery life isn’t that long. It only has a 4700mAh battery pack, which is smaller than the usual one you see in smartphones today. Surprisingly though, it lasts equally long or even better than those.
Using PC Mark’s Work 3.0 Battery Test, the S24 FE managed to score 16 hours and 18 minutes, which is an impressive result. For reference, we did our test in airplane mode, zero volume, and 50 percent brightness.
We always say that battery life is dependent on the user. But with the S24 FE, you definitely won’t find yourself needing to recharge this phone quite often. It’s a good thing though since it doesn’t have the fastest charging speeds.
It only has 25W wired charging and 15W wireless charging. It does have reverse charging capabilities, but there’s no mention of speed. Nonetheless, you will have a long downtime using this phone.
As for the connectivity, you get the complete set of features – 5G with dual nano SIM capability, WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, GPS, and NFC.
Conclusion
The Samsung S24 FE might be the most affordable member of the S24 family, but it does deserve to be part of it. With a starting price of PHP 39,990 for the 8+128GB variant, it is almost half the price of the standard S24. At the time we wrote this review, Samsung also has a promo offering the 8+256GB variant for the price of the 8+128GB variant. And of course, there’s also the Samsung trade-in promo, where you can get up to PHP 24,000 in discount for this phone.
The downside of the S24 FE though is that you do have to contend with the cameras not being as great. The screen isn’t as great as an S24 either, but it’s decent. But if you’re on a budget and want an introduction to the Samsung Galaxy S series lineup, the S24 FE will definitely not disappoint. Still, what do you think of the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
What we liked:
* Great performance
* Smooth OS with AI features
* Long battery life
What we didn’t like:
* Cameras aren’t that great as the other S24 series
* Heating issues when gaming
Samsung Galaxy S24 FE specs:
6.7-inch FHD+
Dynamic AMOLED 2X
120Hz Adaptive refresh rate (60/120Hz)
Vision Booster
Exynos 2400e (4nm) chipset
8GB RAM
128GB, 256GB, 512GB internal storage
12MP ultrawide Camera, f/2.2, FOV 123˚
50MP wide camera, OIS, f/1.8, FOV 84˚
8MP telephoto camera, 3x optical zoom, OIS f/2.4, FOV 32˚
10MP front camera, f/2.4, FOV 80˚
5G, LTE, dual-SIM
WiFi 6E
Bluetooth 5.3
IP68 Rating Dust & Water resistance
OneUI 6.1.1 (Android 14)
4,700 mAh Li-Ion battery, 25W wired charging, wireless charging, reverse wireless
77.3 X 162.0 X 8.0mm (dimensions)
213 grams (weight)
