The battle of the value-for-money Galaxy devices has ended before it even began. The Galaxy A54 was the first value proposition from Samsung to make a lasting impression this year, but the newer Galaxy S23 FE is challenging that perception. And if you ask me, there's no question about which device is a better deal.
If you don't want to spend flagship money on a new phone but don't want to buy the cheapest Galaxy device either, your two best options are the Galaxy A54 and the new Galaxy S23 FE.
That's the theory, at least. In practice, I'd say go for the Galaxy A54 if you truly cannot spare the extra cash for the Fan Edition device. Otherwise, as long as you can go for the S23 FE without breaking the bank, just do it!
There's nothing worse than buyer's remorse, and now that the Galaxy S23 FE exists, you probably won't feel as good about spending money on the Galaxy A54. The Fan Edition phone is a vastly superior phone, bound to offer you a better experience than the Galaxy A54 for the money you're spending.
Story continues after the video
Galaxy S23 FE is a better value proposition
Don't get me wrong, the Galaxy A54 is a decent mid-range phone with plenty of attractive features for its price, assuming you can't afford to spend extra or you don't care as much about performance. But in my eyes, it no longer offers the same value for money it did before the Galaxy S23 FE came to the market. The Fan Edition phone devalued it somewhat.
Samsung's newer Galaxy S23 FE really is as close to a flagship phone as it can be without officially being a flagship. To begin with, it's got a high-end chip rather than the Exynos 1380 SoC.
And even though both phones share the same design language, you can tell that the Galaxy S23 FE has a higher-quality build. It foregoes the plastic frame for an aluminum one, and it has better IP68 water resistance, up from IP67.
Samsung's Fan Edition phone also gives you a minimum of 8GB of RAM instead of 4GB, and even though both the Galaxy S23 FE and A54 have 50MP primary cameras, the Fan Edition camera system is better and can record 8K videos.
With the Fan Edition phone, you're also getting a brighter and better Dynamic AMOLED 2X display instead of Super AMOLED, and you can benefit from a more complete One UI experience, with features such as Samsung DeX, 2x portrait mode for the camera, Director's View, and more.
All things considered, you could say that the Galaxy A54 remains a good budget offering for anyone who can't spend extra. Nevertheless, the Galaxy S23 FE is the new undisputed king of value for money. They're not even in the same league.
