what's going on guys my name is Wade with tech daily and in this video we're going to be comparing two of Samsung's mid-range devices the s23 Fe and the new a55 now let me just set the stage here the new a55 is actually the top tier device in Samsung's a series lineup this year they're sort of budget smartphones while the s23 Fe is sort of a half step down from being a true Flagship S Series phone you can imagine there's a lot of overlap here spec-wise and feature-wise Samsung would actually prefer if everyone just got
the s23 Fe they said so themselves which is why here in the US we aren't even getting the new a55 this year at least not officially but whether Samsung likes it or not the a Series has been the most popular set of phones year after year the Fe on the other hand has suffered from a disastrous release cycle that's been very detrimental to this former best seller now politics aside comparing just phone to phone there are no doubt some advantages with each the new a55 is for one a bit cheaper but without a lot of
sacrifices the s23 Fe however still has some flag shipes features that I think performance focused people will find worthwhile and actually if you don't buy the s23 Fe brand new I think the choice becomes a lot clearer but I'm getting way ahead of myself here let's go Point by point I'll explain which phone is better in each area and hopefully by the end of this video you'll be able to decide which one if either is the better device for you to kick things off let's actually talk about price since that's probably going to be your
first consideration anyway now the full retail price for the s23 Fe was originally $599 if you bought it through a carrier unlocked it's actually $629 kind of annoying and not very enticing when you consider the a55 is about $450 I say about only because there isn't an official US price for this phone since it's not technically sold in the US at least not directly from Samsung or any of the carriers but internationally it's about a $450 phone and on Amazon right now you can snag it for between 400 and 450 bucks depending on the configuration
speaking of Amazon and the third party retailers since the s23 Fe has actually been out for a while now you can snag that phone at a discount an Amazon renewed s23 Fe is a little over 400 bucks right now and to be honest that is pretty much all that needs to be said for $400 you get a cheaper device that's better spec-wise and you can even get an s23 Fe in good or acceptable condition for like 350 bucks the reason for these cheap prices I believe is twofold first Samsung has completely botched the release cycle
of the Fe it's supposed to be a hot midcycle summer re-release of the S Series packaged in a similar form factor with a few less Flagship specs at a more reasonable price to attract the people who don't want to spend 800 or 900 bucks on a flagship instead the s23 Fe went on sale in late October of last year when the flagship phones were already discounted and new phones were just a couple of months away so no one was in the market for this phone or even knew about it really and second anyone who maybe
was interested in a cheaper Samsung smartphone likely already had the a54 which wound up being one of the most popular devices even in the US much to Samsung's dismay so now Samsung basically has said at least us here in the US you don't have a choice the s23 Fe is the flagship alternative now and it's going to remain that way through most of the year but fortunately since you found this video you know you don't have to be stuck with the Fe and you don't have to pay full price for it either so take that
Samsung if price is less of a concern and you're more about specs and features well interestingly enough the a55 is actually the bigger device with the bigger screen at 6.6 in corner to corner it's both taller and wider than the 6.4 in Fe and the a55 also has the better screen body ratio the black borders framing both phones displays I think are quite obvious but they stand out more on the smaller s23 Fe Samsung has made great strides in upping the build quality on some of their a series phones and this a55 is a prime
example of that around back bu phones are covered in Corning Gorilla Glass though the Fe has the tougher Gorilla Glass 5 specifically and actually bull phones also have an all aluminum frame there's a slightly different fit and finish the a55 is more industrial looking with bare metal but there's really nothing cheap about either the a55 maybe also has a more funky Rainbow Tint to its purplish color which not Everyone likes but in the hand these phones both feel as sturdy and as premium as any th000 Flagship one other interesting distinction though the front glass on
the new a55 is actually the new gorilla glass victus plus the s23 Fe has the same Gorilla Glass 5 that's covering the back so perhaps there's an unexpected Point awarded to the a55 for having newer stronger less glare prone front display display glass even if the back glass isn't as tough taking a look around there's nothing really on the left side of either phone just a cellular antenna on the s23 Fe on the right side identical power and volume buttons at the top physical SIM card trays for both but we have an important difference here
