Samsung is said to be planning an earlier release for its Fan Edition phone this year, with the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE tipped for summer.
It could well sport similar processing to the main S24 range too, making it a very interesting proposition at a cheaper price point.
Samsung's next Fan Edition phone could be on the way slightly sooner than anticipated, according to new reports. It also might bring some impressive specs with it.
The excellent Samsung Galaxy S23 FE came out in October 2023, a good chunk of time after the mainline Galaxy S23 range, but a report by South Korean outlet TheElec suggests that Samsung could move faster this year.
Its supply chain sources indicate that Samsung is aiming for something more like summer for its latest cheap phone, and that its suppliers have already started mass-producing display driver chips.
The overall aim is apparently to produce multiple millions of devices, after the success of the last FE saw it make around three million units. This underlines how important these cut-price flagship alternatives remain.
Google's doing the same with its Pixel "a" lineup, after all, and the allure of getting most new features without having to shell out for a thousand-pound phone is understandable.
The advantage might be pressed home this year, too – the S24 FE is apparently going to have either the Exynos 2400 or the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset at its heart.
The eagle-eyed will have spotted that those are the very same chips that Samsung included in its flagship Galaxy S24 range, meaning you could be getting some seriously excellent performance here at a lower price.
It'll also have a slightly larger battery, leaving only a few places where Samsung could cut costs and actually make it noticeably less cutting-edge than its more expensive siblings.
The camera performance is unlikely to quite match flagship levels, for one thing, and its display will be a good AMOLED but not at the same level as the mainline phones.
Still, with pricing far from certain at this point, if it comes together with a canny price tag you could well be looking at one of the best deals in a long time if Samsung can stick the landing on the Galaxy S24 FE.
FE might stand for Fan Edition, but these phones are quickly becoming very hard to ignore for even those who wouldn't count themselves as ardent Samsung supporters.
