Take a look at the battery charging speed of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, and find out how fast you can recharge with the official 15W, 25W and 45W chargers!
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Supports Up To 45W Charging!
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra supports up to 45 watts of wired fast charging, but unfortunately, does not come with the charger in-the-box. You can either use the standard 15 watt fast charger from your previous Samsung smartphone, or purchase a 25 watt or 45 watt super fast charger.
Best To Use Samsung Fast Charger
You can use non-Samsung fast chargers, but while they may charge your Galaxy S24 Ultra, they will likely not charge at full speed.
For example, I tested the Galaxy S24 Ultra using 65W and 96W PD fast chargers, but they failed to charge faster than 25 watts. It would only charge beyond 25 watts with an official Samsung 45W fast charger… 🙁
How To Tell If You’re Charging At Full Speed
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra doesn’t make clear how fast you are charging, so how do you know if you are charging fast enough?
When you plug in the charger, the charging protocol will flash for a few seconds on the display of your Galaxy S24 Ultra:
Fast charging : you’re charging at up to 15 watts
Super fast charging : you’re charging at up to 25 watts
Super fast charging 2.0 : you’re charging at up to 45 watts
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra has fast charging enabled by default. But if you are using a Samsung fast charger, and it somehow isn’t charging at full speed, here is how you can verify if fast charging is enabled.
Go to Settings > Battery > Charging settings
Make sure Fast charging is enabled.
If not, tap on Fast charging to enable it.
Please note that this setting cannot be changed while the Galaxy S24 Ultra is charging. You will need to pull out the cable before making any changes.
You Must Use Correct Cable
Samsung fast charging protocols also require you to comply with minimum cable requirements:
25W super fast charging : 3A cable minimum
45W super fast charging 2.0 : 5A cable minimum
The Galaxy S24 Ultra comes with the Samsung EP-DN980, which is USB-C to USB-C cable that supports up to 5A of current. So this cable will readily support 45W charging.
In the next section, we will look at how fast the Galaxy S24 Ultra charges with the official 15W, 25W and 45W chargers!
We tested the Galaxy S24 Ultra using the official 15W, 25W and 45W Samsung fast chargers, and the results are really surprising!
Galaxy S24 Ultra
Charging Time
Charging Speed
15 Watts
106.5 minutes
37.6 mAh per min.
25 Watts
68 minutes
58.8 mAh per min.
45 Watts
66 minutes
60.6 mAh per min.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra charges really fast with a 15 watt charger, and even faster with a 25 watt charger. It basically needs just over 1.75 hours to fully recharge with a 15 watt charger, and just over one hour with a 25 watt charger.
Unfortunately, upgrading to the 45 watt charger doesn’t improve its charging speed much. It only shaved 2 minutes off the charging time with a 25 watt charger!
In fact, that’s actually its best time. On two other occasions, it charged slower than the 25 watt charger! Really quite unexpected.
Just in case you are wondering – it does charge at 45 watts, but only at the beginning for a short time. After that it charged at between 12 watts to 24 watts for most of the charge.
With such results, I can only recommend purchasing the optional 25 watt USB-C super fast charger. It will cut your charging time by a considerable 38.5 minutes for a full recharge:
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
We got our hands on the new Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra smartphone right after its official launch. Let’s take a quick look at the box before we check out what’s inside!
Once you fully unbox the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, this is what you will find inside:
the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra smartphone
a Quick Start Guide in two languages, and a warranty card
a USB Type C to USB Type C data and charging cable
a SIM tray extraction pin
That’s it! While the Galaxy S24 Ultra supports 45 watt fast charging, it does not come with the charger. You will need to purchase it separately. Neither does it come with a TPU bumper case to tide you over until you get a better one.
Now, let us go through its key features, and show you why the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is worthy of our Editor’s Choice Award!
Boosted Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Performance!
The Galaxy S24 Ultra is powered exclusively by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy in all regions of the world. It comes with a slightly overclocked prime core.
1 x Arm Cortex-X4 core (3.39 GHz, instead of 3.3 GHz)
3 x Arm Cortex-A720 cores
2 x Arm Cortex-A720 cores
2 x Arm Cortex-A520 cores
This mobile SoC also comes with the Qualcomm Adreno 750 GPU which supports ray-tracing, an improved Hexagon NPU, and the Snapdragon X75 5G modem that supports Sub-6Ghz and mmWave connectivity.
Improved Cooling
To ensure that the processor remains cool, the Galaxy S24 Ultra sports a 90% larger vapour chamber. This should allow it to better sustain peak performance during intense gaming sessions or AI photo / video editing,
The Galaxy S24 Ultra sports the same 200 MP Adaptive Pixel main camera, which was first introduced in last year’s Galaxy S23 Ultra.
It is built around the Samsung ISOCELL HP2 (S5KHP2) sensor, which is a large 1/1.3-inch sensor with 200 million pixels, each of which is 0.6 μm in size. The Galaxy S24 Ultra camera can combine up to 16 pixels to form a single large pixel for much better low-light performance.
The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra can also record 8K videos at 30 frames per second, instead of just 24 fps in the Galaxy S22 Ultra. It also boasts better Adaptive VDIS capability, and improved optical image stabilisation (OIS), delivering silky smooth videos by doubling the angle to ±3°, from the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s camera‘s ±1.5°.
50 MP Telephoto Camera
The main camera upgrade in the Galaxy S24 Ultra is its new 50 MP telephoto camera, with a 5X optical zoom. It is said to be built around the Sony IMX854 sensor, which is a 1/2.52″ sensor with 0.7 μm pixels.
While its optical zoom reach has halved from 10X, a combination of its higher resolution sensor, and deep learning AI algorithms, allow Samsung to deliver better digital zoom. This new zoom camera also has the advantage of a wider f/3.4 aperture (compared to just f/4.9), which should improve its low-light performance.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra reuses the same 3X zoom and 12 MP ultra-wide angle cameras from the Galaxy S23 Ultra.
12 MP Selfie Camera
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra also reuses the Galaxy S23 Ultra‘s 12 MP camera, with the same f/2.2 aperture. This is a Dual Pixel camera, which allows for faster and more accurate auto-focus.
SIM Tray Without SD Card Slot
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra supports two physical SIM cards, as well as a single eSIM. The SIM tray is located at the bottom, next to the USB port.
S Pen
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra comes with the same S Pen as the Galaxy S23 Ultra. It too boasts a very quick 2.8 ms latency.
We tried swapping them and both S Pens appear to fit both devices. From what we can tell – they are physically and functionally similar, if not exactly the same.
USB Type C Port
At the bottom of the Galaxy S24 Ultra, you will find a SIM card tray, next to the USB port, as well as the S Pen in its slot. The USB port is, of course, the bidirectional Type C port, which is now the EU standard.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is protected in the front by Corning Gorilla Armour glass, which is not only tougher against scratches, but also reduces reflection by up to 75%.
Titanium Frame
The Galaxy S24 Ultra is the first Samsung smartphone to feature a titanium frame, which is not only tougher, but also allows for a thinner chassis.
5,000 mAh Fast-Charging Battery
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra comes with a large 5,000 mAh lithium-ion polymer battery, which supports 45 watt fast wired charging, and 15 watt fast wireless charging.
To test its battery life, we turned off Automatic Brightness, to fix the brightness level and make sure the screen brightness does not change as the ambient brightness changes.
We also set its display brightness to 50%, which is slightly higher than the average indoor brightness level of 40% during the day.
We then ran the PCMark Work 3.0 battery life test until its battery capacity dropped to 20% several times, and this was the best result we obtained with the Standard and Adaptive refresh rates :
Look at that! The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra lasted almost 14 hours with the Adaptive refresh mode enabled, and lasted almost 16.5 hours with the Standard refresh mode!
This is a 6-7% improvement in battery life over last year’s Galaxy S23 Ultra – approximately an extra hour of battery life, at the same battery capacity. Very nice!
Now, let’s compare its battery life at 60 Hz and 120 Hz, against the Z Flip5, the S23 Ultra, and the S22 Ultra smartphones.
Standard Refresh Rate (60 Hz)
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra naturally has the best battery life with the refresh rate set to 60 Hz (Standard) – lasting just under 16.5 hours.
Even though it runs on powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is more power-efficient than Samsung’s older flagship devices like the Z Flip5, the S23 Ultra, and the S22 Ultra.
Work 3.0
S24 Ultra
S23 Ultra
S22 Ultra
Z Flip 5
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
3,700 mAh
Battery Life
16 hrs 25 mins
15 hrs 18 mins
14 hrs 15 mins
11 hrs 4 mins
Utilisation
per min.
4.06 mAh
4.36 mAh
4.68 mAh
4.46 mAh
Adaptive Refresh Rate (120 Hz)
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra’s Adaptive refresh rate is so efficient, it lasts almost 14 hours. Even so, the higher refresh rate uses a significant amount of power.
Even with the same battery capacity and similar Adaptive Mode enabled, the Galaxy S24 Ultra uses 6% less power than the Galaxy S23 Ultra, and 23% less power than the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra supports up to 45 watts of wired fast charging, but unfortunately, does not come with the charger in-the-box.
So we tested it using the standard 15 watt and 25 watt Samsung fast chargers that shipped with their previous smartphones, which is what we believe most users will end up doing.
S22 Ultra
S24 Ultra
S23 Ultra
S24 Ultra
Z Flip 5
Z Flip 5
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
3,700 mAh
3,700 mAh
Charger Output
15 watts
25 watts
15 watts
15 watts
25 watts
15 watts
Charging Time
64.5 min
68 min
88.8 min
106.5 min
105 min
129.5 min
Charging Speed
(per minute)
62.0 mAh
58.8 mAh
45.0 mAh
37.6 mAh
28.2 mAh
22.9 mAh
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra charges really fast with a 15 watt charger, and even faster with a 25 watt charger. It basically needs just over 1.75 hours to fully recharge with a 15 watt charger, and just over one hour with a 25 watt charger.
This gives us a battery life to recharging time ratio of about 7.8:1 (15 watt), or 12.2:1 (25 watt), which is good. You basically get about an hour’s worth of battery life for every 8 minutes you recharge at 15 watts, or 5 minutes at 25 watts.
If you prefer to get faster charging, you should purchase the optional 25 watt USB-C super fast charger. It will cut your charging time by a considerable 38.5 minutes for a full recharge:
There is no doubt that the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra offers top-notch performance, thanks to its use of a slightly overclocked Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy, and a 90% larger vapour chamber.
It shows in the benchmarks – the Galaxy S24 Ultra topped all of the benchmarks, except for work performance. It is particularly strong in 3D graphics and ray tracing performance. With gaming performance like this, dedicated gaming smartphones seem rather pointless.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Work Performance
We first tested the Galaxy S24 Ultra using PCMark, which simulates work applications like web browsing, playing video, writing text and editing photos.
Work 3.0
S23
Ultra
S24
Ultra
Z Flip
5
Z Flip
4
S23 FE
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8 Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8+
Gen 1
Exynos
2200
Performance Score
16408
14931
14655
14429
13971
Web Browsing
15680
11663
11404
12097
11664
Video Editing
7879
6474
7943
7387
7369
Writing
22257
20333
19525
17593
18138
Photo Editing
35533
34350
324420
31762
27060
Data Manipulation
12171
14070
11788
12523
12616
Interestingly, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 was much slower than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 used in last year’s Galaxy S23 Ultra, and just barely faster than the SD 8 Gen 2 used in the Galaxy Z Flip5.
I should point out that these are peak performance results. The truth is – you won’t be able to actually tell the difference between all these flagship-class mobile processors in normal usage. They are all really fast.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Storage Performance
PCMark also has an Android Storage 2.0 benchmark that measures the smartphone’s storage I/O performance.
Storage 2.0
Z Flip
5
S23
Ultra
S24
Ultra
S23 FE
Z Flip
4
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 9
Gen 3
Exynos
2200
SD 8+
Gen 1
Storage Score
48435
41647
33005
31839
27271
Sequential Read (MB/s)
2676.53
2592.42
2907.37
1584.66
1350.51
Random Read (MB/s)
49.95
38.25
60.98
31.25
33.94
Sequential Write (MB/s)
2631.38
603.29
3084.95
510.16
256.81
Random Write (MB/s)
76.66
81.44
106.34
81.13
50.29
Samsung appeared to be using faster flash storage in the Galaxy S24 Ultra. However, its overall storage score was lower than the S23 Ultra and Z Flip5, due to much slower database read and write speeds.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Gaming Performance
For gaming, we tested the Galaxy S24 Ultra using 3DMark, with these results :
3DMark
S24
Ultra
S23
Ultra
Z Flip
5
Z Flip
4
S23 FE
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8+
Gen 1
Exynos
2200
Solar Bay Unlimited
8576
NA
5481
NA
4570
Wild Life Extreme
Unlimited
5020
3814
3705
2636
2233
Wild Life Unlimited
20534
14554
14823
11144
8671
Sling Shot Extreme
Unlimited
19653
13904
13558
6912
9484
Sling Shot Unlimited
22656
16344
16661
10690
11348
Where the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra really shines is in its gaming performance. Its Adreno 750 GPU not only supports ray tracing, it does a fantastic job of delivering top-notch 3D graphics performance.
Not only does it have a faster GPU, the Samsung S24 Ultra also has a 90% larger vapour chamber that allows it to better sustain peak performance during intense gaming sessions.
Although ray tracing games are far and few in between for now, the new Solar Bay benchmark shows that the Galaxy S24 Ultra delivers 56% better 3D with ray tracing performance than the Galaxy Z Flip5, and 88% better performance. than the Galaxy S23 FE!
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Overall Performance
We then tested the Galaxy S24 Ultra using AnTuTu, yielding these results :
AnTuTu
S24
Ultra
S23
Ultra
Z Flip
5
S23 FE
Z Flip
4
Device
SD 8
Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
Exynos
2200
SD 8+
Gen 1
AnTuTu Score
1826776
1212174
1187296
1166868
856357
CPU
456400
261886
393404
329078
205939
GPU
682555
538823
282780
425455
362669
Memory
380519
236163
291048
193981
135707
UX
307302
175302
220064
218354
152042
Will you look at that? The AnTuTu benchmark shows that the Galaxy S24 Ultra is a solid 50% faster than the Galaxy S23 Ultra, and Galaxy Z Flip 5 – both powered by last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Very nice!
But note that its temperature jumped by almost 12°C! At peak performance, the Galaxy S24 Ultra can get really toasty!
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra boasts a super-high resolution 200 MP main camera, built around the ISOCELL HP2 sensor. This is a large 1/1.3-inch sensor with 200 million pixels, each of which is 0.6 μm in size.
This 200 MP camera can combine up to 16 pixels to form a single large pixel for much better low-light performance. It can also record 8K videos at 30 frames per second, instead of just 24 fps in the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
It also boasts better Adaptive VDIS capability, and improved optical image stabilisation (OIS), delivering silky smooth videos by doubling the angle to ±3°, from the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s camera‘s ±1.5°.
Here are some photo samples I took using the 200 MP main camera in its standard 12 MP mode, at 4000 x 3000 pixels. Its standard JPEG file size is between 4 MB and 8 MB, but to save space, I highly recommend that you enable HEIF – the High Efficiency Image Format, to halve the amount of storage space required for each photo.
By default, the 200 MP camera takes 12 MP photos, combining sixteen pixels into one super-large pixel. Coupled with the improved lens and wider aperture, the final photos are not only much brighter, but have significantly lower noise.
Of course, the 200 MP capability is not there for marketing purposes. The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra can truly take 200 MP photos, with a resolution of 16,320 pixels x 12,240 pixels, with each file at about 13-15 MB!
Instead of using the new 50 MP telephoto camera, you can use faraway shots at night using the 200 MP mode, to take advantage of its wide f/1.7 aperture. Then you zoom in, and crop out the section of the photo you want.
Take a look at this 200 MP photo that I took at the Marina Bay Sands using last year’s Galaxy S23 Ultra. From that single photo, I could zoom in to make out individuals within the dome-shaped Apple Store hundreds of metres away – all unbeknownst that they were being captured on the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra at night!
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Camera Performance Summary
If you want the best smartphone cameras for photo and video money can buy, you should definitely consider the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Please ignore the 200 MP marketing spiel. In everyday use, it has pretty limited use cases – best used for taking night shots of distance objects IMHO. 99.9% of the time, you are not going to be using this camera in its 200 MP mode.
What you are really getting is an awesome 12 MP camera with super-large pixels for really great noise-free images, and better low-light photos. Just look at the photo samples – everything looks much better when taken with this camera!
It is getting really tough for Samsung to introduce radical improvements in its flagship smartphones. So it’s not surprising that the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is an evolutionary upgrade of the excellent Galaxy S23 Ultra.
Samsung didn’t even bother to hide that, reusing the same design almost to the millimetre! It even reused the same S Pen from last year. Its improvements were almost entirely internal.
Its display, for example, is the “same” as the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s display on paper. But it is brighter and offers improved power efficiency. Its Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor not only offers really excellent performance, it is also more power-efficient, which helps to significantly improve its battery life.
Even though it comes with the same battery capacity as the Galaxy S23 Ultra, the new Galaxy S24 Ultra boasts 6%-7% longer battery life! That’s an extra hour of battery life on average!
Aside from its Galaxy AI features (which will filter down to older models), the Galaxy S24 Ultra comes with a new 50 MP telephoto camera. While its optical zoom has been halved, its higher resolution sensor and deep-learning AI algorithms allow you to take better quality photos with digital zoom. It also offers better low-light performance, thanks to its wider aperture.
This builds upon Samsung’s legacy of offering the very best photographic and video recording capabilities in its flagship Galaxy S-series, especially when it comes to low-light photography. If you really love photography, and especially like taking photos at night, or in low-light conditions, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra will surely impress you.
Finally, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is even tougher this year. It is protected by a Titanium frame for the first time, as well as the new Gorilla Armour glass in the front. As a bonus, Gorilla Armour really is less reflective.
For these reasons, we gladly award the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra our Editor’s Choice Award! Great work, Samsung!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
The new Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra offers two refresh rate options (Settings > Display > Motion smoothness) for its display:
Adaptive : Get smoother animation and scrolling by automatically adjusting your screen refresh rate up to 120 Hz
Standard : Get longer battery life by automatically adjusting your screen refresh rate up to 60 Hz
By default, the Galaxy S24 Ultra uses the Adaptive mode for smoother graphics, but you can choose to switch to the Standard mode for a longer battery life.
While the display may be capable of going as low as 1 Hz, it never went that low. When I tested the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s display in multiple apps, this was what both refresh rate options did:
Adaptive : The display dynamically switches between 24 Hz, and 120 Hz (occasionally 60 Hz, and 80 Hz).
Standard : The display dynamically switches between 24 Hz, and 60 Hz
In the next section, we will look at how the two refresh rate options affect the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s battery life.
To test its battery life, we turned off Automatic Brightness, to fix the brightness level and make sure the screen brightness does not change as the ambient brightness changes.
We also set its display brightness to 50%, which is slightly higher than the average indoor brightness level of 40% during the day.
We then ran the PCMark Work 3.0 battery life test until its battery capacity dropped to 20% several times, and this was the best result we obtained with the Standard and Adaptive refresh rates :
Look at that! The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra lasted almost 14 hours with the Adaptive refresh mode enabled, and lasted almost 16.5 hours with the Standard refresh mode!
This is a 6-7% improvement in battery life over last year’s Galaxy S23 Ultra – approximately an extra hour of battery life, at the same battery capacity. Very nice!
Now, let’s compare its battery life at 60 Hz and 120 Hz, against the Z Flip5, the S23 Ultra, and the S22 Ultra smartphones.
Standard Refresh Rate (60 Hz)
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra naturally has the best battery life with the refresh rate set to 60 Hz (Standard) – lasting just under 16.5 hours.
Even though it runs on powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is more power-efficient than Samsung’s older flagship devices like the Z Flip5, the S23 Ultra, and the S22 Ultra.
Work 3.0
S24 Ultra
S23 Ultra
S22 Ultra
Z Flip 5
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
3,700 mAh
Battery Life
16 hrs 25 mins
15 hrs 18 mins
14 hrs 15 mins
11 hrs 4 mins
Utilisation
per min.
