Galaxy S25 FE vs Galaxy S25 Ultra: Go affordable or go premium?

Smartphones are getting bigger and bigger, and the Galaxy S25 Ultra is the living proof. The phone is huge with its almost 7-inch display, but this year Samsung has opted for a flatter design for the Ultra.

When it comes to the S25 FE, the overall shape is the same, but the Fan Edition phone is more compact, courtesy of the smaller 6.7-inch screen. The smaller battery and the lack of an S Pen slot also mean that the S25 FE is thinner and lighter.

*rumored 

How much thinner and lighter? You can check out the table above, but the difference is not as big as you might’ve thought. As far as materials go, the big difference is that the Galaxy S25 Ultra has the anti-reflective coating on its display, and it really makes a difference, especially in point-light-source scenarios.The Galaxy S25 FE is expected to have Gorilla Glass Victus+ on its front and back but no anti-reflective coating. The other difference is that, of course, the S25 Ultra uses Grade 5 titanium for its frame, while the S25 FE will most likely rely on good old aluminum.

*rumored 

The display of the Galaxy S25 FE is expected to be a 6.7-inch Super AMOLED panel with a 1080 x 2340 pixel resolution, resulting in around 385 PPI pixel density. According to the latest rumors the display will have a 120 Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of 2600 nits.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra‘s display, on the other hand, is bigger at 6.9 inches, and the resolution is also better at 1440 x 3120 pixels (498 PPI), and the phone also comes with 1-120 Hz LTPO tech and the same 2600 nits advertised peak brightness.

*rumored 

The Galaxy S25 FE is rumored to use the Exynos 2400, a new chip with an intriguing design that has 10 cores. There’s a 3.2 GHz ARM Cortex-X4 core, two 2.9 GHz ARM Cortex-A720 cores, three 2.6 GHz ARM Cortex-A720 cores, and four 2.0 GHz ARM Cortex-A520 cores. Early performance benchmarks put this CPU right between the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and 8 Gen 3. Geekbench 6 scores slot between 2000 points in single-core tests and 6500 points in multi-core.

In contrast, the Galaxy S25 Ultra managed 3137 and 9769 in the same test, which is a significant advantage at first glance, but we have to test the S25 FE in our lab for some hard numbers and an objective result.

*rumored 

In terms of RAM, the Galaxy S25 FE is expected to comes with 12GB on board in all storage configurations. The Galaxy S25 Ultra, on the other hand, comes in a plethora of versions, starting from 12GB on the entry 256GB version, and going all the way up to 16GB on the 1TB model.

Now, in terms of software, there’s no difference between these two. The same software version, seven years of support, and probably the same AI magic are expected to be found on the Galaxy S25 FE, mimicking what the S25 Ultra has in its sleeve.

The Galaxy S25 FE’s camera specifications are not very exciting, so to speak. According to the recent reports, the phone will have the same camera setup as its predecessor, the Galaxy S24 FE. We expect the same 50MP main camera sensor, which can be found in the non-Ultra Galaxy S25 models. The ultrawide and telephoto are both more modest, pixel-count-wise, and there’s no periscope zoom.

Now, the Galaxy S25 Ultra is a camera phone with its quadruple camera system on its back. It’s better in every single aspect. The main camera has a huge 200MP sensor, the periscope zoom can do 5X, and even the 3X zoom has more pixels than the one expected on the S25 FE. The Ultrawide is also better, so here lies the biggest difference between these two phones.

*rumored 

The Galaxy S25 FE is expected to sport a 4,900 mAh battery, an upgrade compared to last year’s FE. This, coupled with the new Exynos chipset, could result in better battery life, but we have to test it to see if that’s the case. Last year’s S24 FE managed 6h 20m in our battery test and ranked 95th among phones tested in the past 2 years. Not a great result, considering the battery size.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra comes with a 5,000 mAh cell, and it scored 8 hours in the same test, which put it at 22nd place, a much better result. Now that the expected difference in battery size is just 100 mAh, and the chipset inside the S25 FE is expected to be more efficient, we expect these two to be closer.

*rumored 

This preliminary battle will most likely be determined by the price situation. There’s no doubt that the Galaxy S25 Ultra is the better phone, but is it $500 better? Samsung has managed to shrink the distance between its most expensive phone and the most affordable model in the S series, or so it seems.

One thing is certain—the Galaxy S25 FE is shaping up to be a great bang for your buck. The package is just great and hits where it counts. We’ll populate this comparison with all the hard numbers, tests, and camera samples once we finish the review of the S25 FE.