the a55 has dual SIM and SD card support so you can pop in two SIM cards or a Micro SD card instead and double or triple the storage on this phone for cheap it also has eim support something I misspoke about in my unboxing thanks to those of you who pointed that out s23 Fe on the other hand does not have expandable storage support just physical and eim support so whatever storage option you choose for this phone is what you're stuck with and 256 GB is the highest option so definitely something to consider there I
still think micro SD card support is quite valuable on the bottom there's USBC ports on both slightly different but similar sounding bottom speakers and blank spaces where headphone Jacks totally could be secondary speakers and selfie cameras up top of course and around back surprisingly similar triple lens camera setups that I'll compare in just a minute so one thing that used to be reserved for the flagship phones but isn't really anymore is a great display I'd argue that both these phones have a viewing experience that's on par with a full-fledged S Series and arguably between these
and an s24 it's really tough to tell a difference but I'll try and explain what separates them the 855s bigger 6.6 in screen is a Super AMOLED panel the s23 Fe offers a dynamic AMOLED 2x panel both phones are the same resolution 2340 by 1080 just with slightly different pixel densities since the display sizes are different but you won't notice a discrepancy and sharpness either way they're both 120 HZ panels too so your Taps touches swipes and Scrolls feel very responsive and Visually they look very smooth spec for spec the screens aren't very different at
all and at a glance I don't think most anyone could really tell them apart but technically the s23 Fe does have the better AMOLED panel so not only will it likely look more colorful and more vibrant but it's also brighter with up to 1450 nits of peak brightness versus just 1,000 knits on the a55 these phones are both far dimmer than a flagship s24 though and there may be some slight differences in the reflection and glare I mean the a55 is Gorilla Glass is supposed to be newer and better but again I think that's a
little tough to see especially since that phone is technically dimmer for some reason people seem to really get offended when I say that these two phones have basically the same viewing experience as the flagship phones but honestly it's true 99% of people wouldn't be able to tell a difference and between these two phones specifically visually there's really no difference at all either more than anything I think this does sort of favor the a55 in a way I mean this phone has as good of a display as phones that are hundreds of dollars more expensive technically
but I suppose if you want to be absolutely certain you're getting the best display dollar for dooll the s23 Fe will appease that small subset of people by the way both these phones do have in display fingerprint sensors of the same variety not the ultrasonic sensors but the older Optical type I don't really think there's any difference in unlocking speeds or accuracy they each take turns either failing from time to time or unlocking super fast same with a face unlock it's present it's an option and I don't think either phone has any clear Advantage for
your out loud listening pleasure both phones have dual speaker setups there's the one at the bottom of course and a secondary one stuffed inside the earpiece above the selfie camera I don't know of any hardware difference or any specific distinction either way with the speakers they sound perfectly fine for what they are and here's a sample from each so you can hear that [Music] too fall wonder if you I'm falling wonder if you Miss Me When Miss Me When I'm Gone while I'm Wonder now when it comes to Performance and speed and the Android experience
if you want a firm reason to opt for the s23 Fe this is pretty much it right here the Fe is powered by the decisively better Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 gen 1 chip which is itself a flagship component and it's paired to 8 GB of RAM the international version of this phone gets the exos 2200 and that also is far better than what's inside the a55 it has the mid-range exos 1480 from Samsung and 8 GB of RAM as well and when we take a look at the geekbench performance scores there's where you can see all
the difference in the Fe now you can watch me do a bit of a side by-side speed test here with the two phones while I touch on a couple of other things first off is the Fe going to launch and load things so much faster than the 855 that it'll significantly improve your day no definitely not but it's noticeable enough in this case both phones are on the same version of Android and one UI and they'll each get a few years of major software support 5 years for the Fe although the first update was already
sort of wasted and four years for the a55 which is great especially for the a55 in particular you aren't sacrificing security or Android updates and opting for an A series device any longer the a55 doesn't get the new Galaxy AI features though for example that were initially reserved for the new flagships this year but ultimately came to this s23 Fe a few weeks ago via software update so I suppose that is the difference in the Samsung feature set and I think if gaming is your thing or you just generally push your phone quite hard with