4.06 mAh
4.36 mAh
4.68 mAh
4.46 mAh
Adaptive Refresh Rate (120 Hz)
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra’s Adaptive refresh rate is so efficient, it lasts almost 14 hours. Even so, the higher refresh rate uses a significant amount of power.
Even with the same battery capacity and similar Adaptive Mode enabled, the Galaxy S24 Ultra uses 6% less power than the Galaxy S23 Ultra, and 23% less power than the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra supports up to 45 watts of wired fast charging, but unfortunately, does not come with the charger in-the-box.
So we tested it using the standard 15 watt and 25 watt Samsung fast chargers that shipped with their previous smartphones, which is what we believe most users will end up doing.
Charging Speed
S22 Ultra
S24 Ultra
S23 Ultra
S24 Ultra
Z Flip 5
Z Flip 5
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
3,700 mAh
3,700 mAh
Charger Output
15 watts
25 watts
15 watts
15 watts
25 watts
15 watts
Charging Time
64.5 min
68 min
88.8 min
106.5 min
105 min
129.5 min
Charging Speed
(per minute)
62.0 mAh
58.8 mAh
45.0 mAh
37.6 mAh
28.2 mAh
22.9 mAh
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra charges really fast with a 15 watt charger, and even faster with a 25 watt charger. It basically needs just over 1.75 hours to fully recharge with a 15 watt charger, and just over one hour with a 25 watt charger.
This gives us a battery life to recharging time ratio of about 7.8:1 (15 watt), or 12.2:1 (25 watt), which is good. You basically get about an hour’s worth of battery life for every 8 minutes you recharge at 15 watts, or 5 minutes at 25 watts.
If you prefer to get faster charging, you should purchase the optional 25 watt USB-C super fast charger. It will cut your charging time by a considerable 38.5 minutes for a full recharge:
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Let’s take a look at the performance of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra smartphone, which is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile SoC!
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra : Flagship Class Performance!
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is powered exclusively by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy, which has a slightly overclocked prime core. It has eight processor cores in a quad-cluster architecture:
1 x Arm Cortex-X4 core (3.39 GHz, instead of 3.3 GHz)
3 x Arm Cortex-A720 cores
2 x Arm Cortex-A720 cores
2 x Arm Cortex-A520 cores
This mobile SoC also comes with the Qualcomm Adreno 750 GPU which supports ray-tracing, an improved Hexagon NPU, and the Snapdragon X75 5G modem that supports Sub-6Ghz and mmWave connectivity.
We first tested the Galaxy S24 Ultra using PCMark, which simulates work applications like web browsing, playing video, writing text and editing photos.
Work 3.0
S23
Ultra
S24
Ultra
Z Flip
5
Z Flip
4
S23 FE
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8 Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8+
Gen 1
Exynos
2200
Performance Score
16408
14931
14655
14429
13971
Web Browsing
15680
11663
11404
12097
11664
Video Editing
7879
6474
7943
7387
7369
Writing
22257
20333
19525
17593
18138
Photo Editing
35533
34350
324420
31762
27060
Data Manipulation
12171
14070
11788
12523
12616
Interestingly, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 was much slower than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 used in last year’s Galaxy S23 Ultra, and just barely faster than the SD 8 Gen 2 used in the Galaxy Z Flip5.
I should point out that these are peak performance results. The truth is – you won’t be able to actually tell the difference between all these flagship-class mobile processors in normal usage. They are all really fast.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra : Storage Performance
PCMark also has an Android Storage 2.0 benchmark that measures the smartphone’s storage I/O performance.
Storage 2.0
Z Flip
5
S23
Ultra
S24
Ultra
S23 FE
Z Flip
4
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 9
Gen 3
Exynos
2200
SD 8+
Gen 1
Storage Score
48435
41647
33005
31839
27271
Sequential Read (MB/s)
2676.53
2592.42
2907.37
1584.66
1350.51
Random Read (MB/s)
49.95
38.25
60.98
31.25
33.94
Sequential Write (MB/s)
2631.38
603.29
3084.95
510.16
256.81
Random Write (MB/s)
76.66
81.44
106.34
81.13
50.29
Samsung appeared to be using faster flash storage in the Galaxy S24 Ultra. However, its overall storage score was lower than the S23 Ultra and Z Flip5, due to much slower database read and write speeds.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra : Gaming Performance
For gaming, we tested the Galaxy S24 Ultra using 3DMark, with these results :
3DMark
S24
Ultra
S23
Ultra
Z Flip
5
Z Flip
4
S23 FE
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8+
Gen 1
Exynos
2200
Solar Bay Unlimited
8576
NA
5481
NA
4570
Wild Life Extreme
Unlimited
5020
3814
3705
2636
2233
Wild Life Unlimited
20534
14554
14823
11144
8671
Sling Shot Extreme
Unlimited
19653
13904
13558
6912
9484
Sling Shot Unlimited
22656
16344
16661
10690
11348
Where the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra really shines is in its gaming performance. Its Adreno 750 GPU not only supports ray tracing, it does a fantastic job of delivering top-notch 3D graphics performance.
Not only does it have a faster GPU, the Samsung S24 Ultra also has a 90% larger vapour chamber that allows it to better sustain peak performance during intense gaming sessions.
Although ray tracing games are far and few in between for now, the new Solar Bay benchmark shows that the Galaxy S24 Ultra delivers 56% better 3D with ray tracing performance than the Galaxy Z Flip5, and 88% better performance. than the Galaxy S23 FE!
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra : Overall Performance
We then tested the Galaxy S24 Ultra using AnTuTu, yielding these results :
AnTuTu
S24
Ultra
S23
Ultra
Z Flip
5
S23 FE
Z Flip
4
Device
SD 8
Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
Exynos
2200
SD 8+
Gen 1
AnTuTu Score
1826776
1212174
1187296
1166868
856357
CPU
456400
261886
393404
329078
205939
GPU
682555
538823
282780
425455
362669
Memory
380519
236163
291048
193981
135707
UX
307302
175302
220064
218354
152042
Will you look at that? The AnTuTu benchmark shows that the Galaxy S24 Ultra is a solid 50% faster than the Galaxy S23 Ultra, and Galaxy Z Flip 5 – both powered by last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Very nice!
But note that its temperature jumped by almost 12°C! At peak performance, the Galaxy S24 Ultra can get really toasty!
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Performance Summary
There is no doubt that the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra offers top-notch performance, thanks to its use of a slightly overclocked Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy, and a 90% larger vapour chamber.
It shows in the benchmarks – the Galaxy S24 Ultra topped all of the benchmarks, except for work performance. It is particularly strong in 3D graphics and ray tracing performance. With gaming performance like this, dedicated gaming smartphones seem rather pointless.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra : Price + Colour Options
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is available in four main colours:
Titanium Black
Titanium Gray
Titanium Violet, and
Titanium Yellow
Here are the official launch prices for the three available storage capacities:
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Samsung just sent us the new Galaxy S24 Ultra smartphone! Take a look at our unboxing video, and find out what’s inside the box!
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra : A Quick Primer!
Samsung just launched the new Galaxy S24 Ultra smartphone, and here is a quick summary of its key features:
Flagship-Class Performance
The Galaxy S24 Ultra is powered exclusively by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy in all regions of the world. It comes with a slightly overclocked prime core.
1 x Arm Cortex-X4 core (3.39 GHz, instead of 3.3 GHz)
3 x Arm Cortex-A720 cores
2 x Arm Cortex-A720 cores
2 x Arm Cortex-A520 cores
This mobile SoC also comes with the Qualcomm Adreno 750 GPU which supports ray-tracing, an improved Hexagon NPU, and the Snapdragon X75 5G modem that supports Sub-6Ghz and mmWave connectivity.
Improved Cooling
To ensure that the processor remains cool, the Galaxy S24 Ultra sports a 90% larger vapour chamber. This should allow it to better sustain peak performance during intense gaming sessions or AI photo / video editing,
The Galaxy S24 Ultra sports the same 200 MP Adaptive Pixel camera from last year, but introduces a new 50 MP telephoto camera with 5X optical zoom. This camera allows for better night photography through the use of 60% larger pixels (when combined), and the wider f/3.4 aperture.
The other cameras, including the front camera, remained the same from last year. However, Samsung said that its deep-learning AI algorithms now allow for much better quality digital zoom. The faster processor also allows for better quality video zooming through Video Super Resolution.
Titanium Frame
This is the first Samsung smartphone to feature a titanium frame, which is not only tougher, but also allows for a thinner chassis. It is also protected in the front by Corning Gorilla Armour glass, which is not only tougher against scratches, but also reduces reflection by up to 75%.
5,000 mAh Fast-Charging Battery
The Galaxy S24 Ultra comes with a large 5,000 mAh lithium-ion polymer battery, which supports 45 watt fast wired charging, and 15 watt fast wireless charging.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra : What’s Inside The Box?
We got our hands on the new Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra smartphone right after its official launch. Let’s take a quick look at the box before we check out what’s inside!
Once you fully unbox it, this is what you will find inside:
the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra smartphone
a Quick Start Guide in two languages, and a warranty card
a USB Type C to USB Type C data and charging cable
a SIM tray extraction pin
That’s it! While it supports 45 watt fast charging, it does not come with the charger. You will need to purchase it separately. Neither does it come with a TPU bumper case to tide you over until you get a better one.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra : Price + Colour Options
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is available in four main colours:
Titanium Black
Titanium Gray
Titanium Violet, and
Titanium Yellow
Here are the official launch prices for the three available storage capacities:
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Take a look at the performance of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE, and find out how well the Exynos 1380 performs against the competition!
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE : Powered By Exynos 1380
Like the Samsung Galaxy A54, the Galaxy Tab S9 FE runs on the Samsung Exynos 1380 mobile platform that was officially launched on 23 February 2023.
Fabricated on the latest 4nm process technology, the Exynos 1380 comes with an Arm Mali-G68 MP5 GPU, as well as eight processor cores in a dual-cluster architecture :
four Arm Cortex-A78 high-performance cores, and
four Arm Cortex-A55 low-power cores.
On paper, this is a powerful mid-range mobile platform, but let’s take a look at how it actually performs!
We first tested the devices using PCMark, which simulates work applications like web browsing, playing video, writing text and editing photos.
Work 3.0
Galaxy Tab
S8 Ultra
Galaxy
Tab S7+
Galaxy Tab
S9 FE
Galaxy Tab
S7 FE
Mobile Platform
SD
8 Gen 1
SD
865+
Exynos
1380
SD
778G
Performance Score
12351
12348
11650
9747
Web Browsing
9696
11864
9028
7355
Video Editing
6194
7664
6193
6028
Writing
14411
12659
15302
10512
Photo Editing
31774
26230
27122
22188
Data Manipulation
10449
9511
9248
8505
The Samsung Exynos 1380 did well in this test, delivering performance close – within 6% – to that of older flagship-class processors like the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and the Snapdragon 865+. Interestingly, the Exynos 1380 did better in the Galaxy A54, delivering a score of over 13.5K.
In any case, the Exynos 1380 is fast enough, even if we did not run this test – Galaxy Tab S9 FE did not feel slow at any app we tried.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE : Gaming Performance
For gaming, we tested the devices using 3DMark, with these results :
3DMark
Galaxy
Tab
S8 Ultra
Galaxy
Tab S7+
Galaxy
Tab S7 FE
Galaxy Tab
S9 FE
Mobile Platform
SD 8 Gen 1
SD 865+
SD 778G
Exynos 1380
Wild Life
Extreme
Unlimited
2221
–
–
826
Wild Life Unlimited
9838
–
–
2997
Sling Shot Unlimited
10728
8793
6688
6223
Where the Samsung Exynos 1380 really falls is in gaming performance. Even in the easy Sling Shot Unlimited benchmark, it was 7% slower than the mid-range Snapdragon 778G, which is 2.5 years old.
That doesn’t mean the Galaxy Tab S9 FE is useless at games. It runs 2D games and simple 3D games like Roblox perfectly fine. It’s the more strenuous 3D games that it will struggle in.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE : Overall Performance
We then tested the Galaxy Tab S9 FE using AnTuTu, yielding these results :
AnTuTu
Galaxy Tab
S8 Ultra
GGalaxy Tab
S9 FE
Galaxy
Tab S7+
Galaxy
Tab S7 FE
Mobile Platform
SD 8 Gen 1
Exynos 1380
SD 865+
SD 778G
AnTuTu Score
950630
591126
577726
508008
CPU
213689
193122
161243
157465
GPU
417669
136759
230859
155115
Memory
161903
118456
98269
79972
UX
157369
142789
87355
115456
The AnTuTu benchmark showed that this Fan Edition tablet performs at around the same level as the Snapdragon 865+, which is a flagship-class mobile SoC, albeit from 2020.
As you can see, its CPU is particularly fast, while its GPU is slow. In other words, this entry-level tablet will do great in work applications and simple games, but don’t rely on it for high-end 3D games!
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE Performance Summary
Built around the Samsung Exynos 1380, the Galaxy Tab S9 FE has a very fast CPU, but a relatively weak GPU.
What that means is that it offers snappy performance for most part – web browsing, work applications, casual gaming, etc. It only has trouble delivering high frame rates for graphics-intensive 3D games, and AI or 3D apps may take longer to process in comparison to flagship tablets.
This should not be a surprise – the Exynos 1380 is a mid-range mobile platform, after all. And it is a fast one for the most important workloads. This makes the Galaxy Tab S9 FE great for people who need an affordable and fast Android tablet for work and study.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE : Price + Availability
This Fan Edition tablet comes with colour options of Mint, Lavender, Gray and Silver. It comes with two RAM and storage options:
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Take a look at the battery recharging speed of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE, and find out how its two refresh rate options affect battery life!
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE : Two Refresh Rate Options!
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE offers two refresh rate options (Settings > Display > Motion smoothness) for its display:
Adaptive : Get smoother animation and scrolling by automatically adjusting your screen refresh rate up to 90 Hz
Standard : Get longer battery life with a 60 Hz screen refresh rate
By default, the Galaxy Tab S9 FE uses the Adaptive mode for smoother graphics, but you can choose to switch to the Standard mode for a longer battery life.
On investigation, I found that the Galaxy Tab S9 FE’s display has three fixed refresh rates, switching between 30 Hz, 60 Hz and 90 Hz, when set to the Adaptive mode.
In the next section, we will look at how the two refresh rate options affect the Galaxy Tab S9 FE’s battery life.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE comes with a large 8,000 mAh battery, which supports 45 watt super fast charging. It even supports 15 watt reverse fast charging. However, it does not come with any bundled charger, and the bundled USB cable can only support 25 watt fast charging.
To test its battery life, we turned off Automatic Brightness, fix the brightness level, and make sure the screen brightness does not change as the ambient brightness changes. We also set its display brightness to 50%, which is slightly higher than the average indoor brightness level of 40% during the day.
We then ran the PCMark Work 3.0 battery life test until its battery capacity dropped to 20% several times, and this was the best result we obtained with the Standard and Adaptive refresh rates :
Not bad! The Galaxy Tab S9 FE lasted almost 10 hours on the Standard refresh rate, and just over 9 hours on the Adaptive refresh rate.
With such results, it makes sense to just leave the Tab S9 FE on its default setting of Adaptive refresh. After all, it only saps its battery life by 8% (46 minutes).
This Fan Edition tablet delivered the best battery life with the Standard refresh rate of 60 Hz.
Thanks to its power-efficient Exynos 1380 processor and smaller display, it sips power compared to the other two larger and more powerful tablets.
Work 3.0
Tab S9 FE
(60 Hz)
Tab S7 Plus
(60 Hz)
Tab S8 Ultra
(60 Hz)
Display Size
10.9-inch
12.4-inch
14.6-inch
Battery Capacity
8,000 mAh
10,090 mAh
11,200 mAh
Battery Life
9 hrs
49 mins
7 hrs 55 mins
8 hrs 3 mins
Utilisation
per min.
10.87 mAh
16.99 mAh
18.55 mAh
Adaptive Refresh Rate (90 Hz / 120 Hz)
Switching on the Adaptive refresh rate allowed the display to switch between 30 Hz, 60 Hz and 90 Hz, and only cut down its battery life by 46 minutes (8%).
But as my evaluation shows – the Galaxy Tab S9 FE uses considerably less power than the two larger and more powerful tablets. In fact, it uses just over half as much as the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra!
Work 3.0
Tab S9 FE
(90 Hz)
Tab S7 Plus (120 Hz)
Tab S8 Ultra
(120 Hz)
Display Size
10.9-inch
12.4-inch
14.6-inch
Battery Capacity
8,000 mAh
10,090 mAh
11,200 mAh
Battery Life
9 hrs
3 mins
6 hrs
11 mins
6 hrs
38 mins
Utilisation
per min.
11.79 mAh
21.76 mAh
22.51 mAh
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE Battery Recharging Speed!
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE supports up to 45 watts of wired fast charging. However, it does not come with any bundled charger, and the bundled USB cable can only support 25 watt fast charging.
So we tested it using the standard 15 watt and 25 watt Samsung fast chargers that shipped with their previous smartphones, which is what we believe most users will end up doing.
Recharging Speed
Tab S8 Ultra
Tab S7 Plus
Tab S9 FE
(25W)
Tab S9 FE
(15W)
Display Size
14.6-inch
12.4-inch
10.9-inch
10.9-inch
Battery Capacity
11,200 mAh
10,090 mAh
8,000 mAh
8,000 mAh
Charger Output
15 watts
15 watts
25 watts
15 watts
Battery Life
86.5 mins
86 mins
90.5 mins
145.5 mins
Recharging Speed
(per minute)
103.6 mAh
93.9 mAh
70.7 mAh
44.0 mAh
Well, isn’t that interesting? Even with a more powerful 25W super fast charger, the Galaxy Tab S9 FE recharges slower than the Tab S7 Plus or the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra using the standard 15W charger!!
The 15W charger took almost 2.5 hours to fully recharge its 8,000 mAh battery from 20% to 100%. Upgrading to the 25W charger cut that down to just 1.5 hours, shaving off almost a full hour. The good news is that the Galaxy Tab S9 FE sips power, so you won’t need to recharge it quite so often.
If possible, you should purchase the optional 25 watt USB-C super fast charger. It will cut your charging time by almost an hour, and give you an hour of battery life for every 9.5 minutes you recharge:
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
In our in-depth review of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE, we will share with you everything you need to know about this affordable Fan Edition tablet.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE : Smaller Fan Edition Tablet
Samsung is offering two Tab S9 Fan Edition models – the Tab S9 FE with a 10.9-inch display, and the Tab S9 FE+ with a 12.4-inch display.
They both run on the same Samsung Exynos 1380 mobile platform, featuring four high-speed Cortex-A78 cores, and four low-power Cortex-A55 cores, and a Mali-G68 MP5 GPU.
Surprisingly, they both come with an S Pen stylus, like their pricier brethren. Their displays also support a dynamic refresh rate of up to 90 Hz.
The unit we are looking at today is the Galaxy Tab S9 FE, which is currently the smallest and most affordable Fan Edition variant of the Galaxy Tab S9 family of Android tablets.
45 watt super fast charging
15 watt reverse fast charging
Dimensions
254.3 mm wide
165.8 mm tall
6.5 mm thick
Weight
523 grams
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE Unboxing
Because this is an entry-level tablet, it comes with the bare minimum. Inside the box, you will find these items:
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE smartphone
Set of documents – quick start guide in two languages, and a warranty card
EP-DN980 (3A PD) USB Type C to Type C cable
SIM card extractor pin
Even though the Galaxy Tab S9 FE supports 45 W super-fast charging, it does not come with any charger. Neither does it come with a case, like the more premium Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra.
In case you are thinking of buying a 45 watt super fast charger, please note that the bundled EP-DN980 cable can only support 3A PD charging, which is good enough for 25 watt, but not for 45 watt.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE is an entry-level model which will not appeal to some. However, it has some surprises, so let’s take a closer look at its key features.
10.9-inch Display
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE is a smaller sized, entry-level model, and comes with a 10.9-inch TFT display. It has a WQXGA resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels, with a wider DCI-P3 colour gamut.
