Fast Charge: The Galaxy S24 FE sounds capable, but it needs to arrive sooner rather than later

OPINION: Rumours are swirling about the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE this week with a particularly impressive set of alleged specs doing the rounds online – but as with the Galaxy S23 FE, the spec isn’t the problem Samsung has. It’s timing. 

Let me pull back for a second here and delve into those purported specs. According to leaker @OreXda, the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE will either come with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 or Exynos 2400. That’s the same setup as the regular Galaxy S24, but as with the flagship series, the chipset will likely depend on where you are in the world.

Things start to get a little confusing here, as the leaker suggests that the S24 FE will also have a 4500mAh battery and 12GB of RAM – that’s more than the regular Galaxy S24’s 4,000mAh and 8GB offering. Combined with the flagship chipset, it looks like the S24 FE could be more powerful than the flagship. I’m not too sure about that one.

Finally, it’s stated that it could have a 6.1-inch display, down from the 6.2-inch display of the regular S24 – though that does match last year’s Galaxy S23’s screen size – and a downscaling of the 6.4-inch Galaxy S23 FE. The leaker admits that isn’t confirmed, however. 

If the above specs are true, it points towards a very capable alternative to this year’s flagship Galaxy S24. But 2023’s Galaxy S23 FE was also a pretty solid mid-range alternative to the flagship Galaxy S23 with all the right compromises. The problem the S23 FE had was timing; it was released in October 2023 in the US and December 2023 in the UK.

By that point, the flagship Samsung Galaxy S23 range had been out for almost a year and, as we see from most phones after being available for a similar amount of time, the Galaxy S23’s base price had begun to slip. 

So much so, in fact, that the full-fat flagship Galaxy S23 could be found at the same £599 price as the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE at its UK launch in December. So, as good a job as Samsung did with the S23 FE, delivering all the right compromises and a decent price tag that was supposed to be £150 cheaper than the regular S23, it just was not a tempting option at all. 

That was further complicated by the announcement, and subsequent release, of the Samsung Galaxy S24 range in January 2024. That not only had the knock-on effect of making the Galaxy S23 FE look rather outdated just months after its release, but it meant that the base price of last year’s Galaxy S23 again plummeted as retailers began shifting surplus stock. 

For context, the SIM-free Galaxy S23 is currently available for £570 in the UK, while the Galaxy S23 FE still retails for £599. 

If Samsung wants better results from the Galaxy S24 FE, this simply cannot happen again. My hope is that not only will Samsung release the Galaxy S24 FE in the US and UK simultaneously, but that the release will be brought forward considerably.

It makes sense for Samsung to wait a few months before releasing the Galaxy S24 FE – it doesn’t want to undercut the flagship sales, after all – but I feel that it’d be much better received if, say, it was released alongside the Samsung foldables in the summer months. 

At that point, the S24 FE would be cheaper than the regular S24, and it’d stay relevant for at least six months before the Galaxy S25 appears sometime in early 2025. Will that actually happen? It’s hard to say, but if Samsung wants to learn from its past mistakes, something needs to change.