Samsung’s Fan Edition releases have been an on-and-off, hot-and-cold affair with the Android-buying audience through the years. The Galaxy Note FE, which put smaller batteries into Note 7s, kicked things off with a limited release while theGalaxy S20 FEturned out to be a surprise success. TheGalaxy S21 FEwas a decent follow-up, but wasn’t viable given the tight positioning it got in the product release roadmap that year. The company thencanceled the Galaxy S22 FE, but insiders have been talking up a Galaxy S23 FE for this year. Fittingly enough, the Korean tech giant has also been hot-and-off, on-and-cold aboutkilling the FE seriesin a bid to consolidate its product lineup. A new leak, however, suggests Samsung is, indeed, working on the Fan Edition of its 2023 flagship phone with some significant changes in tow.
ASamMobilereport claims the Galaxy S23’s Fan Edition could launch in Q4 of 2023. But while the last FE phone used a Snapdragon SoC, Samsung plans to use the Exynos 2200 inside the S23 FE, itsfirst chip to use AMD’s RDNA 2 GPU. The same chipset is ticking inside the Galaxy S22’s European variants but is infamous for overheating and power efficiency issues.
A key reason behind the excellent performance and battery life of theSamsung Galaxy S23 seriesis Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip. If the S23 FE uses an Exynos SoC, it could disappoint in many of these aspects.
Other rumored specs of the S23 FE include options of 6 or 8GB RAM, 128 or 256GB storage, and a 4,500mAh battery with possibly 25W fast charging. Samsung seemingly plans to use the same50MP primary camera on the phoneas the S22/S23 series, which should lead to a noticeable jump in image quality.
The report further states that Samsung will slot the phone with a model number of SM-711x, right in the same zone as the Galaxy Z Flip series. This could be why we have not yet heard much about the S23 FE from other sources.
Despite the latest rumors claiming the S23 FE is real, it is best to take them all with a pinch of salt. There’s always a possibility of Samsung again canceling the product at the last minute like it allegedly did with last year’s S22 FE.