It supports a dynamic refresh rate of up to 90 Hz, which is limited to switching between three refresh rates – 30 Hz, 60 Hz, and 90 Hz.
Mid-Range Performance
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE runs on the Exynos 1380 mobile platform, which comes with an Arm Mali-G68 MP5 GPU, as well as eight processor cores in a dual-cluster architecture :
four Arm Cortex-A78 high-performance cores, and
four Arm Cortex-A55 low-power cores
The Samsung Exynos 1380 also has an neural processing unit (NPU) with a processing capacity of 4.9 TOPS, as well as an integrated 5G modem that supports download speeds up to 3.79 Gbps, and upload speeds of up to 1.28 Gbps.
RAM + Storage Options
Samsung is offering this tablet with two RAM and storage options :
6 GB RAM + 128 GB storage
8 GB RAM + 256 GB storage
You don’t have to worry too much about running out of storage, as it comes with a microSD card slot, allowing you to add up to 1 TB of additional storage.
Cameras
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE comes with a 12 MP front camera, and an 8 MP rear camera. Both cameras can record videos at up to 4K resolution (30 fps).
Pretty Tough
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE is protected by a tough aluminium frame all around its edges, and Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on its display.
IP68 Water Resistance
Even though this is an entry-level tablet, the Galaxy Tab S9 FE is IP68 rated for dust- and water-resistance!
While Samsung does not recommend it for beach or pool use, the Galaxy Tab S9 FE is rated to withstand submersion in up to 1.5 metres of freshwater for up to 30 minutes.
S Pen Stylus
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE also comes with a stylus, which is also IP68-rated for dust and water resistance.
Large Battery
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE comes with a large 8,000 mAh battery, which supports 45 watt super fast charging. It even supports 15 watt reverse fast charging.
However, it does not come with any bundled charger, and the bundled USB cable can only support 25 watt fast charging.
AKG Tuned Speakers
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE does not come with quad speakers like its more expensive brethren. However, its dual AKG-tuned speakers do a pretty good job.
No Support For Samsung DeX
This may be a deal breaker for power users or travellers – the Galaxy Tab S9 FE does not support Samsung DeX.
For one thing – it only has a USB 2.0 port, so it cannot output video through a USB to HDMI dongle. On top of that, it doesn’t support wireless DeX either.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE : Battery Life Comparison!
This Fan Edition tablet comes with a large 8,000 mAh battery. To test its battery life, we turned off Automatic Brightness, and set its display brightness to 50%.
Why 50%? That is actually slightly higher than the average indoor brightness level of 40% during the day, and is what we usually use in all our mobile battery life tests.
It is important to fix the brightness level, to make sure the screen brightness does not change as the ambient brightness changes.
We then ran the PCMark Work 3.0 battery life test until its battery capacity dropped to 20% several times, and this was the best result we obtained with the standard, and the adaptive refresh rates :
Not bad! The Galaxy Tab S9 FE lasted almost 10 hours on the Standard refresh rate, and just over 9 hours on the Adaptive refresh rate.
With such results, it makes sense to just leave the Tab S9 FE on its default setting of Adaptive refresh. After all, it only saps its battery life by 8% (46 minutes).
This Fan Edition tablet delivered the best battery life with the Standard refresh rate of 60 Hz.
Thanks to its power-efficient Exynos 1380 processor and smaller display, it sips power compared to the other two larger and more powerful tablets.
Work 3.0
Tab S9 FE
(60 Hz)
Tab S7 Plus
(60 Hz)
Tab S8 Ultra
(60 Hz)
Display Size
10.9-inch
12.4-inch
14.6-inch
Battery Capacity
8,000 mAh
10,090 mAh
11,200 mAh
Battery Life
9 hrs
49 mins
7 hrs 55 mins
8 hrs 3 mins
Utilisation
per min.
10.87 mAh
16.99 mAh
18.55 mAh
Adaptive Refresh Rate (90 Hz / 120 Hz)
Switching on the Adaptive refresh rate allowed the display to switch between 30 Hz, 60 Hz and 90 Hz, and only cut down its battery life by 46 minutes (8%).
But as my evaluation shows – the Galaxy Tab S9 FE uses considerably less power than the two larger and more powerful tablets. In fact, it uses just over half as much as the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra!
Work 3.0
Tab S9 FE
(90 Hz)
Tab S7 Plus (120 Hz)
Tab S8 Ultra
(120 Hz)
Display Size
10.9-inch
12.4-inch
14.6-inch
Battery Capacity
8,000 mAh
10,090 mAh
11,200 mAh
Battery Life
9 hrs
3 mins
6 hrs
11 mins
6 hrs
38 mins
Utilisation
per min.
11.79 mAh
21.76 mAh
22.51 mAh
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE : Battery Recharging Speed!
This tablet surprisingly supports up to 45 watts of wired fast charging, but unfortunately, does not come with the charger in-the-box. On top of that, its bundled cable only supports 25 watt fast charging.
So we tested it on the standard 15 watt Samsung fast charger, and the optional 25 watt Samsung super fast charger.
Recharging Speed
Tab S8 Ultra
Tab S7 Plus
Tab S9 FE
(25W)
Tab S9 FE
(15W)
Display Size
14.6-inch
12.4-inch
10.9-inch
10.9-inch
Battery Capacity
11,200 mAh
10,090 mAh
8,000 mAh
8,000 mAh
Charger Output
15 watts
15 watts
25 watts
15 watts
Battery Life
86.5 mins
86 mins
90.5 mins
145.5 mins
Recharging Speed
(per minute)
103.6 mAh
93.9 mAh
70.7 mAh
44.0 mAh
Well, isn’t that interesting? Even with a more powerful 25W super fast charger, the Galaxy Tab S9 FE recharges slower than the Tab S7 Plus or the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra using the standard 15W charger!!
The 15W charger took almost 2.5 hours to fully recharge its 8,000 mAh battery from 20% to 100%. Upgrading to the 25W charger cut that down to just 1.5 hours, shaving off almost a full hour.
The good news is that the Galaxy Tab S9 FE sips power, so you won’t need to recharge it quite so often.
We first tested the devices using PCMark, which simulates work applications like web browsing, playing video, writing text and editing photos.
Work 3.0
Galaxy Tab
S8 Ultra
Galaxy
Tab S7+
Galaxy Tab
S9 FE
Galaxy Tab
S7 FE
Mobile Platform
SD
8 Gen 1
SD
865+
Exynos
1380
SD
778G
Performance Score
12351
12348
11650
9747
Web Browsing
9696
11864
9028
7355
Video Editing
6194
7664
6193
6028
Writing
14411
12659
15302
10512
Photo Editing
31774
26230
27122
22188
Data Manipulation
10449
9511
9248
8505
The Samsung Exynos 1380 did well in this test, delivering performance close – within 6% – to that of older flagship-class processors like the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and the Snapdragon 865+. Interestingly, the Exynos 1380 did better in the Galaxy A54, delivering a score of over 13.5K.
In any case, the Exynos 1380 is fast enough, even if we did not run this test – Galaxy Tab S9 FE did not feel slow at any app we tried.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE : Gaming Performance
For gaming, we tested the devices using 3DMark, with these results :
3DMark
Galaxy
Tab
S8 Ultra
Galaxy
Tab S7+
Galaxy
Tab S7 FE
Galaxy Tab
S9 FE
Mobile Platform
SD 8 Gen 1
SD 865+
SD 778G
Exynos 1380
Wild Life
Extreme
Unlimited
2221
–
–
826
Wild Life Unlimited
9838
–
–
2997
Sling Shot Unlimited
10728
8793
6688
6223
Where the Samsung Exynos 1380 really falls is in gaming performance. Even in the easy Sling Shot Unlimited benchmark, it was 7% slower than the mid-range Snapdragon 778G, which is 2.5 years old.
That doesn’t mean the Galaxy Tab S9 FE is useless at games. It runs 2D games and simple 3D games like Roblox perfectly fine. It’s the more strenuous 3D games that it will struggle in.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE : Overall Performance
We then tested the Galaxy Tab S9 FE using AnTuTu, yielding these results :
AnTuTu
Galaxy Tab
S8 Ultra
GGalaxy Tab
S9 FE
Galaxy
Tab S7+
Galaxy
Tab S7 FE
Mobile Platform
SD 8 Gen 1
Exynos 1380
SD 865+
SD 778G
AnTuTu Score
950630
591126
577726
508008
CPU
213689
193122
161243
157465
GPU
417669
136759
230859
155115
Memory
161903
118456
98269
79972
UX
157369
142789
87355
115456
The AnTuTu benchmark showed that this Fan Edition tablet performs at around the same level as the Snapdragon 865+, which is a flagship-class mobile SoC, albeit from 2020.
As you can see, its CPU is particularly fast, while its GPU is slow. In other words, this entry-level tablet will do great in work applications and simple games, but don’t rely on it for high-end 3D games!
The Galaxy Tab S9 FE is Samsung’s entry-level Android tablet, built around a mid-range mobile platform, and a 10.9-inch display with a refresh rate that goes up to 90 Hz.
Even though it’s “just” an entry-level tablet, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it is IP68-rated against dust and water. It also comes with an IP68-rated S Pen stylus!
It has decent performance, with a strong focus on work performance. And it offers a long battery life, thanks to its 8,000 mAh battery, and more power-efficient display and processor.
In other words – this Fan Edition tablet is not sexy, but it gets the job done.
If there is a major turn-off for some potential buyers, it will be the lack of Samsung DeX. There is no support for wireless DeX, or video output via its USB port. But of course – this limitation only concerns those who want to use Samsung DeX.
Otherwise, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE is a decent package of features and capabilities in a tough, and water-resistant tablet.
If you are looking for an affordable Android tablet for work or study, you really can’t go wrong with the Galaxy Tab S9 FE.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE : Price + Availability
This Fan Edition tablet comes with colour options of Mint, Lavender, Gray and Silver. It comes with two RAM and storage options:
45 watt super fast charging
15 watt reverse fast charging
Dimensions
254.3 mm wide
165.8 mm tall
6.5 mm thick
Weight
523 grams
Please Support My Work!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
In this review, we are going to take a close look at the Synology DiskStation DS223j – its latest 2-bay NAS system, and find out how well it performs!
Synology J Series NAS Systems
The Synology J Series are its entry-level NAS systems – offering an affordable way to get networked storage for backup, or personal storage. They also have a more consumer look, with a white chassis.
The Synology J series comes in below the Value series, and lacks hot-swappable drives, and front USB ports. However, it has most of its key features, including support for the Btrfs file system.
Synology currently has two J series models – the 2-bay DS223j, and the single-bay DS120j.
Synology DiskStation DS223j Price
As its entry-level 2-bay NAS system, the Synology DiskStation DS223J comes at an affordable price point.
It has a suggested retail price of US$189.99 (diskless), but you can get some pretty good deals online, with or without bundled drives:
100 V to 240 V DC power input
50/60 Hz, single phase
Operating Temperature
0°C to 40°C (32°F to 104°F)
Storage Temperature
-20°C to 60°C (-5°F to 140°F)
Size
165 mm high
100 mm wide
225.5 mm deep
Weight
0.88 grams
Warranty
2 Year Hardware Warranty
Synology DiskStation DS223j Box Contents
The Synology DiskStation DS223j comes in a large cardboard box, with a label to let you know exactly what’s inside the box. On opening the box, you will find the following items:
However, when it comes to writing files to the NAS, the number of bays, and the drive speeds are what counts.
The 4-bay MyCloud EX4100 is far ahead, because it’s able to write to two drives at the same time (in RAID 1).
The faster 4TB Synology Plus drives used in the DS223j allowed it to pull ahead of the DS214+ by 16%.
Small Files Read Speed
This is quite a surprising result. For some reason, the Synology DS214+ did very well in this test, beating even the 4-bay MyCloud EX4100 by almost 30%!
And the Synology DS223j, which is much faster in every way, delivered a much lower speed of just under 48 MB/s.
Small Files Write Speed
That’s completely flipped when it came to write speed – copying small files to the NAS systems.
Again, the 4-bay MyCloud EX4100 has the advantage here, because it can write to two drives at the same time.
But the Synology DS223j did very well here, coming within 23% of the MyCloud EX4100. This is likely due to its faster 4TB Synology Plus drives.
The Synology DiskStation DS223j is a cheap but solid 2-bay NAS system. Its plastic chassis feels cheap, but it packs all of the key features most home users would need.
You get an affordable RAID 1 backup solution, with fast Gigabit LAN connectivity, and two USB 3.0 (rebranded as USB 3.2 Gen 1) ports at the back for when you need to copy files to or from a USB flash drive or portable HDD.
It also gives you access to the excellent Synology DiskStation Manager operating system, as well as hundreds of add-on packages which you can use to add capabilities to your NAS.
Synology updates its DiskStation Manager regularly, which is great, because it fixes bugs that may cause considerable grief. For example, when I started testing the DS223j, I encountered a problem accessing it on macOS with a VPN enabled.
No matter what I did, the Mac computer simply could not “see” or “locate” the DiskStation on the network. The only way was to disable the VPN. Fortunately, the problem “magically” went away a few updates later. *
Mac users will also be happy to know that it supports Time Machine backup. While it requires some simple setting up, it works perfectly… which is not something I can say about the MyCloud EX4100!
Prosumers might want to spend a bit extra to upgrade to the non-J version – the DiskStation DS223 from the Value series. Not only does it come with a front USB port (for more convenient use), it allows you to hot swap drives.
If any drive fails on the DS223j, you will need to power it down and open it up to swap out the drive. On the non-J version, you can simply slide out the old drive and replace it with a new one without even powering down the DS223 NAS. But of course – this is a nice feature that most home users probably won’t need.
Performance-wise – the DS223j runs on the same Realtek RTD1619B process as the non-J model. Its four Arm Cortex-A55 cores is more than fast enough for transferring files. Its CPU usage is usually less than 50%. Even when I ran data scrubbing, its CPU usage was around 15% on average.
And if you are wondering about whether you can live with just 1 GB of RAM on the DS223j, yes, you can. The RAM usage is usually less than 20% on our DS223j.
Generally, if you want something cheap and good from Synology, you can’t go wrong with the DiskStation DS223j. For these reasons, we think it deserves our Reviewer’s Choice Award!
* It would have lost the award if Synology did not manage to fix the accessibility problem for macOS.
Synology DiskStation DS223j : Where To Buy?
As its entry-level 2-bay NAS system, the Synology DiskStation DS223J comes at an affordable price point.
It has a suggested retail price of US$189.99 (diskless), but you can get some pretty good deals online, with or without bundled drives:
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Samsung just sent me the new Galaxy Tab S9 FE – Fan Edition – tablet, and here is my unboxing video, as well as my first impressions!
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE : What’s In The Box?
Samsung just sent me the new Galaxy Tab S9 FE – Fan Edition – tablet, and here is my unboxing video. Inside the box, you will find these items:
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE smartphone
Set of documents – quick start guide in two languages, and a warranty card
EP-DN980 (3A PD) USB Type C to Type C cable
SIM card extractor pin
Even though the Galaxy Tab S9 FE supports 45 W super-fast charging, it does not come with any charger. Neither does it come with a case, like the more premium Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra.
In case you are thinking of buying a 45 watt super fast charger, please note that the bundled EP-DN980 cable can only support 3A PD charging, which is good enough for 25 watt, but not for 45 watt.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE (Fan Edition) is a more affordable version of the Galaxy Tab S9 tablet, released earlier this year. And it really gives a lot of bang for your buck!
The Fan Edition looks quite alike the Galaxy Tab S9, with a classy matte metal chassis. Most of the differences are internal or not readily visible. The two key differences are probably how Samsung managed to cut down its cost – its display, and its processor.
The Tab S9 FE comes with a 10.9-inch IPS display, instead of an 11-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display. It also supports a maximum refresh rate of 90 Hz, instead of 120 Hz.
The Galaxy Tab S9 FE is also built around the Samsung Exynos 1380, instead of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. The Exynos 1380 is a mid-range processor that powers mid-range smartphones like the Galaxy A54, but it still feels speedy.
The Fan Edition has a slightly smaller 8,000 mAh battery, but I have had no problems using it for over 6 hours at a go. I’m currently running performance and battery benchmarks, which I will share shortly.
Samsung does not skimp where it really matters. For example, this tablet comes with a generous 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of internal storage, which will be plenty enough for most users. Those who need less storage can opt for the even cheaper 6 GB + 128 GB model.
The Galaxy Tab S9 FE also comes with an S Pen stylus to round out the tablet experience. I’m so glad Samsung did not penny-pinch its fans by making this an “optional purchase”!
On top of that, Samsung also included support for 45 watt super fast charging. Sure, there’s no in-box charger, but you can pretty much use any PD power bank or charger to quickly recharge the Tab S9 FE.
Overall – this Fan Edition tablet has impressed me right out of the box. It’s certainly not the best tablet money can buy, but my first impressions is that it really offers a lot of value for our money!
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE : Specifications
Here are the key specifications for the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE tablet :
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Here is my comprehensive review of the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE smartphone!
Find out why this Fan Edition smartphone hits the sweet spot for many people!
Samsung Galaxy S23 FE Colour Options + Price
The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE comes with colour options of Mint, Lavender, Gray and Silver, with two exclusive colours on their website – Tangerine and Indigo. They are all offered with two RAM and storage options:
6 GB + 128 GB
8 GB + 256 GB
These are the available models and launch prices for the Galaxy S23 FE :
In our unboxing video, you can see that the Galaxy S23 FE package is sparse, and only consists of:
Samsung Galaxy S23 FE smartphone
Set of documents – quick start guide in two languages, and a warranty card
USB Type C to Type C cable
SIM card extractor pin
As the unboxing video shows, the Galaxy S23 FE does not come with any charger, or earphones. Not even a TPU case to hold you over until you get a better case.
The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE comes with a 6.3-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel, with a 120 Hz refresh rate and a resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels.
Interestingly, this display is slightly larger than the 6.1-inch display on the Galaxy S23, but you won’t be able to tell the difference. In fact, its display looks pretty much like the Galaxy S23 – large, and beautiful, with excellent resolution, colour gamut, and brightness.
The display ostensibly changes its refresh rate according to your needs automatically, but I found that the Galaxy S23 FE’s display only switches between the 60 Hz and 120 Hz refresh rates. While that may not be quite so optimal for extended battery life, but you will glad to know that its battery life is actually really good with the adaptive refresh rate mode enabled!
Performance
The Samsung Galaxy S23 runs on Samsung’s best in-house mobile chip – the Exynos 2200, which is fabricated on the 4 nm process technology.
Launched in January 2022, this is a flagship-class mobile SoC (System-on-a-Chip) designed to compete with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. It has eight processor cores with a tri-cluster architecture:
a Cortex-X2 prime core running at up to 2.8 GHz,
three Cortex-A710 cores running at up to 2.5 GHz, and
four Cortex-A510 cores running at up to 1.8 GHz.
This mobile SoC also comes with the Samsung Xclipse 920 GPU, a dual-core NPU, and DSPs to support 8K video decoding at up to 60 fps, and camera resolutions up to 200 MP.
The Samsung Exynos 2200 also has a built-in 5G modem that supports Sub-6Ghz and mmWave connectivity, as well as LTE Cat.24 download and LTE Cat.22 upload speeds.
RAM + Storage
The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE comes with 8 GB of LPDDR5 RAM, and supports extended memory (RAM Plus) which uses 2 GB / 4 GB / 6 GB / 8 GB of your storage as virtual memory.
But frankly speaking – there is no need to even enable RAM Plus. 8GB of memory is more than enough to run multiple apps, and even the most memory-intensive games!
Samsung offers storage options of either 128 GB or 256 GB. It is important that you select the storage option that best fits your requirements, as the Galaxy S23 FE does not support storage expansion through a microSD card.
Dual SIM Support
The Galaxy S23 FE has a SIM card tray that supports two nano SIM cards. It also supports an eSIM, so technically, you can use up to three SIMs, but only two can be used at the same time.
Buttons
The only buttons you will find are on the upper right side of the Galaxy S23 FE – the Volume control buttons and the Power button, which doubles as the fingerprint sensor.
Pressing the Power button twice activates the Quick Shot mode, which lets you take selfies using the rear cameras with the Flex Window for preview and control.