everyday tasks the flagship Snapdragon processor in the f is going to prove to be more of an advantage Graphics intense stuff like games for example and the exos haters too will likely not even consider the a55 this year at all because well exos chipsets have generally not been the most well optimized to the best at heat management or all that good at offering smooth Gameplay at the highest FPS or graphic settings so yeah like I said the Fe has a stout advantage in more ways than one here and I think this is is where the
higher price point is sort of Justified at least in Samsung's mind but here's the thing I always say for most people whose smartphone usage consists of YouTube videos Tik Tok scrolling texting and some school work or professional work the a55 is going to be more than capable the people in that camp won't notice any performance difference at all really could opt for an even lesser phone instead to be honest but for the performance picky people and those who care to have the flagship specs and some of the flagship features Fe like Galaxy AI the s23
Fe is going to have those advantages and then some I also think the Fe has some advantages in the battery and charging departments too the larger a55 does actually have a slightly larger sized battery 5,000 milliamps compared to the 4500 milliamp battery in the smaller sized s23 Fe but the Fe has a smaller screen a newer AMOLED Tech that likely draws a little less power and with the higher-end Snapdragon processor I've also felt the the Fe has better power management throughout the day eliminating any potential Advantage the a55 might have just on its bigger sized
battery alone on top of that while the wired charging speeds are actually the same with these phones oddly enough the Fe also has wireless charging support up to 15 watts and reverse charging via Power share both of which the a55 still lacks so tack on a couple of more points for the Fe finally when it comes to the cameras I want to just mention the specs first because it's kind of funny the main lens on the s23 Fe is a 50 megapixel shooter the main lens on the a55 is also 50 megapixels the ultra wide
lens on the Fe 123° 12 megapixel lens the a55 also a 123° 12 megapixel ultrawide camera the third lens on the Fe is a very useful arguably 8 megapixel telephone photo lens for zoom and portraits the third lens on the a55 is a less useful 5 megap macro but it's kind of odd to think about the fact that on paper the overarching top level camera specs appear to be pretty similar across both phones and oh yeah the selfie cameras the s23 Fe has a 10 megapixel lens while the a55 has a 32 megapixel lens I
know megapixels aren't everything but the average person that doesn't seem great now inside the camera app if you're really big on pictures and videos you already know the Fe has a lot of Flagship caliper features that are far beyond what's offered on an A series phone there's 8K video recording for example and 4K 60fps the a55 can shoot 4K too and it even has Pro Photo and video controls and dual lens recording and all sorts of stuff that the Fe has the Fe though arguably has a lot better zoom capabilities thanks of course to that
telephoto lens the difference in capabilities and features is noticeable for sure but it may not be all that applicable for most people the real difference is in the real world results and if I could sum it up I'd say that the s23 Fe is the better picture and vide taker for sure when it comes to things like overall detail color balance accuracy everything just looks professional on the s23 Fe more polished while the a55 is images feel overprocessed at times and the phone still struggles with super bright and very dark areas of pictures but it's
an A series phone with a less powerful processor and technically less high-end Hardware too the most important thing here though is once again for most people the a55 is going to be fine and over the last couple of years Aeries phones have very quickly become half decent picture and video takers in their own right so here's the thing about these two phones arguably you can't really go wrong with either there's a reason why the a Series has been so incredibly popular the last few years they're great phones for most everyone at a very reasonable price
point and the a55 is once again going to be a top selling device worldwide you can count on that but it won't be a device that's sold at all in the US Samsung is tired of seeing people not buy their expensive phones so unless you go out of your way to get the a55 from a thirdparty retailer the s23 Fe is Now the default nonf Flagship budget phone this year Samsung made damn sure of that but you don't have to play Samsung's little games get a used A Renewed s23 Fe instead of spending $600 on
a brand new one and that way you not only save the money but you still end up with a better smartphone and maybe with that sale it'll motivate Samsung to keep the Fe around hopefully with a better release cycle maybe even at a cheaper price point maybe but what do you guys think about these two which would you prefer was there something important I maybe missed let me know in the comments down below I'd love to hear your thoughts of course hopefully you guys did enjoy this video though be sure to follow Tech daily on
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