Samsung’s Fan Edition line makes a return this year with the Galaxy S23 FE. Despite its branding, people are not happy about the phone being a true budget version of the Galaxy S23. Instead, the Galaxy S23 FE feels more like what the Galaxy A74 should have been. This is despite the fact that the Galaxy S23 FE is priced lower compared to the Galaxy S21 FE at $600 (the S21 FE started at $700).

Sharing the same design with the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy A54, Samsung only made a few changes under the hood when compared to the Galaxy S21. The most significant of them is the processor, where US versions get the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 while the rest of the world gets the Exynos 2200. Both processors are two generations old at this point–and we’re puzzled as to why Samsung did not go for the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 like other brands. We just hope that Samsung has addressed the throttling problems with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.

The other key upgrade is the 50-megapixel main camera–both the regular Galaxy S23 and Galaxy A54 have it, but we presume that the Galaxy S23 FE’s main camera is much closer to the one used on the Galaxy A54. There’s a rather strange downgrade to the selfie camera, but otherwise, the Galaxy S23 FE has more of the core features of its predecessor than the standard Galaxy S23.

Given its price tag in the US, we expect the Galaxy S23 FE to have a starting price of around Php 35k in the Philippines. Samsung may push that price lower if it wants its budget flagship to be more competitive in its price expected price segment.