Only One Port
The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE comes with a USB Type C port, which supports USB 3.2 connectivity. It does not come with a 3.5 mm audio jack, or a USB-C to 3.5 mm adapter in the box.
Protection
The Galaxy S23 FE is IP68 dust and water-resistant. That means it will withstand immersion in up to 1.5 metres of freshwater for up to 30 minutes.
In addition, it has a thick aluminium frame all around, and is protected on both the front and rear aspects by Corning Gorilla Glass 5, instead of Gorilla Glass Victus 2 in the Galaxy S23.
Battery + Charging
Powering all that is a 4,500 mAh lithium-ion polymer battery, which is actually 600 mAh (15%) larger than the Galaxy S23‘s 3,900 mAh battery.
The Galaxy S23 recharges at up to 45 watts, while the Fan Edition only supports 25 watt fast charging, but that is fast enough for most users.
It also supports 15 watt wireless charging, and can even wireless recharge other devices, albeit at just 4.5 watts. However, it does not come with an in-box charger. So you will have to use your old charger, or buy a new one.
In the front, the Galaxy S23 FE has a 10 MP punch hole camera, with an f/2.4 aperture. It’s decent, but nothing to shout about.
The pricier Galaxy S23 comes with a 12 MP camera in the front, with a slightly wider f/2.2 aperture, so you can expect it to perform slightly better in low-light conditions.
But I’m glad to report that this camera can also record video at up to 4K resolution at 60 fps, just like the Galaxy S23‘s front camera.
Triple Camera System At The Back
At the back, the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE has a triple camera system, which consists of:
a 50 MP Dual Pixel camera, with f/1.8 aperture,
a 12 MP ultra-wide angle camera, with f/2.2 aperture, and
an 8 MP telephoto camera, with 3X optical zoom, and f/2.4 aperture
The main camera is built around the Samsung ISOCELL GN3 (S5KGN3) sensor, which has a small 1.0 µm pixel size. Hence, it defaults to 12.5 MP photos, which allows it to combine four pixels into a large 1.0 µm “virtual pixel”. Combined with a wide f/1.8 aperture, this allows for excellent low-light photographic capabilities.
I cannot find out what sensor the ultra-wide angle camera uses, but it has a 12 MP sensor, and a wide aperture of f/2.2.
Its telephoto camera though is built around the SK hynix Hi-847 image sensor. This is rather old sensor from February 2019, with a small 1.0 µm pixel size.
The main camera is excellent, and the ultra-wide angle camera is good. But I can’t help feeling a bit shortchanged with the telephoto camera. It could be better.
Samsung Galaxy S23 FE Photo Samples
The Samsung Galaxy S23’s telephoto camera may be dated, but you will likely use its much newer 50 MP Dual Pixel main camera, and 12 MP ultra-wide angle camera.
Just make sure you enable (High Efficiency Image Format) so that the photos don’t take up so much space – the resulting HEIC photos are much smaller at between 2-3 MB in size.
Here are ten unedited photo samples for you to check out.
The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE comes with a decent 4,500 mAh battery, which is actually 15% larger than the Galaxy S23‘s 3,900 battery.
To test its battery life, we turned off Automatic Brightness, fix the brightness level, and make sure the screen brightness does not change as the ambient brightness changes.
We also set its display brightness to 50%, which is slightly higher than the average indoor brightness level of 40% during the day.
We then ran the PCMark Work 3.0 battery life test until its battery capacity dropped to 20% several times, and this was the best result we obtained with the Standard and Adaptive refresh rates :
Not bad! The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE lasted almost 10.5 hours with the Adaptive refresh mode enabled, and almost lasted 11 hours with the Standard refresh mode!
In other words – it does not make (battery) sense to switch to the Standard refresh mode. You wouldn’t be able to tell the difference in battery life.
Let’s compare its battery life at 60 Hz and 120 Hz, against the Z Flip5, S23 Ultra, and S22 Ultra smartphones.
Standard Refresh Rate (60 Hz)
The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE naturally has the best battery life with the refresh rate set to 60 Hz (Standard) – lasting just under 11 hours.
As this comparison shows, the Galaxy S23 FE isn’t quite as efficient as Samsung’s flagship devices like the Z Flip5, S23 Ultra, and S22 Ultra. But it’s close enough.
Work 3.0
S23 Ultra
S22 Ultra
Z Flip 5
S23 FE
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
3,700 mAh
4,500 mAh
Battery Life
15 hrs 18 mins
14 hrs 15 mins
11 hrs 4 mins
10 hrs 57 mins
Utilisation
per min.
4.36 mAh
4.68 mAh
4.46 mAh
5.48 mAh
Adaptive Refresh Rate (120 Hz)
But its Adaptive refresh rate is surprisingly so efficient, it actually uses (slightly) less power than the Galaxy S23 Ultra, and Galaxy Z Flip5 smartphones. With a slightly larger battery, it actually lasted more than an hour longer than the Galaxy Z Flip5!
In fact, it’s so efficient that it almost matches the battery life of the S22 Ultra, which has a 28% larger battery!
Needless to say – we are highly recommending you stick with the Adaptive refresh mode for the Galaxy S23 FE!
Work 3.0
S23 Ultra
S22 Ultra
S23 FE
Z Flip 5
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
4,500 mAh
3,700 mAh
Battery Life
13 hrs
0 mins
10 hrs
38 mins
10 hrs 20 mins
9 hrs
9 mins
Utilisation
per min.
5.13 mAh
6.27 mAh
5.81 mAh
5.39 mAh
Samsung Galaxy S23 FE Battery Recharging Speed!
The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE supports up to 45 watts of wired fast charging, but unfortunately, does not come with the charger in-the-box.
So we tested it using the standard 15 watt and 25 watt Samsung fast chargers that shipped with their previous smartphones, which is what we believe most users will end up doing.
Work 3.0
S22 Ultra
S23 FE
S23 Ultra
S23 FE
Z Flip 5
Z Flip 5
Battery Capacity
3,300 mAh
4,500 mAh
5,000 mAh
4,500 mAh
3,700 mAh
3,700 mAh
Charger Output
15 watts
25 watts
15 watts
15 watts
25 watts
15 watts
Battery Life
64.5 min
73 min
88.8 min
96 min
105 min
129.5 min
Recharging Speed
(per minute)
62.0 mAh
49.3 mAh
45.0 mAh
37.5 mAh
28.2 mAh
22.9 mAh
Not bad! The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE chargers really fast with a 15 watt charger, and even faster with a 25 watt charger. It basically needs just over 1.5 hours to fully recharge with a 15 watt charger, and just under one hour and 15 minutes with a 25 watt charger.
This gives us a battery life to recharging time ratio of about 6.5:1, which is pretty good. You get about an hour’s worth of battery life for every 9.25 minutes you recharge.
If you prefer to get faster charging, you should purchase the optional 25 watt USB-C super fast charger. It will cut your charging time by 23 minutes, and give you an hour of battery life for every 8.5 minutes you recharge:
We first tested the Galaxy S23 FE using PCMark, which simulates work applications like web browsing, playing video, writing text and editing photos.
Work 3.0
S23 Ultra
Z Flip 5
Z Flip 4
S23 FE
S22 Ultra
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8+
Gen 1
Exynos
2200
SD 8
Gen 1
Performance Score
16408
14655
14429
13971
12860
Web Browsing
15680
11404
12097
11664
10442
Video Editing
7879
7943
7387
7369
7444
Writing
22257
19525
17593
18138
15471
Photo Editing
35533
324420
31762
27060
30177
Data Manipulation
12171
11788
12523
12616
9691
Not bad! The Exynos 2200 is certainly no match for the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, but it actually beat the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 by 9%, and came within 3.3% of the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1!
I should point out that these are peak performance results. The truth is – you won’t be able to actually tell the difference between the three mobile processors in normal usage.
Samsung Galaxy S23 FE : Storage Performance
PCMark also has an Android Storage 2.0 benchmark that measures the smartphone’s storage I/O performance.
Storage 2.0
Z Flip 5
S23 Ultra
S23 FE
S22 Ultra
Z Flip 4
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
Exynos
2200
SD 8
Gen 1
SD 8+
Gen 1
Storage Score
48435
41647
31839
27808
27271
Sequential Read (MB/s)
2676.53
2592.42
1584.66
1457.68
1350.51
Random Read (MB/s)
49.95
38.25
31.25
37.73
33.94
Sequential Write (MB/s)
2631.38
603.29
510.16
856.21
256.81
Random Write (MB/s)
76.66
81.44
81.13
47.20
50.29
Samsung appeared to have used slower flash storage to reduce the cost of the Galaxy S23 FE. Its storage performance is much closer to last year’s Galaxy S22 Ultra, than the Galaxy S23 Ultra.
Interestingly, its random write performance was exceptional, matching the Galaxy S23 Ultra, and almost double that of the Galaxy S22 Ultra,
Samsung Galaxy S23 FE : Gaming Performance
For gaming, we tested the Galaxy S23 FE using 3DMark, with these results :
3DMark
Z Flip 5
S23 Ultra
Z Flip 4
S22 Ultra
S23 FE
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8+
Gen 1
SD 8
Gen 1
Exynos
2200
Solar Bay Unlimited
5481
NA
NA
NA
4570
Wild Life Extreme
Unlimited
3705
3814
2636
2220
2233
Wild Life Unlimited
14823
14554
11144
9106
8671
Sling Shot Unlimited
16661
16344
10690
11094
11348
The Samsung Exynos 2200 powering the Galaxy S23 FE is almost identical in performance to the Galaxy S22 Ultra‘s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 – the difference between their performance is less than 0.7%!
Like the Galaxy S22 Ultra, the Galaxy S23 FE will have no problem handling most games. Only when it comes to more strenuous games (as tested by the Wild Life benchmark) does it lag significantly behind the Galaxy S23 Ultra‘s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor.
But the good news is that the new Solar Bay ray-tracing benchmark shows that the Exynos 2200 is able to hold its own – it is just 17% slower than the Galaxy Z Flip5, which is powered by the Snapdragon Gen 2 for Galaxy processor.
Samsung Galaxy S23 FE : Overall Performance
We then tested the Galaxy S23 FE using AnTuTu, yielding these results :
AnTuTu
S23 Ultra
Z Flip 5
S23 FE
S22 Ultra
Z Flip 4
Device
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
Exynos
2200
SD 8
Gen 1
SD 8+
Gen 1
AnTuTu Score
1212174
1187296
1166868
889167
856357
CPU
261886
393404
329078
203090
205939
GPU
538823
282780
425455
402617
362669
Memory
236163
291048
193981
146002
135707
UX
175302
220064
218354
137458
152042
The AnTuTu benchmark tells a slightly different story. According to its tests, the Galaxy S23 FE is about 31% faster than the Galaxy S22 Ultra, and 36% faster than the Galaxy Z Flip 4. Not bad!
The Galaxy S23 actually came within 2% of the Galaxy Z Flip 5‘s performance, at least in the AnTuTu Benchmark. In fact, it was only 3.7% slower than the Galaxy S23 Ultra!
But note that its temperature jumped by almost 12°C! At peak performance, the Galaxy S23 FE can get quite toasty!
Let’s do a quick wrap of what I really like, and don’t like, about the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE.
Hits Most Of The Sweet Spots
Think of the Fan Edition of any Samsung smartphone as its “Value For Money” variant. That is what the Galaxy S23 FE really is – a Galaxy S23 variant that offers much better value for your money.
It isn’t powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, but its Exynos 2200 is no slouch either. It’s fast in work applications, and handles itself well in games. And of course – it also has a fast 5G modem built-in.
Like the Galaxy S23, the Fan Edition also comes with 8 GB of LPDDR5 memory and up to 256 GB of flash storage. But it actually ups the ante with a larger 4,500 mAh battery.
Even in the camera department, it comes with a 50 MP Dual Pixel main camera, and likely the same 12 MP ultra-wide angle camera. Only its telephoto camera uses an older and lower-resolution sensor.
It may not be protected by Armor Aluminium and Gorilla Glass Victus 2, but its thick aluminium frame and Gorilla Glass 5 protection is, frankly, “good enough” for most users.
Samsung gave it only 25 watt fast charging, instead of 45 watt fast charging, but unless you are forking out extra money for the super fast charger (sold separately), this is a moot point.
If there is something I don’t quite like, it’s that the Galaxy S23 FE is quite chunky. It has a slightly larger display, but its thicker bezel makes it quite a bit much larger.
On top of that, it is noticeably thicker and heavier. You may like the “solid” feel, or you may dislike the weight. Older smartphone gimbals, for example, may not support its weight.
Lower Power Efficiency
This is, frankly, only of interest to techies like me, and probably pointless to most users – compared to the more premium Galaxy S23 models, the Galaxy S23 FE has lower power efficiency.
That’s probably why Samsung gave it a larger (and heavier) 4,500 mAh battery, which allows the Galaxy S23 FE to almost get 11 hours of battery life. So it’s ultimately a trade-off – you pay less for cheaper electronics and a larger battery.
Samsung Galaxy S23 FE : My Verdict + Award
At first glance, the Galaxy S23 FE may not look as polished as the Galaxy S23. The Fan Edition model has a shiny glass back which attracts fingerprint smears, instead of the stylish matte finish of the regular Galaxy S23. It also looks and feels chunkier and heavier when you compare them both.
However, if you can get past those superficialities and really look at what they both offer, you will realise what I realised – the Galaxy S23 FE offers much better value for money.
As my review has already shown, the Galaxy S23 FE hits most of the sweet spots for most users. In fact, it’s practically a no-brainer for most people considering the Galaxy S23 – the Galaxy S23 FE is a better deal.
This is why we believe it deserves nothing less than our Editor’s Choice Award! Great job, Samsung!
Samsung Galaxy S23 FE : Where To Buy
The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE comes with colour options of Mint, Lavender, Gray and Silver, with two exclusive colours on their website – Tangerine and Indigo. They are all offered with two RAM and storage options:
6 GB + 128 GB
8 GB + 256 GB
These are the available models and launch prices for the Galaxy S23 FE :
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
In this review, we are going to take a close look at the 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) hard disk drive, and find out how well it performs!
Updated @ 2023-11-09 : Updated with operating temperature results, and minor changes. Originally posted @ 2023-10-05
Synology Plus Series (HAT3300) NAS Drives
The Synology Plus Series (HAT3300) hard disk drives are designed to populate their Network-Attach Storage (NAS) systems for homes and small businesses.
These Synology Plus Series drives are designed for light-to-intermediate use. Based on the Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) technology, they are similar to the WD Red and Seagate Iron Wolf range of NAS drives, with a 1 million hour MTBF and 180 TB per year workload rating.
The main advantage of these drives is that their firmware can be automatically updated using the DiskStation Manager (DSM) in Synology NAS systems.
4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) Price
The 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) hard disk drive commands a slight premium over comparable drives like the 4TB WD Red (Price Check) and the 4TB Seagate IronWolf (Price Check).
Retailing at about $90 as of 3 October 2023, it works out to a cost of $22.50 per TB. Here are some online purchase options:
The Synology Plus series offers storage capacities of 4TB, 6TB, 8TB and 12TB. With the exception of the 12TB model, all drives in this family are air-filled, and have a 5,400 RPM spindle speed.
The baby of this family, which we are reviewing today, is the 4TB Synology Plus drive, which has a model number of HAT3300-4T. Here are its key specifications:
Specifications
4 TB Synology Plus
Model
HAT3300-4T
Capacity
4 Terabytes
Form Factor
3.5-inch
Drive Design
Air
Recording Technology
Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR)
Interface
SATA 6 Gb/s
Cache
256 MB
Rotational Speed
5,400 RPM
Max. Data Transfer Speed
202 MB/s
Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF)
1,000,000 hours
Workload Rating
180 TB / year
Power Consumption
Idle : 3.96 W
Random Read : 4.85 W
Random Write : 4.85 W
Operating Temperature
0°C to 65°C
32°F to 149°F
Non-Operating Temperature
-40°C to 70°C
-40°F to 158°F
Operating Shock
80 Gs (2 ms duration)
Non-Operating Shock
300 Gs (2 ms duration)
Operating Vibration
10 Hz to 22 Hz: 0.25 Gs, Limited displacement
22 Hz to 350 Hz: 0.50 Gs
350 Hz to 500 Hz: 0.25 Gs
Non-Operating Vibration
5 Hz to 22 Hz: 3.0 Gs
22 Hz to 350 Hz: 3.0 Gs
350 Hz to 500 Hz: 3.0 Gs
Acoustics
Idle : 23 dBA
Seek : 27 dBA
Size
20.20 mm high
101.85 mm wide
147 mm long
Weight
490 g
Warranty
3 Years
4TB Synology Plus HDD Unboxing + Hands-On
The 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) hard disk drive comes in a large cardboard box, with a window to let you peek inside.
On opening the box, you will see that the drive is well-protected. It’s sealed in an anti-static bag, placed within a plastic enclosure, and further protected from shock and vibration by two large foam inserts.
The 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) hard disk drive is designed for the light-to-intermediate usage requirements of personal and SMB (small and medium business) NAS systems. Here are its key features:
Manufactured By Seagate
Synology does not make this hard disk drive, which was manufactured by Seagate. Think of this as a Seagate IronWolf hard disk drive that was customised to Synology’s requirements, and with custom firmware for Synology.
Under The PCB
In the following video, we took a look under its PCB, and here was what we found:
The 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) comes with a large 256 MB SDRAM cache, courtesy of a Samsung K4B2G1646F memory chip. This is a DDR3-1866 SDRAM chip with 16 memory banks, and a peak transfer rate of about 466 MB/s.
It also uses a Seagate Dillon motor drive controller, which features ST Microelectronics’ proprietary Smooth Drive pseudo-sinusoidal digital drive technology. The drive controller itself has a thermal pad to help keep cool, by transferring heat to the drive chassis.
Finally, this NAS drive has two sensors on its PCB, which allow it to better detect shock and vibration events, and dynamically adjust the flying height of the read/write heads to avoid head crashes.
The 4TB Synology Plus is backed by a million hour MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) rating, and is rated for a workload of 180 TB per year.
That works out to 15 terabytes per month, and is about par for the course for consumer-grade NAS drives.
Easy Firmware Updates
Unlike third-party NAS drives from Western Digital or Seagate, you can easily update the firmware of the 4TB Synology Plus hard disk drive using DiskStation Manager (DSM) in Synology NAS systems.
This is a convenient feature for those who use Synology NAS systems – you won’t need to remove the drive, or use a separate computer, to update its firmware.
Low Power Consumption
Power consumption is pretty low, at just under 5 watts. Even if you run this drive 24/7, it will only consume 42.5 kW per year.
Real world usage will be significantly lower, since NAS systems are designed to power down drives during periods of inactivity.
4TB Synology Plus Operating Temperature
We monitored the surface temperature of the three hard disk drives while idle, and during their benchmarks. The following chart shows their operating temperature range, from idle to maximum load.
Please note that instead of giving you the absolute numbers, we are showing the temperature delta, which is the difference between the actual temperature and the ambient room temperature.
The 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) appears to run slightly hotter than the 4TB WD Red, but significantly cooler than the 6TB WD Red. This is good news, because it can get really hot inside the NAS enclosure!
4TB Synology Plus CrystalDiskMark Performance Results
Let’s take a look at the 4TB Synology Plus hard disk drive’s sequential read and write performance, compared to the 4TB WD Red, and the 6TB WD Red drives.
Sequential Read Performance
With a queue depth of 1, the 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) delivered a maximum sequential read speed of 215 MB/s.
This is about 6% over its rated transfer rate of 202 MB/s, and puts it 20% ahead of the 6TB WD Red drive, and 39% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
When queue depth increased to 8, the 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) delivered a maximum sequential read speed of just under 217 MB/s.
This is about 7% over its rated transfer rate of 202 MB/s, and puts it 20% ahead of the 6TB WD Red drive, and 38% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
Sequential Write Performance
With a queue depth of 1, the 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) delivered a maximum sequential write speed of 214 MB/s.
This is about 6% over its rated transfer rate of 202 MB/s, and puts it 29% ahead of the 6TB WD Red drive, and 42% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
When queue depth increased to 8, the 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) delivered a maximum sequential write speed of just over 214 MB/s.
