Samsung is planning to release the Galaxy S23 FE later this year. We learned that the company wants to bring the next Fan Edition phone to the market in Q4 and that the Galaxy S23 FE will be powered by an Exynos chipset in all markets, surprisingly enough.
To be more specific, we're hearing that the Galaxy S23 FE will be powered by the Exynos 2200 SoC. And although this might sound like a big issue given the stigma around the Exynos line of chips in recent years, I'd say the Galaxy S23 FE using the Exynos 2200 SoC should be a nonissue.
Samsung knows the Exynos 2200 better now
The Exynos 2200 chipset indeed had a rocky start. In case you don't know, Samsung first used this SoC for the Galaxy S22 flagship series (in some markets). It wasn't the most optimized chip at launch, and to play devil's advocate, it was Samsung's first-ever SoC to feature the brand-new Xclipse GPU developed by AMD.
Thankfully, things are looking much better now, one year after the Exynos 2200's release. The Galaxy S22 feels like a rock-solid phone with no glaring stability or performance issues, especially after the One UI 5.0 and One UI 5.1 updates.
Some Exynos chips age like wine
Samsung appears to have figured out its unusual Exynos 2200 chip and optimized it to the best of its abilities. And interestingly, the company did a similar thing with the Exynos 1280 that powers the Galaxy A53, with the mid-range phone now offering a pretty solid experience compared to how it once was.
Would a Snapdragon SoC be better for the Galaxy S23 FE? It sure would. But the Exynos 2200 is still a flagship-grade chip that Samsung came to know better and better for more than a year now. Unless Samsung royally screws up the Galaxy S23 FE for some reason, the phone shouldn't have the same rocky start as the original Exynos 2200 SoC bearer, the Galaxy S22.
And to dispel something of a myth, nothing about the Fan Edition lineup says it must use a Qualcomm SoC, and past FE phones were indeed split between Exynos and Snapdragon markets, for the most part. If anything, Samsung could argue that fans of the brand should want to use in-house chipsets rather than Snapdragon models. But it is understandable why most people prefer Qualcomm solutions since they have proven superior time and time again.
At the end of the day, the Exynos 2200 SoC is not a bad chip in 2023 and might be even better near the end of the year, even though it had a rough start. So, in theory, the Galaxy S23 FE shipping with the Exynos 2200 chip shouldn't be a problem. But we will have to wait until Q4 to know for sure.
