Samsung Galaxy S23 FE vs S23 – The Differences in Design, Display, Camera, and Performance

In the ever-evolving landscape of smartphone technology, Samsung continues to captivate users with its Galaxy S series. The latest entrants, the Galaxy S23 FE (Fan Edition) vs S23, offer users a spectrum of features to cater to diverse preferences. If you are confused about which smartphone you should buy, don’t worry. You are in the right place. In this article, we compare the Galaxy S23 FE and the Galaxy S23. Let’s break down the difference between Samsung’s latest S23 FE entrant, the Fan Edition, versus their flagship version of the same phone, the Samsung Galaxy S23.

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE vs S23 – Design Differences

For design, we are not going to be taking size into account because that is a personal preference thing. Some users might like smaller phones; if that’s the case, then the easy choice is the Galaxy S23, but if you’re looking for a bigger display, the S23 FE is best for you. The difference in quality between these two in terms of design Let’s take a look. On the S23 FE, you have the glossy back. For a while, this was considered a premium finish. It has Gorilla Glass 5, so it’s durable enough. The Galaxy S23 is not going to be on the same level as the Galaxy S23 FE, but you can see reflections in the S23 FE. And it’s a very good fingerprint catcher, although in graphite, these are limited. It’s not too bad, but you definitely notice that.

The in-hand feel is very different when you consider S23. The nice matte finish has a really nice feel to it in the hand, whereas the glossy does feel like you’re holding a glossy premium phone. You feel the glossy glass in the hand. The frame is the opposite. You’ve got the matte finish frame on the S23 FE, and you have the glossy frame on the Galaxy S23. And there’s a difference in material, too. S23 FE is made of aluminum, and S23 is made of armor aluminum. The armor aluminum is a bit lighter. So that makes the S23 much lighter in the hand than the S23 FE, which, depending on your choice, might have a lighter feel. And the S23 does feel incredibly lighter in comparison to the 209 grams of S23 FE in the hand.

All of those materials. And the difference in how they feel makes the standard S23 feel more premium.In hand, it just feels more premium. It’s a bit thinner compared to the S23 FE. What you can also see with the design of the S23 is slightly more attention to detail when it comes to things like the camera protrusion. The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE and Samsung Galaxy S23 both have a minimalist camera design, which doesn’t really sort of intrude on the design of the back of the phones at all. But the Samsung S23 just has that more premium, subtle appearance about it. The cameras are just slightly protruding out of the back of the glass, and it just looks a bit better.

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Whereas on the Samsung S23 FE, the cameras are very much sticking out. Despite the fact that this is a thicker phone, you might’ve thought the space inside would be better for the cameras, but when we hold both phones next to each other, the S23 looks cleaner. The Galaxy S23 just has a thinner, more uniform look about its bezels that occupy around the screen. Whereas the S23 FE bezels are bigger. Another thing is the camera cutout. There’s a silver ring around the S23FE front camera. For whatever reason, Samsung continues to do this. I think they do this probably just for them to distinguish the difference between flagship and non- flagship.

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE vs S23 – Display Differences

In terms of display differences, they’re very similar. Both have dynamic AMOLED 2X, and both have adaptive refresh rates. The Galaxy S23 fan edition’s refresh rate is between 60 and 120 hertz. Whereas the normal S23 is 48 to 120 hertz, it goes down slightly lower.

There is a difference in peak brightness levels as well. You’ve got 1000 nits versus 1750 nits. You may notice that outdoors. But the difference that we notice even more is the difference in the vision booster. The vision booster in the S23 FE is just last year’s S22 version. The vision booster is trying to raise the peak brightness and bring colors to match its peak brightness. The S23 has an adaptive vision booster, which will adapt the colors depending on how bright they goes.

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The S23 just has better colors outdoors in peak brightness versus the S23 FE. The Galaxy S23 FE is bright, but it doesn’t quite match the color accuracy of what the S23 does. Out of that, though, the display quality is quite similar. It’s not going to be a reason to go with the S23 over the FE. If you like thinner bezels, then sure. But both phones have good displays. What might help you make up your mind, though, is the fingerprint sensor. On the S23FE, you have a very hit-and-miss optical fingerprint scanner that is much too low compared to the very reliable, very secure, correctly placed Samsung S23 model ultrasonic fingerprint scanner. Much better and much easier.

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE vs S23 – Camera Comparison

Okay, now we’re getting into the cameras. The cameras on these two phones look quite similar. The good thing is that Samsung is offering very similar hardware flexibility. Both phones have an ultra-wide, high-resolution 50-megapixel main camera and a 3x telephoto. But there are some subtle hardware differences between those three cameras that do separate these two phones when you actually start using them.

The first is the ultra-wide camera. They’re both 12 megapixels. The S23 has a dual-pixel autofocus ultrawide camera (F2.2), and the sensor is larger (1/2.55″). So that means that it’s going to be faster for focusing, and it’ll be able to pull in more light because it’s got a larger sensor size. Whereas the S23 FE has an ultrawide camera (F2.2) and a sensor (1/3.2″) without dual-pixel autofocus.