This is about 6% over its rated transfer rate of 202 MB/s, and puts it 24% ahead of the 6TB WD Red drive, and 42% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
Now, let’s take a look at the 4TB Synology Plus hard disk drive’s random read and write performance, compared to the 4TB WD Red, and the 6TB WD Red drives.
Random Read Performance
With a queue depth of 1, the 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) delivered a maximum random read speed of 670 KB/s.
That puts it 6% ahead of the 6TB WD Red drive, and 15.5% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
When queue depth increased to 32, the 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) delivered a maximum random read speed of 2.08 MB/s.
That puts it on par with the 6TB WD Red drive, and just 4% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
Random Write Performance
With a queue depth of 1, the 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) delivered a maximum random write speed of 1.85 MB/s.
That puts it 23% behind the 6TB WD Red drive, but 44.5% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
When queue depth increased to 32, the 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) delivered a maximum random write speed of just over 1.8 MB/s.
That puts it 24% behind the 6TB WD Red drive, but 43% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
4TB Synology Plus ATTO Benchmark Performance Results
Let’s take a look at the 4TB Synology Plus hard disk drive’s peak read and write speeds, compared to the 4TB WD Red, and the 6TB WD Red drives.
Peak Read Performance
The ATTO Benchmark shows that the 4TB Synology Plus drive delivered a peak read speed of just under 205 MB/s, putting it 12% ahead of the 6TB WD Red, and 36% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
Peak Write Performance
The ATTO Benchmark shows that the 4TB Synology Plus drive delivered a peak write speed of just over 205 MB/s, putting it 25% ahead of the 6TB WD Red, and 48% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
Peak Read IOPS
The ATTO Benchmark shows that the 4TB Synology Plus drive delivered a peak read IOPS of just under 64.75K, putting it 50% ahead of the 6TB WD Red, and 65% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
Peak Write IOPS
The ATTO Benchmark shows that the 4TB Synology Plus drive delivered a peak write IOPS of just over 61.25K, putting it 46% ahead of the 6TB WD Red, and an incredible 81% ahead of the 4TB WD Red.
4 TB Synology Plus Review Conclusion
The 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) is, without doubt, a fast NAS hard disk drive. Our benchmark results show that it consistently outperforms the 4TB and 6TB Western Digital Red drives.
It may be sold at a slight price premium, but its better performance and the ability to conveniently upgrade its firmware (rare as that may be) directly using the DiskStation Manager (DSM) makes it a no-brainer choice for Synology NAS users.
If you are planning to use a Synology NAS system for your home or SMB use, you would be well-served to purchase the Synology Plus drive to populate it. We definitely think it deserves our Reviewer’s Choice Award!
4 TB Synology Plus : Where To Buy?
The 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) hard disk drive retails at about $89.90 as of 3 October 2023, it works out to a cost of $22.50 per TB. Here are some online purchase options:
The 4TB Synology Plus (HAT3300-4T) drive also comes bundled with certain Synology NAS systems.
Please Support My Work!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
In this review, we are going to take a look at the performance of the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE (Fan Edition) smartphone, which is powered by the Samsung Exynos 2200 mobile SoC!
Samsung Galaxy S23 FE : Flagship Class Performance!
The Galaxy S23 FE runs on Samsung’s best in-house mobile chip – the Exynos 2200, which is fabricated on the 4 nm process technology.
Launched in January 2022, this is a flagship-class mobile SoC (System-on-a-Chip) designed to compete with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. It has eight processor cores with a tri-cluster architecture:
a Cortex-X2 prime core running at up to 2.8 GHz,
three Cortex-A710 cores running at up to 2.5 GHz, and
four Cortex-A510 cores running at up to 1.8 GHz.
This mobile SoC also comes with the Samsung Xclipse 920 GPU, a dual-core NPU, and DSPs to support 8K video decoding at up to 60 fps, and camera resolutions up to 200 MP.
The Samsung Exynos 2200 also has a built-in 5G modem that supports Sub-6Ghz and mmWave connectivity, as well as LTE Cat.24 download and LTE Cat.22 upload speeds.
We first tested the Galaxy S23 FE using PCMark, which simulates work applications like web browsing, playing video, writing text and editing photos.
Work 3.0
S23 Ultra
Z Flip 5
Z Flip 4
S23 FE
S22 Ultra
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8+
Gen 1
Exynos
2200
SD 8
Gen 1
Performance Score
16408
14655
14429
13971
12860
Web Browsing
15680
11404
12097
11664
10442
Video Editing
7879
7943
7387
7369
7444
Writing
22257
19525
17593
18138
15471
Photo Editing
35533
324420
31762
27060
30177
Data Manipulation
12171
11788
12523
12616
9691
Not bad! The Exynos 2200 is certainly no match for the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, but it actually beat the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 by 9%, and came within 3.3% of the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1!
I should point out that these are peak performance results. The truth is – you won’t be able to actually tell the difference between the three mobile processors in normal usage.
Samsung Galaxy S23 FE : Storage Performance
PCMark also has an Android Storage 2.0 benchmark that measures the smartphone’s storage I/O performance.
Storage 2.0
Z Flip 5
S23 Ultra
S23 FE
S22 Ultra
Z Flip 4
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
Exynos
2200
SD 8
Gen 1
SD 8+
Gen 1
Storage Score
48435
41647
31839
27808
27271
Sequential Read (MB/s)
2676.53
2592.42
1584.66
1457.68
1350.51
Random Read (MB/s)
49.95
38.25
31.25
37.73
33.94
Sequential Write (MB/s)
2631.38
603.29
510.16
856.21
256.81
Random Write (MB/s)
76.66
81.44
81.13
47.20
50.29
Samsung appeared to have used slower flash storage to reduce the cost of the Galaxy S23 FE. Its storage performance is much closer to last year’s Galaxy S22 Ultra, than the Galaxy S23 Ultra.
Interestingly, its random write performance was exceptional, matching the Galaxy S23 Ultra, and almost double that of the Galaxy S22 Ultra,
Samsung Galaxy S23 FE : Gaming Performance
For gaming, we tested the Galaxy S23 FE using 3DMark, with these results :
3DMark
Z Flip 5
S23 Ultra
Z Flip 4
S22 Ultra
S23 FE
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8+
Gen 1
SD 8
Gen 1
Exynos
2200
Solar Bay Unlimited
5481
NA
NA
NA
4570
Wild Life Extreme
Unlimited
3705
3814
2636
2220
2233
Wild Life Unlimited
14823
14554
11144
9106
8671
Sling Shot Unlimited
16661
16344
10690
11094
11348
The Samsung Exynos 2200 powering the Galaxy S23 FE is almost identical in performance to the Galaxy S22 Ultra‘s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 – the difference between their performance is less than 0.7%!
Like the Galaxy S22 Ultra, the Galaxy S23 FE will have no problem handling most games. Only when it comes to more strenuous games (as tested by the Wild Life benchmark) does it lag significantly behind the Galaxy S23 Ultra‘s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor.
But the good news is that the new Solar Bay ray-tracing benchmark shows that the Exynos 2200 is able to hold its own – it is just 17% slower than the Galaxy Z Flip5, which is powered by the Snapdragon Gen 2 for Galaxy processor.
Samsung Galaxy S23 FE : Overall Performance
We then tested the Galaxy S23 FE using AnTuTu, yielding these results :
AnTuTu
S23 Ultra
Z Flip 5
S23 FE
S22 Ultra
Z Flip 4
Device
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
Exynos
2200
SD 8
Gen 1
SD 8+
Gen 1
AnTuTu Score
1212174
1187296
1166868
889167
856357
CPU
261886
393404
329078
203090
205939
GPU
538823
282780
425455
402617
362669
Memory
236163
291048
193981
146002
135707
UX
175302
220064
218354
137458
152042
The AnTuTu benchmark tells a slightly different story. According to its tests, the Galaxy S23 FE is about 31% faster than the Galaxy S22 Ultra, and 36% faster than the Galaxy Z Flip 4. Not bad!
The Galaxy S23 actually came within 2% of the Galaxy Z Flip 5‘s performance, at least in the AnTuTu Benchmark. In fact, it was only 3.7% slower than the Galaxy S23 Ultra!
But note that its temperature jumped by almost 12°C! At peak performance, the Galaxy S23 FE can get quite toasty!
Samsung Galaxy S23 FE : Performance Summary
The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE is a rather chunky smartphone, so one would expect better cooling performance, compared to something thinner and foldable like the Galaxy Z Flip 5.
It shows in the benchmarks – the Galaxy S23 FE comes admirably close to the performance of the Galaxy Z Flip 5, even though it’s using a mobile processor that is one generation older.
The Samsung Exynos 2200 might not do quite so well at high-resolution games, compared to the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, but that’s a different price point altogether.
Ultimately, the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE punches above its weight in everything except gaming performance. Unless you are an avid gamer, this is flagship-class performance at a more affordable price point.
Samsung Galaxy S23 Fan Edition Price + Availability
The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE comes with colour options of Mint, Lavender, Gray and Silver, with two exclusive colours on their website – Tangerine and Indigo. They are all offered with two RAM and storage options:
6 GB + 128 GB
8 GB + 256 GB
These are the available models and launch prices for the Galaxy S23 FE :
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
The Samsung Galaxy Buds FE is focused on delivering an affordable set of active noise cancellation earbuds. Think of it as a budget version of the Galaxy Buds2 or Galaxy Buds2 Pro earphones.
New Wingtip Design
The Samsung Galaxy Buds FE comes with a new wingtip design to make sure they don’t fall off. People with smaller ears may want to try the optional stability bands.
These are closed earbuds with silicone tips. By default, they come fitted with medium ear tips, but the package includes small and large ear tips. Use the proper tips, and you will find that they are light and comfortable to wear for long periods of time.
Active Noise Cancellation
The Samsung Galaxy Buds FE supports three levels of noise cancellation – ANC (Active Noise Cancellation), Ambient (Transparency), or Off.
It is surprisingly good at noise cancellation when you turn on ANC. Budget ANC earbuds generally use only one microphone to receive ambient noise for cancellation. But the Buds FE appears to use two microphones for noise cancellation, delivering better than expected noise cancellation.
On top of that – when you take out one earbud, the other earbud cleverly switches to Ambient mode so you don’t get disorientated, and switches back to ANC when you put the earbud back on.
The Ambient / Transparency mode is decent – allowing you to hear conversations, or public announcements while still cutting down on ambient noise. It’s not as good as the Galaxy Buds2 Pro, of course, but you won’t realise it if you never compare them before.
Unlike the Galaxy Buds2 Pro, the Galaxy Buds FE is only IPX2 splash-resistant, which means it’s rated to withstand some dripping water (up to 3 mm per minute), limited to a maximum tilt of 15°.
That basically means that these earbuds will withstand sweat and a little bit of rain. You can certainly wipe these down with a damp cloth. However, under no circumstances should you wash the Galaxy Buds FE under running water!
I should also point out that the charging case itself is NOT water-resistant, so please make sure you keep it dry. In addition, you must dry the Galaxy Buds FE before you put them back into the charging case.
Connectivity
The Galaxy Buds FE connects wirelessly to your devices using Bluetooth 5.2, but does not support Bluetooth multipoint connectivity, so they can only be connected to one device at any one time.
However, they support automatic switching between Samsung Galaxy devices using the same Samsung account. But if you want to switch from your Samsung Galaxy smartphone to your laptops you need to manually switch using the Bluetooth menu.
Bonus : You can use the SmartThings Find feature to remotely trigger a beeping sound to locate any misplaced earbuds!
Battery Life
The biggest problem I had with the Buds2 Pro was its short battery life of about 5 hours with ANC enabled. I could get about 8 hours with ANC disabled, but that’s still on the low side for premium earbuds.
The good news is – the Galaxy Buds FE actually lasts longer with a similar-sized battery (60 mAh vs 61 mAh in the Buds2 Pro) – about 6 hours with ANC enabled, and 8.5 hours with ANC disabled. Not quite as long as I would like, but still pretty decent at its price point.
Its charging case has an internal 479 mAh battery that provides another 15 hours of extra battery life (ANC enabled), or 24 hours (ANC disabled) – roughly 2.5 full charges.
The good news is – the Galaxy Buds FE supports quick charging – a 5 minute charge will get you about an hour of ANC-enabled battery life.
Pro Tip : Get into the habit of popping these earbuds into their case whenever you are not using, and you will never run out of battery life.
The Galaxy Buds FE is Samsung’s attempt to break into the $100 wireless earbuds market, and is targeted at the large number of Samsung fans who have not yet jumped onto the wireless earbuds bandwagon.
It offers Samsung fans the most important features of the Galaxy Buds2, at a more affordable price point. Now, you won’t get access to premium features like 360 Audio, AKG tuning, or a 2-way dynamic speaker system. But these features are not really deal-breakers for most users.
Dollar-for-dollar – the Galaxy Buds FE definitely offers much better value for your money. In fact, I expect it to cannibalise the sales of the Galaxy Buds2. Samsung fans will either opt to pay more for the premium Galaxy Buds2 Pro, or settle for the cheaper Galaxy Buds FE.
Now, there are slightly cheaper alternatives to be sure, but they won’t come across as well-polished. On top of that, you can count on regular software updates from Samsung.
For those reasons, I think it deserves our Editor’s Choice Award!
Samsung Galaxy Buds FE : Where To Buy?
The Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 is priced at RM399 / US$99.99 / £99 / A$199.
Here are some online purchase options (prices accurate as of 31 October 2023) :
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Take a look at the battery recharging speed of the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE, and find out how its two refresh rate options affect battery life!
Samsung Galaxy S23 FE Refresh Rate Affects Battery Life!
The new Samsung Galaxy S23 FE offers two refresh rate options (Settings > Display > Motion smoothness) for its display:
Adaptive : Get smoother animation and scrolling by automatically adjusting your screen refresh rate up to 120 Hz
Standard : Get longer battery life with a 60 Hz screen refresh rate
By default, the Galaxy S23 FE uses the Adaptive mode for smoother graphics, but you can choose to switch to the Standard mode for a longer battery life.
On investigation, I found that the Galaxy S23 FE’s display only switches between the 60 Hz and 120 Hz refresh rate, when set to the Adaptive mode.
In the next section, we will look at how the two refresh rate options affect the Galaxy S23 FE’s battery life.
The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE comes with a larger 4,500 mAh battery, which is 15% larger than the 3,900 mAh battery in the Galaxy S23!
To test its battery life, we turned off Automatic Brightness, fix the brightness level, and make sure the screen brightness does not change as the ambient brightness changes.
We also set its display brightness to 50%, which is slightly higher than the average indoor brightness level of 40% during the day.
We then ran the PCMark Work 3.0 battery life test until its battery capacity dropped to 20% several times, and this was the best result we obtained with the Standard and Adaptive refresh rates :
Not bad! The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE lasted almost 10.5 hours with the Adaptive refresh mode enabled, and almost lasted 11 hours with the Standard refresh mode!
In other words – it does not make (battery) sense to switch to the Standard refresh mode. You wouldn’t be able to tell the difference in battery life.
Let’s compare its battery life at 60 Hz and 120 Hz, against the Z Flip5, S23 Ultra, and S22 Ultra smartphones.
Standard Refresh Rate (60 Hz)
The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE naturally has the best battery life with the refresh rate set to 60 Hz (Standard) – lasting just under 11 hours.
As this comparison shows, the Galaxy S23 FE isn’t quite as efficient as Samsung’s flagship devices like the Z Flip5, S23 Ultra, and S22 Ultra. But it’s close enough.
Work 3.0
S23 Ultra
S22 Ultra
Z Flip 5
S23 FE
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
3,700 mAh
4,500 mAh
Battery Life
15 hrs 18 mins
14 hrs 15 mins
11 hrs 4 mins
10 hrs 57 mins
Utilisation
per min.
4.36 mAh
4.68 mAh
4.46 mAh
5.48 mAh
Adaptive Refresh Rate (120 Hz)
But its Adaptive refresh rate is surprisingly so efficient, it actually uses (slightly) less power than the Galaxy S23 Ultra, and Galaxy Z Flip5 smartphones. With a slightly larger battery, it actually lasted more than an hour longer than the Galaxy Z Flip5!
In fact, it’s so efficient that it almost matches the battery life of the S22 Ultra, which has a 28% larger battery!
Needless to say – we are highly recommending you stick with the Adaptive refresh mode for the Galaxy S23 FE!
Work 3.0
S23 Ultra
S22 Ultra
S23 FE
Z Flip 5
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
4,500 mAh
3,700 mAh
Battery Life
13 hrs
0 mins
10 hrs
38 mins
10 hrs 20 mins
9 hrs
9 mins
Utilisation
per min.
5.13 mAh
6.27 mAh
5.81 mAh
5.39 mAh
Samsung Galaxy S23 FE Battery Recharging Speed!
The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE supports up to 45 watts of wired fast charging, but unfortunately, does not come with the charger in-the-box.
So we tested it using the standard 15 watt and 25 watt Samsung fast chargers that shipped with their previous smartphones, which is what we believe most users will end up doing.
Work 3.0
S22 Ultra
S23 FE
S23 Ultra
S23 FE
Z Flip 5
Z Flip 5
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
4,500 mAh
5,000 mAh
4,500 mAh
3,700 mAh
3,700 mAh
Charger Output
15 watts
25 watts
15 watts
15 watts
25 watts
15 watts
Battery Life
64.5 min
73 min
88.8 min
96 min
105 min
129.5 min
Recharging Speed
(per minute)
62.0 mAh
49.3 mAh
45.0 mAh
37.5 mAh
28.2 mAh
22.9 mAh
Not bad! The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE charges really fast with a 15 watt charger, and even faster with a 25 watt charger. It basically needs just over 1.5 hours to fully recharge with a 15 watt charger, and just under one hour and 15 minutes with a 25 watt charger.
This gives us a battery life to recharging time ratio of about 6.5:1, which is pretty good. You get about an hour’s worth of battery life for every 9.25 minutes you recharge.
If you prefer to get faster charging, you should purchase the optional 25 watt USB-C super fast charger. It will cut your charging time by 23 minutes, and give you an hour of battery life for every 8.5 minutes you recharge:
Samsung Galaxy S23 Fan Edition Price + Availability
The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE comes with colour options of Mint, Lavender, Gray and Silver, with two exclusive colours on their website – Tangerine and Indigo. They are all offered with two RAM and storage options:
6 GB + 128 GB
8 GB + 256 GB
These are the available models and launch prices for the Galaxy S23 FE :
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Samsung just sent me their new Galaxy S23 FE – Fan Edition smartphone, and here is my unboxing video, as well as my first impressions!
Samsung Galaxy S23 Unboxing : What’s In The Box?
I managed to get my hands on the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE (Fan Edition) smartphone BEFORE it actually ships! Take a look at my unboxing video, and share it out!
In our unboxing video, you can see that the Galaxy S23 FE package is sparse, and only consists of:
Samsung Galaxy S23 FE smartphone
Set of documents – quick start guide in two languages, and a warranty card
USB Type C to Type C cable
SIM card extractor pin
As the unboxing video shows, the Galaxy S23 FE does not come with any charger, or earphones. Not even a TPU case to hold you over until you get a better case.
Samsung Galaxy S23 FE : My First Impressions!
The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE (Fan Edition) is meant to be a more affordable version of the Samsung Galaxy S23 smartphone, released early this year.
It uses the same design as the Samsung Galaxy S23, with a shiny glass back and a matte aluminium frame, instead of a matte glass back, and a shiny aluminium frame.
But the most apparent thing would be its size – the Galaxy S23 FE is a decidedly larger and bulkier phone than the Galaxy S23. The Fan Edition is also heavier at 209 grams.
The Galaxy S23 FE is larger and heavier because it comes with a slightly larger 6.3-inch display, and a larger 4,500 mAh battery. But that does not mean that it is superior to the original Galaxy S23 smartphone.
For one thing – the Galaxy S23 is powered by the faster (and pricier) Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 mobile SoC, while the Fan Edition runs on the Samsung Exynos 2200. They both have a 50 MP main camera, but the Fan Edition has a lower-resolution zoom camera, and a lower resolution front camera.
The larger Fan Edition may have a larger 4,500 mAh battery, but it is limited to 25 watt charging, while the original Galaxy S23 supports up to 45 watt fast charging.
