The Galaxy A55 is one of the best choices for anyone looking for an upper mid-range phone, and that's especially true now that many markets seem to be selling it at discounts of €100 or more.
However, now that the Galaxy S24 FE is official, the latest Fan Edition phone also seems like a fantastic choice for customers who may want to push a little further beyond the mid-range segment and step into the premium price range.
But while the Galaxy A55 costs around €350 at the moment (thanks to limited-time discounts), the Galaxy S24 FE is available for around €750. Is the Fan Edition phone worth all that extra cash? How do these two phones compare?
Galaxy A55 vs Galaxy S24 FE: Appearances can be deceiving
Some might be tempted to say that the Galaxy S24 FE is only a mild upgrade over the Galaxy A55. In fact, we wouldn't be surprised if you'd find people online claiming that the Galaxy A55 is better because it has expandable storage.
That might be true for a small minority of people who absolutely need to store massive amounts of movies or music locally on their phones. However, for the vast majority of people, the lack of a microSD card slot on the Galaxy S24 FE won't be a deal breaker.
Realistically speaking, the Galaxy S24 FE does almost everything better than the Galaxy A55. Here are some of the most important examples:
- Galaxy S24 FE has a superior Dynamic AMOLED 2X display rather than Super AMOLED.
- Galaxy S24 FE has a much brighter screen that can reach 1,900 nits of brightness instead of 1,000 (as stated by Samsung).
- The Galaxy S24 FE's screen is slightly larger at 6.7 instead of 6.6 inches.
- The Galaxy S24 FE is vastly more powerful thanks to the Exynos 2400e chip and Xclipse 940 GPU. The Galaxy A55 has a mid-range Exynos 1480 SoC with an Xclipse 530 GPU.
- The Galaxy S24 FE can record 8K videos at 30fps. The Galaxy A55 tops out at 4K@30fps.
- The Galaxy S24 FE features the flagship-grade ProVisual Engine. It delivers a vastly superior camera experience with fantastic image processing and premium-grade results. You can see a demonstration in our hands-on video below.
Keep scrolling after the video
- The Galaxy S24 FE has 15W wireless charging capabilities. The Galaxy A55 does not charge wirelessly at all.
- The Galaxy S24 FE supports Wi-Fi 6e, which is technically faster than the A55's Wi-Fi 6.
- The Galaxy S24 FE supports the Samsung DeX environment, which lets you use the phone as a desktop PC. The Galaxy A55 does not support DeX.
- Samsung will support the Galaxy S24 FE with seven OS upgrades for seven years. The Galaxy A55 only gets four OS upgrades.
- Galaxy S24 FE has better water resistance (IP68 vs IP67).
- The Galaxy S24 FE offers the full Galaxy AI suite. The Galaxy A55 only supports Circle to Search.
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Earlier this year, we took a brief, fun look at the A55 next to the S23 FE and realized that the Galaxy A55 outdoes the older FE phone in a few areas. Now, however, it seems like the Galaxy A55 lost some of its edge and doesn't stand a chance against the newer Galaxy S24 FE.
The only things worth noting about the Galaxy A55 doing better than the S24 FE are expandable storage and a slightly bigger battery (by ~300mAh and without wireless charging support or the same level of optimization).
In all fairness, this is a rather unfair comparison between two phones in different leagues. Evidently, the Galaxy S24 FE is a better phone if we ignore prices. It will cost you quite a lot more, but you will get quite a lot more in return for your money.
However, the feature list above shouldn't push you away from the cheaper Galaxy A phone if you're on a tighter budget. On the contrary, we believe the Galaxy A55 is still a great device for its market space, and for only €350 (with discounts), it is absolutely a steal! In fact, at that discounted price, it might even offer more value per buck than the €750 Galaxy S24 FE.
It's debatable. It's hard to tell which might be the better value king. But if you don't know which one to pick, follow your heart or at least the size of your pocket.