The main camera of both phones is 50 megapixels, but there is a newer 50 megapixel sensor in the S23 versus last year’s 50 megapixel sensor in the S23FE. But physically, they’re very similar. The 3x camera is probably the biggest difference. The S23 FE has an 8-megapixel (F2.3 3x, phase detection autofocus 1/4.4”) 3x telephoto versus a 10-megapixel (F2.3 3x, phase detection AF 1/3.94”) in the S23 model. Both of these are upscaled to 12 megapixels. Selfie camera around the front, silver ring aside, you have two very different selfie cameras. The S23 FE has a 10-megapixel selfie camera versus a 12-megapixel dual-pixel autofocus camera on the Galaxy S23.

The S23 is far and away the better selfie camera versus the S23FE. Let’s talk about some of the UI and feature differences between these two. The S23FE pretty much has all the capabilities and feature set of the S22 from last year. The S23 gets all of the juicy stuff because it has the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for the Galaxy. Things like 4K portrait video mode make a huge difference in how you capture content. The S23 FE has no quad HD super steady. But the Galaxy S23 gets super-steady quad HD. The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE does not support 8K 30. It has 8K 24; the 8K 24 on the FE is choppy; it’s cropped in heavier; whereas the 8K 30 is much smoother and even better at stabilization.

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There is Pro Mode on the FE, but it doesn’t have 50-megapixel Pro Mode, which is available on the Galaxy S23. A lot of that is down to the processor. On the S23, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is for the Galaxy. And with the S23 FE, it doesn’t get the optical 2x crop. In terms of software differences, the 2x crop is better than S23 in terms of optimization. The 2x crop just produces better details on the standard S23 versus the S23FE. Everything else feature-wise, Samsung has upgraded the FE this year. They’ve brought in the full director’s view; they’ve got a 2x portrait crop; all of that juicy stuff is pretty much on parity. There’s just those subtle differences—quality of life upgrades mainly—that the S23 gets thanks to the fact it’s got a better processor.

HDR is fine between the two. The ultrawide on the S23 FE may lose a little bit of detail versus the dual-pixel detail in the S23. There are also big differences in 3X, thanks to the fact that the S23FE only has an 8-megapixel camera versus the S23’s 10-megapixel camera. When we look into portrait mode, the Samsung S23 is in a better cutout situation versus the S23 FE. When it comes to video, the S23FE is decent in enough lighting conditions to notice too much of a difference. But if you isolate the FE on its own, it does take great video. The Galaxy S23 has better microphone qualities compared to the S23 FE. The sound recording, zoom-in mic, and 360-degree audio recording with Bluetooth headphones are similar on both Samsung phones.

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE vs S23 – Performance Showdown

On the performance-wise. You almost wouldn’t want to be the Exynos 2200 right now, just purely because we know how good the optimized Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for the Galaxy has been over the course of the year. And we know what happened with the Exynos 2200 last year in the S22 series. But Samsung has gone to work and optimized the Exynos 2200, and it also has decent battery life. It’s not perfect; it’s not terrible either. The processor efficiency on that is phenomenal. So you can expect very good battery life out of the S23. But again, don’t be fooled by the S23’s Exynos 2200 on the FE. 

You’re not sitting there, scrolling web pages, or throwing super-intensive graphics at it all the time. So it’s great for a certain understanding of a processor’s capabilities, but you want to see how it works and the things you’ll do every day. For example, file sharing is better on the S23 than on the Galaxy S23 FE via QuickShare. Photo editing in Lightroom: there wasn’t a significant difference in performance between the two phones. Both do it pretty instantaneously when you export something. These two phones also perform best in video rendering.

So in the Galaxy Native Editor, when we went from 8K and scaled it down to 4K, the S23 FE actually did it faster. The FE has 24 frames per second; the 8 Gen 2 for the Galaxy S23 has 30 frames per second to deal with. When we render video, we go down from a 4K, 40-second video and take it down to full HD. The 8-Gen 2 for the Galaxy stormed ahead here and really showed its performance prowess for doing that type of task. Other than the smoothness and fluidity of the FE, we haven’t noticed any big stutters or drops. It’s actually been quite impressive.

So versus the S23, the main thing is probably missing a bit of extra battery efficiency and some performance prowess in certain high-load tasks and sustained performance at that. So the heating issue that the Exynos 2200 kind of seemed to be known for last year, Samsung seems to have optimized that, and certainly with the new software, the OneUI 5.1, there don’t seem to be any issues of that kind. Either of the phones didn’t really heat up at the back. Both phones have 25-watt fast charging. Both have 15-watt fast wireless charging. Both of them support wireless power sharing.

So, there are two phones that share the S23 name. One of them is designed for fans, which is the S23 FE. Versus the S23, which packs everything in at a decent price too. In a package that’s definitely, from a design standpoint, a lot more premium,

Conclusion

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE vs S23, while sharing the S23 name, are tailored to different preferences. The S23 FE, designed for fans, offers a glossy finish and optimized performance for everyday tasks. In contrast, the S23 presents a more premium design, superior camera capabilities, and enhanced performance with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy.The decision of which to choose is ultimately based on personal priorities and preferences.

FAQs: Samsung Galaxy S23 FE vs S23 Comparison