The SIM card tray, which supports two nano SIM cards is located at the top, together with a microphone port. It also supports an eSIM. However, you are limited to a maximum of two SIM numbers.
At the bottom, you will find the USB Type C port, as well as the speaker and microphone ports. The Power button and the Volume control buttons are located on the right side.
In the front, the Galaxy S23 FE has a 10 MP camera in a punch hole. At the back, it has a 50 MP main camera (with a Samsung S5KGN3 sensor), a 12 MP ultra-wide angle camera, and an 8 MP telephoto camera, with 3X optical zoom.
Like the Galaxy S23, the Fan Edition has an under-display fingerprint sensor. It appears to use the EGISTEC EL721 fingerprint sensor.
The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE is protected on the front and back by Gorilla Glass 5 (instead of Gorilla Glass Victus 2), with an aluminium frame.
Samsung Galaxy S23 FE : Specifications
Here are the key specifications for the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE smartphone :
The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE comes with colour options of Mint, Lavender, Gray and Silver, with two exclusive colours on their website – Tangerine and Indigo. They are all offered with two RAM and storage options:
6 GB + 128 GB
8 GB + 256 GB
These are the available models and launch prices for the Galaxy S23 FE :
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Samsung is making all four main colours options, as well as the four exclusive online colours, available for purchase at launch, at these price points :
As a Samsung ultra-premium smartphone, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 comes in a premium black box, with these items inside :
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 smartphone
Set of documents – quick start guide in two languages, and a warranty card
USB Type C to Type C cable
SIM card extractor pin
As the unboxing video shows, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 does not come with any charger, or earphones. Not even a TPU case to hold you over until you get a better case.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 boasts the same large 6.7-inch Infinity Flex display as the Galaxy Z Flip 3 and the Galaxy Z Flip 4. This foldable display has a Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel that has a 120 Hz refresh rate and a resolution of 1080 x 2640 pixels.
The difference this year lies in its No-Gap Flex Hinge and improved Ultra Thin Glass with a droplet fold, allowing the Galaxy Z Flip 5 to fold completely flat.
In case you are wondering – the crease is still visible if you view it from an angle, and you can feel it if you run your finger over it. But after using it some time – you will forget it’s even there.
The display is large and really beautiful – with excellent resolution, colour gamut and brightness. And it folds into a really compact device about the size of a pager – if you are old enough to remember what that is!
Like previous Flip models, its foldable display comes with a protective film made from stretchable PET, so you should never stick any screen protector on it!
If you are new to foldable phones, you will be really tentative about folding it. But over time, it will become really natural – you won’t even think twice about folding it before shoving it down your pocket.
The Ultra Thin Glass (UTG) is rated for at least 200,000 folds, so even if you fold it 100 times a day, it should last at least 5.5 years!
But while the display can withstand a lot of folding, you must still take care not to SCRATCH it. Avoid putting it together in your pocket or handbag with hard objects like coins, another phone, etc.
3.4-inch Cover Display
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5’s biggest upgrade is, arguably, the much larger 3.4-inch front display, which is now called the Flex Window, instead of the cover screen.
Thanks to its 3.4-inch Super AMOLED panel with a resolution of 720 x 748 pixels, the new Flex Window is much more useful. Not only can you check notifications, and send quick replies to text messages, it comes with 14 essential widgets out of the box!
You can customise the Flex Window with widgets, video wallpapers, clock faces and styles. And the larger display makes it so much easier to take selfies with its awesome rear cameras!
Performance + Storage
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 runs on the most powerful mobile SoC available for Android devices – the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy is a specially-binned and slightly-overclocked version that Qualcomm created for Samsung Galaxy flagship smartphones.
Fabricated on the latest 4nm TSMC process technology, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy boasts a powerful Adreno 740 GPU, as well as eight processor cores in a quad-cluster architecture :
a Cortex-X3 prime core running at up to 3.36 GHz (instead of 3.2 GHz),
two Cortex-A715 cores running at up to 2.8 GHz,
two Cortex-A710 cores running at up to 2.8 GHz, and
three Cortex-A510 cores running at up to 2.0 GHz.
Our review sample came with 8 GB of memory, and 256 GB of fast UFS 3.1 storage. It is also available with 512 GB of storage. There is no option to increase storage, but generally 256 GB of storage is more than enough for most people.
Dual SIM Support
The Galaxy Z Flip 5 has a SIM card tray that supports a single nano SIM card. It also supports an eSIM, so technically, you can use up to two SIMs at the same time.
Buttons
The only buttons you will find are on the upper right side of the Galaxy Z Flip 5 – the Volume control buttons and the Power button, which doubles as the fingerprint sensor.
Pressing the Power button twice activates the Quick Shot mode, which lets you take selfies using the rear cameras with the Flex Window for preview and control.
Only One Port
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 comes with a USB Type C port, which supports USB 3.2 connectivity. It does not come with a 3.5 mm audio jack, or a USB-C to 3.5 mm adapter in the box.
Protection
The Galaxy Z Flip 5 is water-resistant in up to 1.5 metres of freshwater for up to 30 minutes, but is not dust-resistant due to its foldable display and folding mechanism. Hence, it is IPX8-rated.
In addition, its chassis is made with Armor Aluminium, and the Flex Window is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2. Its Dual Pixel main camera is also protected by Gorilla Glass with DX.
Powering all that is a 3,700 mAh lithium-ion polymer battery, which supports 25 watt fast charging, and 10 watt wireless charging. It can even wireless recharge other devices, albeit at just 4.5 watts.
However, it does not come with an in-box charger. So you will have to use your old charger, or buy a new one.
Samsung flagship smartphones are notable for featuring cutting-edge cameras, but the Galaxy Z Flip 5 stayed with older cameras, albeit slightly enhanced.
In the front, it uses a 10 MP punch hole camera, built around the Samsung ISOCELL 3J1 (S5K3J1) sensor, which has a 1.22 µm pixel size. This isn’t a new sensor though, being first used in the Galaxy S20 series.
This camera now has a slightly wider f/2.2 aperture, so you can expect it to perform slightly better in low-light conditions. This camera can also record video at up to 4K resolution at 60 fps.
In most cases though, you will end up using this selfie camera only for video calls, and use the better cameras at the back for your “selfies”!
Dual Cameras At The Back
In the back, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 has a dual-camera system, which consists of :
a 12 MP main camera, with f/1.8 aperture
a 12 MP ultra-wide camera, with 123° field of view, and f/2.2 aperture
The main camera is built around the Samsung ISOCELL 2LD (S5K2LD) sensor, which dates back to the Galaxy S20 series as well. This sensor, however, boasts a large pixel size of 1.8 µm, and it has a 24 mm lens with a wide f/1.8 aperture.
The ultra-wide angle camera is built around the Sony IMX258 sensor, which dates back to 2017. It also has rather small 1.12 µm pixels.
Most Galaxy Z Flip 5 users will eventually realise that it’s better to use these two 12 MP cameras for better selfies. Just double-press the Power button with the Galaxy Z Flip 5 folded to activate these cameras.
These cameras are still good, but I really wish Samsung would have at least upgraded their sensors.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 : Photo Samples
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5’s rear cameras may be dated, but they are still excellent cameras with good low-light performance, thanks to the wide f/1.8 and f/2.2 apertures. But the wide aperture also creates creates a narrow depth-of-field, so there is the risk of ending up with an out-of-focus photo.
When used in the selfie mode, the rear cameras deliver Instagram-friendly square 9 MP photos with a resolution of 2992 x 2992 pixels, and a file size of about 1.3 MB (HEIC format).
When used unfolded, the rear cameras deliver can be used to take 12 MP photos with a resolution of 4000 x 3000 pixels, and a file size of about 3 MB (HEIC format).
Here are eight unedited photo samples for you to check out.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 comes with a relatively small 3,700 mAh battery, which is the same size as last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 4.
To test its battery life, we turned off Automatic Brightness, fix the brightness level, and make sure the screen brightness does not change as the ambient brightness changes.
We also set its display brightness to 50%, which is slightly higher than the average indoor brightness level of 40% during the day.
We then ran the PCMark Work 3.0 battery life test until its battery capacity dropped to 20% several times, and this was the best result we obtained with the Standard and Adaptive refresh rates :
With the same battery capacity, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 had the same battery life of just over 9 hours using its default Adaptive refresh mode, like the Galaxy Z Flip 4.
But when we switched to the Standard refresh mode, it surprisingly delivered over 11 hours of battery life – 49 minutes longer than the Galaxy Z Flip 4!
Let’s compare its battery life at 60 Hz and 120 Hz, against the Z Flip 4, S23 Ultra, and S22 Ultra smartphones.
Standard Refresh Rate (60 Hz)
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 naturally has the best battery life with the refresh rate set to 60 Hz (Standard) – lasting just over 11 hours.
But what’s really important to note here is that it is about 5% more power-efficient than the Galaxy S22 Ultra, and about 7.5% more power-efficient than the Z Flip 4.
Work 3.0
S23 Ultra
S22 Ultra
Z Flip 5
Z Flip 4
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
3,700 mAh
3,700 mAh
Battery Life
15 hrs 18 mins
14 hrs 15 mins
11 hrs 4 mins
10 hrs 14 mins
Utilisation
per min.
4.36 mAh
4.68 mAh
4.46 mAh
4.82 mAh
Adaptive Refresh Rate (120 Hz)
Even with the same battery size, and fundamentally the same foldable display, we expected the Galaxy Z Flip 5 to deliver a slight improvement in battery life due to its more efficient Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor. Unfortunately, this was not the case, and it pretty much delivered the same battery life of just over 9 hours.
What this means is that if you don’t need smoother graphics, it is worth turning off the Adaptive refresh rate to reduce power consumption by a very significant 21% / 2 hours!
Work 3.0
S23 Ultra
S22 Ultra
Z Flip 4
Z Flip 5
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
3,700 mAh
3,700 mAh
Battery Life
13 hrs
0 mins
10 hrs
38 mins
9 hrs
12 mins
9 hrs 9 mins
Utilisation
per min.
5.13 mAh
6.27 mAh
5.36 mAh
5.39 mAh
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 Battery Recharging Speed!
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 supports up to 25 watts of wired fast charging, but unfortunately, does not come with the charger in-the-box.
So we tested it using the standard 15 watt Samsung fast charger that shipped with their previous smartphones, which is what we believe most users will end up doing.
Work 3.0
S22 Ultra
S23 Ultra
Z Flip 4
Z Flip 5
Battery Capacity
3,300 mAh
5,000 mAh
3,700 mAh
3,700 mAh
Charger Output
15 watts
15 watts
15 watts
15 watts
Battery Life
64.5 minutes
88.8 minutes
98.75 minutes
129.5 minutes
Recharging Speed
(per minute)
62.0 mAh
45.0 mAh
30.0 mAh
22.9 mAh
As we reported earlier, Samsung appears to intentionally reduce the charging speed for their foldable Z Flip 3 and Z Flip 4 smartphones, probably to avoid producing excessive heat. That’s why they both recharge twice as slowly as the S22 Ultra, even using the same 15 watt charger!
But this is a bit of a shocker – the Galaxy Z Flip 5 recharged even slower – it took more than 2 hours to fully recharge it from 20%! That’s a whopping 31% slower than the Z Flip 4, with the same battery!
That gives us a battery life to recharging time ratio of about 4.24:1, which is rather dismal. You get about an hour’s worth of battery life for every 14 minutes you recharge.
Perhaps Samsung is now trying to encourage users to purchase its optional 25 watt USB-C super fast charger…
We first tested the Galaxy Z Flip 5 using PCMark, which simulates work applications like web browsing, playing video, writing text and editing photos.
Work 3.0
S23 Ultra
Z Flip 5
Z Flip 4
Z Flip 3
S22 Ultra
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8+
Gen 1
SD
888
SD 8
Gen 1
Performance Score
16408
14655
14429
13317
12860
Web Browsing
15680
11404
12097
11637
10442
Video Editing
7879
7943
7387
7762
7444
Writing
22257
19525
17593
15316
15471
Photo Editing
35533
324420
31762
25357
30177
Data Manipulation
12171
11788
12523
11938
9691
Interesting, isn’t it? The Galaxy Z Flip 5 uses the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chip as the Galaxy S23 Ultra, but it is 12% slower.
I should point out that these are peak performance results. You are unlikely to be able to actually feel the difference between the two in normal usage. In fact, these benchmark results really surprised me!
What likely happened is that the Galaxy S23 Ultra has better cooling, and is thus, better able to maintain the processor’s peak performance for longer. But if you are upgrading from a Galaxy Z Flip 4, and hoping for a performance boost, you are out of luck.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5 : Storage Performance
PCMark also has an Android Storage 2.0 benchmark that measures the smartphone’s storage I/O performance.
Storage 2.0
Z Flip 5
S23 Ultra
S22 Ultra
Z Flip 4
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 1
SD 8+
Gen 1
Storage Score
48435
41647
27808
27271
Sequential Read (MB/s)
2676.53
2592.42
1457.68
1350.51
Random Read (MB/s)
49.95
38.25
37.73
33.94
Sequential Write (MB/s)
2631.38
603.29
856.21
256.81
Random Write (MB/s)
76.66
81.44
47.20
50.29
Will you look at that! The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 received a very big boost in sequential write performance for its internal flash storage!
The Galaxy Z Flip 5 was about 6% slower than the Galaxy S23 Ultra in random write performance, but was an astounding 4.4X faster in sequential write!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5 : Gaming Performance
For gaming, we tested the Galaxy Z Flip 5 using 3DMark, with these results :
3DMark
Z Flip 5
S23 Ultra
Z Flip 4
S22
Ultra
Z Flip 3
Device
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8+
Gen 1
SD 8
Gen 1
SD 888
Sling Shot Unlimited
16661
16344
10690
11094
9248
Wild Life Unlimited
14823
14554
11144
9106
3952
Wild Life
Extreme
Unlimited
3705
3814
2636
2220
1174
When it comes to less strenuous games (Sling Shot), the Galaxy Z Flip 5 was surprisingly faster than the Galaxy S23 Ultra, even though they both use the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, and the S23 Ultra has better cooling.
Even in the more strenuous game (Wild Life), the Galaxy Z Flip 5 continues to surpass the Galaxy S23 Ultra at lower resolutions.
It was only with the Wild Life Extreme 4K benchmark where the Galaxy S23 Ultra‘s better cooling performance allowed it to beat the Z Flip 5 by 3%.
Simply put – you don’t really need expensive “gaming smartphones”. The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 will easily handle any game you want to play.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 : Overall Performance
We then tested the Galaxy Z Flip 5 using AnTuTu, yielding these results :
AnTuTu
S23 Ultra
Z Flip 5
S22 Ultra
Z Flip 4
Z Flip 3
Device
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 1
SD 8+
Gen 1
SD
888
AnTuTu Score
1212174
1187296
889167
856357
696767
CPU
261886
393404
203090
205939
206228
GPU
538823
282780
402617
362669
242573
Memory
236163
291048
146002
135707
133586
UX
175302
220064
137458
152042
114380
The AnTuTu benchmark tells a slightly different story. According to its tests, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 is about 38% faster than the Galaxy Z Flip 4. A very nice boost in performance.
On the other hand, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 is slightly slower – just 2%, than the Galaxy S23 Ultra. But note that its temperature jumped by over 12°C! At peak performance, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 can get quite toasty!
Let’s do a quick wrap of what I really like, and don’t like, about the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5.
It Now Folds Completely
The 6.7-inch foldable display finally closes completely. This may seem like a minor point, but a complete closure helps prevent things slipping in between the display to damage it while it’s in your pocket or handbag.
Large Flex Window
The 3.4-inch Flex Window is so much better for taking selfies, and much more functional! You can realistically do a lot more with this display, including shooting off quick replies to messages.
Great Performance
Even though it looks real sleek, it is powered by the incredibly powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 mobile SoC.
It will easily handle EVERYTHING you throw at it – even graphics-intensive games. It gets toasty when you game, but hey, at least it doesn’t feel like a brick!
Decent Cameras
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 cameras are good but unremarkable frankly. Samsung obviously wants mobile photographers to focus on the Galaxy S23 Ultra instead.
That is most unfortunate, especially for selfie-lovers. I like how the large Flex Window lets you easily use the rear cameras for really good selfies.
Slower Charging
Unfortunately, Samsung did not manage to improve the Galaxy Z Flip 5’s battery life at 120 Hz. It has longer battery life at 60 Hz, but I don’t think anyone who paid a premium for 120 Hz would want to stick to 60 Hz…
It doesn’t help that it recharges slower than the Galaxy Z Flip 4 with a standard 15 watt charger… and don’t get me started on the lack of an in-box charger!
Zilch In-Box Freebies
For a premium product, it comes with zilch freebies in-the-box. As mentioned before, there is no fast charger.
There is also no USB-C to 3.5 mm audio jack, not even a pair of USB-C earphones. Neither did Samsung provide even a cheap TPU case.
Incredible New Price Point
On the other hand, Samsung kept the price at highly-attractive price points:
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 is an incredibly great deal for a foldable smartphone. I fully expect to see it flying off the shelves.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 : My Verdict + Award
It must be said that the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 is more than just a smartphone. It is a fashion statement – a sleek, light smartphone that catches eyes, and folds away to fit even small pockets!
Granted, it still has a short battery life with the 120 Hz refresh rate, and a slow recharging speed. And Samsung did not equip it with new cameras.
However, it is much more usable now, thanks to the large 3.4-inch Flex Window; and it now folds completely flat. Think of it as an improved Galaxy Z Flip 4.
Overall, the Galaxy Z Flip 4 it is an incredibly good deal for a flagship smartphone, with a large foldable 120 Hz display and a top-of-the-line processor!
This is why we believe it deserves nothing less than our Reviewer’s Choice Award! Great job, Samsung!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5 : Where To Buy
Here are some online per-order and purchase options for the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5 :
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Take a look at the performance of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5, and find out why it is a foldable computing + gaming powerhouse!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 : Flagship Class Performance!
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 runs on the most powerful mobile SoC available for Android devices – the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy is a specially-binned and slightly-overclocked version that Qualcomm created for Samsung Galaxy flagship smartphones.
Fabricated on the latest 4nm TSMC process technology, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy boasts a powerful Adreno 740 GPU, as well as eight processor cores in a quad-cluster architecture :
a Cortex-X3 prime core running at up to 3.36 GHz (instead of 3.2 GHz),
two Cortex-A715 cores running at up to 2.8 GHz,
two Cortex-A710 cores running at up to 2.8 GHz, and
three Cortex-A510 cores running at up to 2.0 GHz.
On paper, this is about as powerful as it gets in 2023, but let’s take a look at how it actually performs!
We first tested the Galaxy Z Flip 5 using PCMark, which simulates work applications like web browsing, playing video, writing text and editing photos.
Work 3.0
S23 Ultra
Z Flip 5
Z Flip 4
Z Flip 3
S22 Ultra
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8+
Gen 1
SD
888
SD 8
Gen 1
Performance Score
16408
14655
14429
13317
12860
Web Browsing
15680
11404
12097
11637
10442
Video Editing
7879
7943
7387
7762
7444
Writing
22257
19525
17593
15316
15471
Photo Editing
35533
324420
31762
25357
30177
Data Manipulation
12171
11788
12523
11938
9691
Interesting, isn’t it? The Galaxy Z Flip 5 uses the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chip as the Galaxy S23 Ultra, but it is 12% slower.
I should point out that these are peak performance results. You are unlikely to be able to actually feel the difference between the two in normal usage. In fact, these benchmark results really surprised me!
What likely happened is that the Galaxy S23 Ultra has better cooling, and is thus, better able to maintain the processor’s peak performance for longer. But if you are upgrading from a Galaxy Z Flip 4, and hoping for a performance boost, you are out of luck.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 : Storage Performance
PCMark also has an Android Storage 2.0 benchmark that measures the smartphone’s storage I/O performance.
Storage 2.0
Z Flip 5
S23 Ultra
S22 Ultra
Z Flip 4
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 1
SD 8+
Gen 1
Storage Score
48435
41647
27808
27271
Sequential Read (MB/s)
2676.53
2592.42
1457.68
1350.51
Random Read (MB/s)
49.95
38.25
37.73
33.94
Sequential Write (MB/s)
2631.38
603.29
856.21
256.81
Random Write (MB/s)
76.66
81.44
47.20
50.29
Will you look at that! The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 received a very big boost in sequential write performance for its internal flash storage!
