In summary
- Tipped to launch a couple of weeks early
- FE range traditionally launches too late
- Could maintain price
Samsung may have finally learned from its biggest mistake with the FE smartphone series, with reports that the Galaxy S25 FE will be released earlier than usual.
South Korean website FNNews reports that the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE will launch on 19 September. This follows Samsung’s own confirmation that the follow-up to the Galaxy S24 FE would launch earlier in the year.
In the event, it’s not actually all that much earlier. The Samsung Galaxy S24 FE hit shops on 3 October 2024, so we’re only talking about a fortnight’s difference.
Foundry | Alex Walker-Todd
Good news for the FE range
Even so, any movement towards an earlier launch for the FE smartphone range has to be taken as a positive.
Perhaps the biggest criticism the Galaxy S FE series has faced over the years – from us and from other critics – has been its awkward scheduling.
Arriving so late in the year tends to see these ‘affordable flagship’ phones falling between two stools, those being two successive generations of Galaxy S phone.
By this point the preceding phone in the range (for the Galaxy S24 FE, the Samsung Galaxy S24) is being heavily discounted, rendering the superior phone a better buy. You also have the launch of the successor (in this case the Samsung Galaxy S25) only months away, leaving the FE feeling outdated before its time.
Foundry | Alex Walker-Todd
If Samsung is looking to bring the FE’s launch forward, it can only be a good thing – though we’d ideally like to see it arriving a couple of months earlier yet.
The report also suggests that Samsung will maintain the price of the Galaxy S25 FE after a couple of increases.
In terms of specifications, we heard previously that the Galaxy S25 FE will have a similar but brighter 6.7-inch AMOLED display, and that it’ll run on an Exynos 2400chip. The main improvement could be a slightly smaller, lighter build, which would be most welcome.