The Galaxy Z Flip 5 was about 6% slower than the Galaxy S23 Ultra in random write performance, but was an astounding 4.4X faster in sequential write!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 : Gaming Performance
For gaming, we tested the Galaxy Z Flip 5 using 3DMark, with these results :
3DMark
Z Flip 5
S23 Ultra
Z Flip 4
S22
Ultra
Z Flip 3
Device
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8+
Gen 1
SD 8
Gen 1
SD 888
Sling Shot Unlimited
16661
16344
10690
11094
9248
Wild Life Unlimited
14823
14554
11144
9106
3952
Wild Life
Extreme
Unlimited
3705
3814
2636
2220
1174
When it comes to less strenuous games (Sling Shot), the Galaxy Z Flip 5 was surprisingly faster than the Galaxy S23 Ultra, even though they both use the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, and the S23 Ultra has better cooling.
Even in the more strenuous game (Wild Life), the Galaxy Z Flip 5 continues to surpass the Galaxy S23 Ultra at lower resolutions.
It was only with the Wild Life Extreme 4K benchmark where the Galaxy S23 Ultra‘s better cooling performance allowed it to beat the Z Flip 5 by 3%.
Simply put – you don’t really need expensive “gaming smartphones”. The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 will easily handle any game you want to play.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 : Overall Performance
We then tested the Galaxy Z Flip 5 using AnTuTu, yielding these results :
AnTuTu
S23 Ultra
Z Flip 5
S22 Ultra
Z Flip 4
Z Flip 3
Device
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 1
SD 8+
Gen 1
SD
888
AnTuTu Score
1212174
1187296
889167
856357
696767
CPU
261886
393404
203090
205939
206228
GPU
538823
282780
402617
362669
242573
Memory
236163
291048
146002
135707
133586
UX
175302
220064
137458
152042
114380
The AnTuTu benchmark tells a slightly different story. According to its tests, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 is about 38% faster than the Galaxy Z Flip 4. A very nice boost in performance.
On the other hand, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 is slightly slower – just 2%, than the Galaxy S23 Ultra. But note that its temperature jumped by over 12°C! At peak performance, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 can get quite toasty!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 : Performance Summary
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 is a svelte smartphone when unfolded, and yet super compact when folded. You would not expect performance to be a key selling point.
In fact, I expected Samsung to tune down the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 for better battery life. It also lacks the better cooling found in the Galaxy S23 Ultra.
In the end, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 turns out to perform better than the Galaxy Z Flip 4, with better battery life to boot. Not a spectacular improvement, grant you, but it lets you have your cake and eat it too.
What you need to know is this – the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4 is not just a fashion statement in your hands. It is also a computing and gaming powerhouse in a compact form factor.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Galaxy Z Flip 5 turns out to be Samsung’s best-selling foldable smartphone for 2023!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5 Price + Availability
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 comes in four main colour options:
Graphite – legacy colour
Lavender – similar to Bora Purple, their signature colour for the Z Flip 4
Mint – new colour
Cream – new colour
In addition, Samsung will offer these four colours exclusively on their online store:
Gray
Blue
Green
Yellow
These are the available models and launch prices for the Galaxy Z Flip 5 :
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Take a look at the battery recharging speed of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5, and find out how its two refresh rate options affect battery life!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 Refresh Rate Affects Battery Life!
The new Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 offers two refresh rate options (Settings > Display > Motion smoothness) for the main, foldable display:
Adaptive : Get smoother animation and scrolling by automatically adjusting your screen refresh rate up to 120 Hz
Standard : Get longer battery life with a 60 Hz screen refresh rate
By default, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 uses the Adaptive mode for smoother graphics, but you can choose to switch to the Standard mode for a longer battery life.
Interestingly, we found out that the display’s refresh rate actually changes in both modes. The only difference is the Adaptive mode switches between 24 Hz and 120 Hz, while the Standard mode switches between 24 Hz and 60 Hz.
In the next section, we will look at how the two refresh rate options affect the Galaxy Z Flip 5’s battery life.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 comes with a larger 3,700 mAh battery, which is the same size as last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 4.
To test its battery life, we turned off Automatic Brightness, fix the brightness level, and make sure the screen brightness does not change as the ambient brightness changes.
We also set its display brightness to 50%, which is slightly higher than the average indoor brightness level of 40% during the day.
We then ran the PCMark Work 3.0 battery life test until its battery capacity dropped to 20% several times, and this was the best result we obtained with the Standard and Adaptive refresh rates :
With the same battery capacity, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 had the same battery life of just over 9 hours using its default Adaptive refresh mode, like the Galaxy Z Flip 4.
But when we switched to the Standard refresh mode, it surprisingly delivered over 11 hours of battery life – 49 minutes longer than the Galaxy Z Flip 4!
Let’s compare its battery life at 60 Hz and 120 Hz, against the Z Flip 4, S23 Ultra, and S22 Ultra smartphones.
Standard Refresh Rate (60 Hz)
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 naturally has the best battery life with the refresh rate set to 60 Hz (Standard) – lasting just over 11 hours.
But what’s really important to note here is that it is about 5% more power-efficient than the Galaxy S22 Ultra, and about 7.5% more power-efficient than the Z Flip 4.
Work 3.0
S23 Ultra
S22 Ultra
Z Flip 5
Z Flip 4
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
3,700 mAh
3,700 mAh
Battery Life
15 hrs 18 mins
14 hrs 15 mins
11 hrs 4 mins
10 hrs 14 mins
Utilisation
per min.
4.36 mAh
4.68 mAh
4.46 mAh
4.82 mAh
Adaptive Refresh Rate (120 Hz)
Even with the same battery size, and fundamentally the same foldable display, we expected the Galaxy Z Flip 5 to deliver a slight improvement in battery life due to its more efficient Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor. Unfortunately, this was not the case, and it pretty much delivered the same battery life of just over 9 hours.
What this means is that if you don’t need smoother graphics, it is worth turning off the Adaptive refresh rate to reduce power consumption by a very significant 21% / 2 hours!
Work 3.0
S23 Ultra
S22 Ultra
Z Flip 4
Z Flip 5
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
3,700 mAh
3,700 mAh
Battery Life
13 hrs
0 mins
10 hrs
38 mins
9 hrs
12 mins
9 hrs 9 mins
Utilisation
per min.
5.13 mAh
6.27 mAh
5.36 mAh
5.39 mAh
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 Battery Recharging Speed!
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 supports up to 25 watts of wired fast charging, but unfortunately, does not come with the charger in-the-box.
So we tested it using the standard 15 watt Samsung fast charger that shipped with their previous smartphones, which is what we believe most users will end up doing.
Work 3.0
S22 Ultra
S23 Ultra
Z Flip 4
Z Flip 5
Battery Capacity
3,300 mAh
5,000 mAh
3,700 mAh
3,700 mAh
Charger Output
15 watts
15 watts
15 watts
15 watts
Battery Life
64.5 minutes
88.8 minutes
98.75 minutes
129.5 minutes
Recharging Speed
(per minute)
62.0 mAh
45.0 mAh
30.0 mAh
22.9 mAh
As we reported earlier, Samsung appears to intentionally reduce the charging speed for their foldable Z Flip 3 and Z Flip 4 smartphones, probably to avoid producing excessive heat. That’s why they both recharge twice as slowly as the S22 Ultra, even using the same 15 watt charger!
But this is a bit of a shocker – the Galaxy Z Flip 5 recharged even slower – it took more than 2 hours to fully recharge it from 20%! That’s a whopping 31% slower than the Z Flip 4, with the same battery!
That gives us a battery life to recharging time ratio of about 4.24:1, which is rather dismal. You get about an hour’s worth of battery life for every 14 minutes you recharge.
Perhaps Samsung is now trying to encourage users to purchase its optional 25 watt USB-C super fast charger…
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Samsung just sent me their new Galaxy Z Flip 5 foldable smartphone, and here is my unboxing video, as well as my first impressions!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 Unboxing : What’s In The Box?
I managed to get my hands on the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 foldable smartphone BEFORE it actually ships! Take a look at my unboxing video, and share it out!
In our unboxing video, you can see that the Galaxy Z Flip 5 package is sparse, and only consists of:
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 smartphone
Set of documents – quick start guide in two languages, and a warranty card
USB Type C to Type C cable
SIM card extractor pin
As the unboxing video shows, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 does not come with any charger, or earphones. Not even a TPU case to hold you over until you get a better case.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 : My First Impressions!
Just before the launch, I was one of the few who had the rare opportunity to get my hands on not one, but four Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 smartphones, which allowed us to do a proper colour comparison.
And now, I present to you – my own hands-on experience with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 in all four key colours!
I apologise for the poor focus in the video – we are not allowed to use smartphones, and the Sony RX100 Mark IV camera I had to rely on has trouble focusing on close-up subjects.
Samsung maintained the same design from last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 4, so you may not be able to distinguish between the two models… until you turn it on.
Then you will realise that it has a much larger 3.4-inch front display, which is now called the Flex Window, instead of the Cover Screen. It is now much more useful. Not only can you check notifications, and send quick replies to text messages, it comes with 14 essential widgets out of the box!
The Galaxy Z Flip 5 has the same large 6.7-inch foldable display as the Galaxy Z Flip 3 and the Galaxy Z Flip 4, which supports a Full HD+ resolution, and a dynamic refresh rate of up to 120 Hz. The difference this year lies in its No-Gap Flex Hinge and improved Ultra Thin Glass with a droplet fold, allowing the Galaxy Z Flip 5 to fold completely flat.
Like the previous models, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 is IPX8 water-resistant, even though it is still not dust-resistant due to its hinge mechanism. It is protected on all sides by a tough Armour Aluminium frame, and on the back by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2.
On the left side, you will find the SIM card tray, which only supports a single nano SIM card. The Galaxy Z Flip 5 also supports an eSIM, so you can use up to a total of two SIMs.
At the bottom, you will find the USB port, as well as the speaker and microphone ports. On the right side are the Power button with a built-in fingerprint sensor, and the Volume control buttons.
In the front, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 has a punch hole camera hidden at the top of its foldable display. This is the same 10 MP camera from Galaxy Z Flip 4, albeit with a slightly larger f/2.2 aperture. So you can expect it to perform slightly better in low-light conditions.
At the back are the same two 12 MP cameras from the Galaxy Z Flip 4 – a main camera with f/1.8 aperture, and an ultra-wide angle camera with a 123° field of view, and f/2.2 aperture.
The Galaxy Z Flip 5 also comes with the same 3,700 mAh dual battery as the Galaxy Z Flip 4. But it now supports 25 watt fast wired charging, with a suitable charger.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 : Specifications
Here are the key specifications for the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 smartphone :
Just in case you are wondering, the launch prices for the Galaxy Z Flip 5 only went up by RM100 (~US$22 / £17 / A$33 / S$29) over the launch prices for the Galaxy Z Flip 4.
Here are some online per-order and purchase options for the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5 :
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Samsung just launched the Galaxy Z Fold 5, and here is my hands-on experience of its latest foldable behemoth in all three main colour options!
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 : My Hands-On Experience!
I was one of the few who had the rare opportunity to get my hands on not one, but three Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 smartphones, which allowed us to do a proper colour comparison.
And now, I present to you – my own hands-on experience with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 smartphone… in all three main colours!
I apologise for the shaky video – Samsung still insists that I do not take photos or record videos with a smartphone, even though it’s their own Galaxy S22 Ultra!
When folded, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 looks like a rather tall and chunky smartphone. Its 6.2-inch Cover Screen is large but has a tall aspect ratio. You can use it like any regular smartphone, without opening the foldable display.
The hinge mechanism, which occupies its entire left side, has been improved, allowing the Galaxy Z Fold 5 to fold completely flat, reducing its folded thickness by 15% to just 13.4 mm! It is also 10g lighter at 253 grams.
At the bottom, you will find the USB port, together with a row of speaker ports and a microphone port; while at the top are another row of speaker ports with what looks like three more microphone ports.
On the right side, you will find the Power button, with a built-in fingerprint sensor; and the volume buttons. You will also find the SIM tray near the top. The Galaxy Z Fold 5 supports two physical nanoSIM cards, and an eSIM.
The Cover Display itself features a 10 MP punch hole camera with an f/2.2 aperture, while at the back, it features the same triple camera setup, which consists of:
a 50 megapixels Dual Pixel camera
a 10 megapixel telephoto camera, and
a 12 megapixel ultra wide angle camera
When unfolded, you will get a massive 7.6-inch display with a squarish 5 by 4 ratio, which offers about twice the screen space as a regular smartphone.
This super large display is what makes the Galaxy Z Fold 5 such a productivity powerhouse. It also features a hidden 4 megapixel camera under this large main display.
When unfolded, the Galaxy Z Fold 5 is about as thick as a regular smartphone, like the Galaxy S23. And from the back, it actually looks like two smartphones welded together!
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 is protected all around by a tough Armour Aluminium frame. Incredibly, it is IPX8 water-resistant, even though it is not dust-resistant due to its hinge mechanism.
What may put some people off is how tall and thick it is when folded. It is quite hard to fit the Galaxy Z Fold 5 in most pockets. That’s probably why the Z Flip design is more popular, despite having a much smaller display.
But what people who have tried it out will realise – its large display is incredibly hard to give up, because you can do so much more on it.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 : Specifications
Here are the key specifications for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 smartphone :
Just in case you are wondering, the launch prices for the Galaxy Z Fold 5 is the same as the launch prices for the Galaxy Z Fold 4. There was no price increase year-on-year.
Here are some online per-order and purchase options for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 :
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Samsung just launched the Galaxy Z Fold 5 smartphone in three main colour options, and two online exclusive colours!
Take a look at all three main colour options, and tell us which YOU prefer!
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 : A Quick Primer!
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 smartphone builds upon the excellent Galaxy Z Fold 4 from last year, offering a more powerful processor, and a much brighter display.
It also features an improved hinge that lets the Galaxy Z Fold 5 fold flat, shaving off its maximum folded thickness by 15%, down to just 13.4 mm! It is also 10g lighter at 253 grams.
Its key selling feature remains the same – a very large 7.6-inch Infinity Flex Display which folds into half when not used, as well as its 6.2-inch Cover Screen which itself is as big as most smartphone displays!
Samsung is offering the Galaxy Z Fold 5 in three main colour options:
Phantom Black
Cream
Icy Blue
Samsung is also offering two other colour options exclusively on its own online store:
Gray
Blue
I was amongst the few to get an early hands-on look at the three Galaxy Z Fold 5 colour options, and here is my comparison video of all three main colour options! Do let us know which YOU prefer!
Just in case you are wondering, the launch prices for the Galaxy Z Fold 5 is the same as the launch prices for the Galaxy Z Fold 4. There was no price increase year-on-year.
Here are some online per-order and purchase options for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 :
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Samsung just launched the Galaxy Z Flip 5 smartphone in four main colour options, and four online exclusive colours!
Take a look at all four main colour options, and tell us which YOU prefer!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 : A Quick Primer!
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 smartphone builds upon the excellent Galaxy Z Flip 4 from last year, offering a more powerful processor and a much larger front display.
It also features an improved No-Gap Flex Hinge with Ultra Thin Glass that finally folds completely flat, making the Galaxy Z Flip 5 even more compact.
But everything else is pretty much the same – from its large 6.7-inch Infinity Flex display, to its dual 12 MP main cameras.
Samsung is offering the Galaxy Z Flip 5 in four main colour options. Two are legacy colours from the Galaxy Z Flip 4, and two are new colours for the Z Flip 5:
Graphite – legacy colour
Lavender – similar to Bora Purple, their signature colour for the Z Flip 4
Mint – new colour
Cream – new colour
I was amongst the few to get an early hands-on look at all four Galaxy Z Flip 5 colour options, and here is my colour comparison video. Do let me know which colour YOU prefer!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 : No Bespoke, 4 Online Colours
Samsung will not offer the Galaxy Z Flip 5 in the Bespoke Edition, which will be replaced by the new NFC-enabled Flipsuit Case.
In addition, Samsung will offer these four colours exclusively on their online store:
Gray
Blue
Green
Yellow
Unfortunately, Samsung did not make those exclusive online colours available to us…
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 : Colour Options + Price List
Samsung is making all four main colours options, as well as the four exclusive online colours, available for purchase at launch, at these price points :
Just in case you are wondering, the launch prices for the Galaxy Z Flip 5 only went up by RM100 (~US$22 / £17 / A$33 / S$29) over the launch prices for the Galaxy Z Flip 4.
Here are some online per-order and purchase options for the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5 :
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Samsung just launched the Galaxy Z Flip 5, and here is my hands-on experience of its latest compact foldable smartphone in all four colours!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 : My Hands-On Experience!
I was one of the few who had the rare opportunity to get my hands on not one, but four Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 smartphones, which allowed us to do a proper colour comparison.
And now, I present to you – my own hands-on experience with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 smartphone… in all four main colours!
I apologise for the shaky video – Samsung still insists that I do not take photos or record videos with a smartphone, even though it’s their own Galaxy S22 Ultra!
Samsung maintained the same design from last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 4, so you may not be able to distinguish between the two models… until you turn it on.
Then you will realise that it has a much larger 3.4-inch front display, which is now called the Flex Window, instead of the Cover Screen. It is now much more useful. Not only can you check notifications, and send quick replies to text messages, it comes with 14 essential widgets out of the box!
The Galaxy Z Flip 5 has the same large 6.7-inch foldable display as the Galaxy Z Flip 3 and the Galaxy Z Flip 4, which supports a Full HD+ resolution, and a dynamic refresh rate of up to 120 Hz. The difference this year lies in its No-Gap Flex Hinge and improved Ultra Thin Glass with a droplet fold, allowing the Galaxy Z Flip 5 to fold completely flat.
Like the previous models, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 is IPX8 water-resistant, even though it is still not dust-resistant due to its hinge mechanism. It is protected on all sides by a tough Armour Aluminium frame, and on the back by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2.
On the left side, you will find the SIM card tray, which only supports a single nano SIM card. The Galaxy Z Flip 5 also supports an eSIM, so you can use up to a total of two SIMs.
At the bottom, you will find the USB port, as well as the speaker and microphone ports. On the right side are the Power button with a built-in fingerprint sensor, and the Volume control buttons.
In the front, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 has a punch hole camera hidden at the top of its foldable display. This is the same 10 MP camera from Galaxy Z Flip 4, albeit with a slightly larger f/2.2 aperture. So you can expect it to perform slightly better in low-light conditions.
At the back are the same two 12 MP cameras from the Galaxy Z Flip 4 – a main camera with f/1.8 aperture, and an ultra-wide angle camera with a 123° field of view, and f/2.2 aperture.
The Galaxy Z Flip 5 also comes with the same 3,700 mAh dual battery as the Galaxy Z Flip 4. But it now supports 25 watt fast wired charging, with a suitable charger.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 : Specifications
Here are the key specifications for the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 smartphone :
Just in case you are wondering, the launch prices for the Galaxy Z Flip 5 only went up by RM100 (~US$22 / £17 / A$33 / S$29) over the launch prices for the Galaxy Z Flip 4.
Here are some online per-order and purchase options for the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5 :
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Read our comprehensive review of the Samsung Galaxy A54 smartphone, and find out why it won our Editor’s Choice Award!
Samsung Galaxy A54 : Colour Options
The new Samsung Galaxy A54 smartphone is available in three main colours with a glossy finish :
Awesome Graphite
Awesome Violet
Awesome Lime
Samsung also offers an Awesome White colour option in certain countries.
In the following video, I will show you the three main colour options, and give you a closer look at the Galaxy A54 in the Awesome Graphite, Awesome Violet and Awesome Lime colours. Do let us know which you prefer!
The Samsung Galaxy A54 comes with 8 GB of RAM, and 256 GB of storage, with the option to add a microSD card in the hybrid SIM tray. It is covered by a 2-year warranty, with the following launch prices:
Now, let us go through its key features, and show you why the Samsung Galaxy A54 is worthy of our Editor’s Choice Award!
Samsung Exynos 1380 5G Mobile Platform
The Samsung Galaxy A54 is built around the Samsung Exynos 1380 mobile SoC, which is fabricated with Samsung’s own 5 nm EUV process technology.
It comes with an Arm Mali-G68 MP5 GPU, and an NPU, as well as eight CPU cores arranged in two performance clusters:
4 x Arm Cortex-A78 cores (2.4 GHz)
4 x Arm Cortex-A55 cores (2.0 GHz)
The Samsung Exynos 1380 has an integrated 5G modem that supports Sub-6GHz and mmWave standards, as well as LTE Cat.18 uploads and downloads for current 4G networks.
It also supports Wi-Fi 802.11ax (2×2 MIMO) with triple-band capability, as well as Bluetooth 5.3. It supports the four main GPS networks – GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou and Galile.
6.4-inch Super AMOLED Display
The Samsung Galaxy A54 boasts a large 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display, with a Full HD+ resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels.
This display defaults to a 60 Hz refresh rate, but supports a 120 Hz refresh rate that offers smoother graphics at the expense of higher power consumption.
Unlike higher-end smartphones like the new Galaxy S23 Ultra, the display does not dynamically changes its refresh rate. It either runs at 60 Hz or 120 Hz.
32 MP Front Camera
The Samsung Galaxy A54 comes with a high-resolution 32 MP front camera with f/2.2 aperture. Instead of hiding it in a discreet punch hole, it has a stainless steel ring.
This camera defaults to 8 MP by default, combining four pixels into one much larger pixel for better image quality and low-light performance.
This 32 MP camera is capable of recording 1080p video at 30 fps or 60 fps, as well as 4K video at 30 fps.
50 MP Main Camera
The Samsung Galaxy A54 comes with a triple camera system at the back that consists of:
a 50 MP main camera, with f/1.8 aperture,
a 12 MP ultra-wide angle camera, with f/2.2 aperture, and
a 5 MP macro camera, with f/2.4 aperture
The 50 MP camera is a “downgrade” in megapixels from the Galaxy A53’s 64 MP camera, but its image quality is better because it is built around the Sony IMX766 image sensor used in phones like the realme 9 Pro+ and Xiaomi 12.
The Sony IMX766 is a larger 1/1.56″ sensor, which offers a 25% larger pixel size of 1.0 µm (compared to 0.8 µm). The larger pixel size is important as it means each pixel can receive 25% more light, delivering better images, especially in low-light conditions.
In fact, that is why the Galaxy A54 defaults to the 12.5 MP resolution, combining four pixels into a much larger 2 µm “bucket” to collect more light. The 64 MP camera in last year’s Galaxy A53 also does the same thing, combining four pixels in one to deliver 16 MP photos.
This 50 MP camera supports PDAF (Phase Detection Autofocus), and its lens has a wide f/1.8 aperture for better light intake. If you like to record videos, you will be glad to know that it features VDIS (Video Digital Image Stabilisation) and improved OIS (Optical Image Stabilisation) offering a wider OIS angle.
Corning Gorilla Glass 5
The Samsung Galaxy A54 is protected in the front and in the back by Corning Gorilla Glass 5. While this was introduced back in July 2016, it still offers considerable protection.
In lab tests, it can survive drops on hard, rough surface from a height of up to 1.2 metres. It also offers 2X better scratch protection compared to its competitors.
IP67 Dust + Water Resistance
The Samsung Galaxy A54 is IP67 rated against the ingress of dust and water. This means it can withstand being immersed in up to 1 metre of water for at least 30 minutes.
Hybrid SIM + micro SD Tray
The Samsung Galaxy A54 comes with a hybrid tray that supports up to two physical SIM cards, or a physical SIM card as well as a single micro SD card of up to 1 TB in capacity
The Samsung Galaxy A54 comes with the bidirectional Type C port, which is now the EU standard.
5,000 mAh Fast-Charging Battery
The Samsung Galaxy A54 comes with a large 5,000 mAh lithium-ion polymer battery, which supports 25 watt fast wired charging. It does not support wireless charging, or reverse charging.
To test its battery life, we turned off Automatic Brightness, and set its display brightness to 50%.
Why 50%? That is actually slightly higher than the average indoor brightness level of 40% during the day, and is what we usually use in all our mobile battery life tests.
It is important to fix the brightness level, to make sure the screen brightness does not change as the ambient brightness changes.
We then ran the PCMark Work 3.0 battery life test until its battery capacity dropped to 20% several times, and this was the best result we obtained with 60 Hz and 120 Hz refresh rates :
Not bad at all! The Samsung Galaxy A54 has a battery life of 12.5 hours with Adaptive refresh rate enabled, and almost 14 hours with the Standard refresh rate. That’s equal to the Galaxy S22 Ultra at the Standard refresh rate, and 16.7%better at the Adaptive refresh rate.
But let’s also compare its battery life at 60 Hz and 120 Hz, against the S23 Ultra, S22 Ultra and Z Flip 3 smartphones.
Standard Refresh Rate (60 Hz)
The Samsung Galaxy A54 lasted almost 14 hours with the refresh rate set to 60 Hz. But it isn’t quite as efficient as the new S23 Ultra, or even last year’s S22 Ultra.
Work 3.0
S23 Ultra
(60 Hz)
S22 Ultra
(60 Hz)
Galaxy A54
(60 Hz)
Z Flip 3
(60 Hz)
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
3,300 mAh
Battery Life
15 hrs 18 mins
14 hrs 15 mins
13 hrs 57 mins
8 hrs 11 mins
Utilisation
per min.
4.36 mAh
4.68 mAh
4.78 mAh
5.38 mAh
Adaptive Refresh Rate (120 Hz)
Will you look at that! The Samsung Galaxy A54 was about 13.6% more efficient than the S22 Ultra with the Adaptive refresh rate enabled, coming within 8% of the power efficiency of the S23 Ultra.
Based on what we see here, I definitely recommend turning on the Adaptive Refresh Rate on the Galaxy A54, unless you absolutely need the extra 1.5 hours of battery life.
Work 3.0
S23 Ultra
(120 Hz)
Galaxy A54
(120 Hz)
S22 Ultra
(120 Hz)
Z Flip 3
(120 Hz)
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
3,300 mAh
Battery Life
13 hrs
0 mins
12 hrs 25 mins
10 hrs
38 mins
6 hrs
44 mins
Utilisation
per min.
5.13 mAh
5.52 mAh
6.27 mAh
6.53 mAh
Samsung Galaxy A54 : Battery Recharging Speed!
The Samsung Galaxy A54 supports up to 25 watts of wired fast charging, but unfortunately, does not come with the charger in-the-box.
So we relied on the standard 15 watt Samsung fast charger than shipped with their previous smartphones – something we believe most users will end up doing.
Work 3.0
S22 Ultra
S23 Ultra
Galaxy A54
Z Flip 3
Battery Capacity
3,300 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
3,300 mAh
Charger Output
15 watts
15 watts
15 watts
15 watts
Battery Life
64.5 minutes
88.8 minutes
120.7 minutes
88.5 minutes
Recharging Speed
(per minute)
62.0 mAh
45.0 mAh
33.1 mAh
29.8 mAh
The Samsung Galaxy A54 fully recharges from 20% to 100% in just over 2 hours with the standard 15 watt Samsung charger. Oddly enough, this is significantly (36%) slower than the S23 Ultra.
I have no idea whether this was an intentional design decision to reduce the Galaxy A54’s thermal output while charging, or to further differentiate it from the much pricier Galaxy S23 Ultra.
In any case, the Galaxy A54 has a good battery life : recharging ratio of 7:1. As a rule of thumb, for every hour of battery life, you only need to recharge it for 8.5 minutes.
Built around the Samsung Exynos 1380, the Galaxy A54 smartphone has a very fast CPU, but a relatively weak GPU.
What that means is that it offers snappy performance for most part – web browsing, work applications, casual gaming, etc.
It only has trouble delivering high frame rates for graphics-intensive 3D games, and AI or 3D apps may take longer to process in comparison to flagship devices.
But that’s what you need to keep in mind – the Exynos 1380 is a mid-range mobile platform, not a flagship-class. And it is a fast one.
Samsung Galaxy A54 : Work Performance
We first tested the Galaxy A54 Ultra using PCMark, which simulates work applications like web browsing, playing video, writing text and editing photos.
Work 3.0
S23
Ultra
Galaxy
A54
S22
Ultra
S21
Ultra
Galaxy
A52
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
Exynos
1380
SD 8
Gen 1
Exynos
2100
SD
750G
Performance Score
16408
13523
12860
12535
7874
Web Browsing
15680
10659
10442
10185
7021
Video Editing
7879
7363
7444
6336
5693
Writing
22257
17485
15471
15247
7454
Photo Editing
35533
28805
30177
37847
15812
Data Manipulation
12171
11443
9691
8310
6424
Will you look at that?! The Samsung Exynos 1380 that powers the Galaxy A54 actually beat Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 which powered the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
It was also just 17.5% slower than the latest flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 mobile SoC that powers the new Galaxy S23 Ultra flagship smartphone!
For gaming, we tested the Galaxy A54 using 3DMark, with these results :
3DMark
S23
Ultra
S22
Ultra
Z Flip
3
Note20
Ultra
Galaxy
A54
Device
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 1
SD
888
Exynos
990
Exynos
1380
Sling Shot Unlimited
16344
11094
9248
8026
6195
Wild Life Unlimited
14554
9106
3952
4504
2860
Wild Life
Extreme
Unlimited
3814
2220
1174
1387
799
This is where the Samsung Galaxy A54’s Exynos 1380 falls short – it is just not very good at gaming!
It was 23% to 42% slower than the Exynos 990, and 28% to 32% slower than the Snapdragon 888!
That does not mean it’s bad for gaming. It can certainly handle most games. It just won’t be able to deliver high frame rates in graphically-demanding 3D games like Genshin Impact, Black Desert Mobile, etc.
Samsung Galaxy A54 : Overall Performance
We then tested the Galaxy A54 using AnTuTu, yielding these results :
AnTuTu
S23
Ultra
S22
Ultra
S21
Ultra
Galaxy
A54
Galaxy
A52
Device
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 1
Exynos
2100
Exynos
1380
SD
750G
AnTuTu Score
1212174
889167
624411
522411
341908
CPU
261886
203090
166290
153230
105098
GPU
538823
402617
258995
149596
88068
Memory
236163
146002
120805
86578
60642
UX
175302
137458
78321
133007
88100
According to the AnTuTu benchmark, the Samsung Galaxy A54 is about 53% faster than the Galaxy A52, and only 16% slower than the Galaxy S21 Ultra.
What’s important to note is that the Exynos 1380’s CPU is fast, coming within 8% of the Exynos 2100. However, it has a relatively weak GPU, and slower memory than the flagship-class mobile platforms in this comparison.
The Samsung Galaxy A54’s 50 MP camera takes 12.5 MP photos by default, with a resolution of 4080 x 3060 pixels. Each JPEG photo using the High Efficiency Image File (HEIF) format, each photo is about 2.5 MB to 5 MB in size.
Without HEIF, the file sizes are much larger, so please remember to turn on the HEIF file format to save space.
Open the Camera app
Go to Settings > Advanced picture options
Turn on High efficiency pictures.
As this photo sample shows, the 50 MP main camera of the Samsung Galaxy A54 offers a nice bokeh, thanks to its wide f/1.8 aperture.
However, that wide aperture presents a problem too – a narrow depth of field, as this sample photo of star anise shows.
If multiple objects are present at different distances from the camera, only some of them will remain in focus, while the others will be out-of-focus.
That makes for nice portraits, but if you do not tap on the area or subject you want to be in focus, the camera may auto-focus on the wrong area or subject, and you will end up with an out-of-focus shot.
As this shot of pineapples show, only a small area of the right edge of the pineapple on the left is in focus. That’s because I intentionally tapped on that part.
Otherwise, the camera would naturally focus on the nearest part of the pineapple (its centre, which is located to the far left of the photo) and this photo would look really out-of-focus.
In most cases, the colour reproduction is pretty accurate, even if it’s indoors.
But in some cases, you can end up with pretty dull-looking photos under artificial light.
You need to be careful with close-up shots though. This isn’t a macro camera, and so it has trouble focusing if the subject is too close.
The problem is – the Samsung camera app does not warn you if the 50 MP camera cannot focus properly on the subject. It may look like it is focused properly in the camera app, but when you open it up later, you will see that it’s completely out-of-focus.
I definitely recommend you tapping on the subject to “force” the camera app to visibly try to focus. If it fails, you know that you are much too close. It’s also a good habit to tap to focus anyway, as this 50 MP camera has a narrow depth-of-field.
There is no need to worry about the “loss” in resolution from 64 MP to 50 MP. In most cases, you probably won’t even realise that the camera defaults to just 12.5 MP!
Even at 12.5 MP, there is more than enough detail in the photos that the Galaxy A54’s 50MP camera delivers, even if you want to zoom in.
But that does not mean that its 50 MP sensor is pure marketing. You can use it to take 50 MP shots, but you will have to live with significantly larger file sizes.
The full 50 MP resolution isn’t needed for 90% of the photos that most people take, but it is useful for long-distance shots. The Samsung Galaxy A54 does not have a telephoto camera, so taking photos in 50 MP effectively gives you a 4X zoom capability.
For example, if you need to take a faraway shot of a bell tower, you can switch to 50 MP before taking the photo. Then you can zoom into the 50 MP photo you took and crop out a much closer looking shot of that bell tower without using software or digital zoom.
Samsung Galaxy A54 : Camera Performance Summary
I’m glad Samsung switched from the 64 MP camera to a 50 MP camera in the Galaxy A54. The “loss” in megapixels is more than made up by the larger and better Sony IMX766 image sensor, with 25% larger pixels.
This improved 50 MP main camera performed well in our tests, generally delivering good photos with accurate colours in most cases. It has a good level of detail, even at 12.5 MP.
The biggest problem I have with it is its minimum focus distance. The camera seems to work best with subjects that are at least 50 cm away, or so. If I get too close to the subject, the shot ends up out-of-focus, especially if I tried to let the camera auto-focus by itself.
This is not readily apparent in the camera app, so you need to tap to focus. That triggers the camera to seek a better focus. That’s when you can see whether it can really focus properly. Even then, I sometimes end up with out-of-focus shots, because I was simply too close to the subject.
For most people, this won’t a problem if you are taking the usual photos – people standing at a distance, landscapes and buildings at a distance, etc. Just keep this in mind if you are taking close shots of products or food, etc.
The Samsung Galaxy A54 is proof that you don’t need to pay top dollar to get a great smartphone. For less than half the cost of a flagship smartphone, it offers most of the features that you need, in a well-protected device.
It comes with a large, excellent Super AMOLED display which supports 120 Hz refresh rate, and is protected on both front and rear by Gorilla Glass 5. It is also IP67-rated against the ingress of dust and water.
Built around the 5 nm Samsung Exynos 1380 mobile platform, the Galaxy A54 offers excellent performance in work apps, offering the equivalent performance as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.
However, it falters when it comes to gaming. Its weaker Arm Mali-G68 MP5 GPU just cannot keep up with the better GPUs used in flagship-class smartphones. That doesn’t mean you can’t game on it. You can – it can certainly handle most games. It just won’t do as well as flagship-class smartphones in graphics-intensive games.
When it comes to photography, it comes with high-resolution 32 MP front camera, as well as a new 50 MP Sony IMX766 camera at the back, and an ultra-wide-angle camera, and a macro camera.
The 50 MP main camera is generally excellent, except under certain indoor lighting where the photos appear washed out. It also has trouble focusing at closer distances, which is probably why Samsung added the macro camera, which would normally be a waste of time for most users.
While I miss the telephoto camera which is a fixture in flagship smartphones, the 12 MP ultra-wide angle camera is arguably a better trade-off – most people would prefer to use it for landscape and group shots, rather than take long-distance shots with the telephoto camera.
The Galaxy A54 takes pretty good videos too, but there are some limitations :
it can support 30/60 fps @ 1080p, but only 30 fps for 4K video recording,
it is limited to 30 fps, regardless of resolution, when using its ultra-wide angle camera.
it can only support video image stabilisation at 30 fps, but not 60 fps
If you really love taking videos at 4K especially at 60 fps or higher, then these limitations will be a deal breaker. Video recording is where flagship devices like the Galaxy S23 Ultra shines.
But for many people, the Samsung Galaxy A54 offers an excellent combination of features and capabilities at a far lower cost. On top of that, you get two years of warranty, three years of Android updates, and four years of security updates.
For these reasons, we gladly award the Samsung Galaxy A54 our Editor’s Choice Award! Great work, Samsung!
Samsung Galaxy A54 : Price + Availability
The Samsung Galaxy A54 smartphone is available in three main colours with a glossy finish :
Awesome Graphite
Awesome Violet
Awesome Lime
The Samsung Galaxy A54 comes with 8 GB of RAM, and 256 GB of storage, with the option to add a microSD card in the hybrid SIM tray. It is covered by a 2-year warranty, with the following launch prices:
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Take a look at the 50MP camera of the new Samsung Galaxy A54, and find out just how well it performs!
Samsung Galaxy A54 : 50 MP Main Camera
The Samsung Galaxy A54 is the marquee mid-range smartphone for 2023, and it comes with a triple camera system at the back that consists of:
a 50 MP main camera, with f/1.8 aperture,
a 12 MP ultra-wide angle camera, with f/2.2 aperture, and
a 5 MP macro camera, with f/2.4 aperture
The 50 MP camera is a “downgrade” in megapixels from the Galaxy A53’s 64 MP camera, but image quality is better because it is built around the Sony IMX766 image sensor used in phones like the realme 9 Pro+ and Xiaomi 12.
The Sony IMX766 is a larger 1/1.56″ sensor, which offers a 25% larger pixel size of 1.0 µm (compared to 0.8 µm). The larger pixel size is important as it means each pixel can receive 25% more light, delivering better images, especially in low-light conditions.
In fact, that is why the Galaxy A54 defaults to the 12.5 MP resolution, combining four pixels into a much larger 2 µm “bucket” to collect more light. The 64 MP camera in last year’s Galaxy A53 also does the same thing, combining four pixels in one to deliver 16 MP photos.
This 50 MP camera supports PDAF (Phase Detection Autofocus), and its lens has a wide f/1.8 aperture for better light intake. If you like to record videos, you will be glad to know that it features VDIS (Video Digital Image Stabilisation) and improved OIS (Optical Image Stabilisation) offering a wider OIS angle.
In this review, we are going to take a look at the photography capability of Galaxy A54, and show you just how well its 50MP main camera performs!
Samsung Galaxy A54 : 50 MP Camera Review!
The Samsung Galaxy A54’s 50 MP camera takes 12.5 MP photos by default, with a resolution of 4080 x 3060 pixels. Each JPEG photo using the High Efficiency Image File (HEIF) format, each photo is about 2.5 MB to 5 MB in size.
Without HEIF, the file sizes are much larger, so please remember to turn on the HEIF file format to save space.
Open the Camera app
Go to Settings > Advanced picture options
Turn on High efficiency pictures.
As this photo sample shows, the 50 MP main camera of the Samsung Galaxy A54 offers a nice bokeh, thanks to its wide f/1.8 aperture.
However, that wide aperture presents a problem too – a narrow depth of field, as this sample photo of star anise shows.
If multiple objects are present at different distances from the camera, only some of them will remain in focus, while the others will be out-of-focus.
That makes for nice portraits, but if you do not tap on the area or subject you want to be in focus, the camera may auto-focus on the wrong area or subject, and you will end up with an out-of-focus shot.
As this shot of pineapples show, only a small area of the right edge of the pineapple on the left is in focus. That’s because I intentionally tapped on that part.
Otherwise, the camera would naturally focus on the nearest part of the pineapple (its centre, which is located to the far left of the photo) and this photo would look really out-of-focus.
In most cases, the colour reproduction is pretty accurate, even if it’s indoors.
But in some cases, you can end up with pretty dull-looking photos under artificial light.
You need to be careful with close-up shots though. This isn’t a macro camera, and so it has trouble focusing if the subject is too close.
The problem is – the Samsung camera app does not warn you if the 50 MP camera cannot focus properly on the subject. It may look like it is focused properly in the camera app, but when you open it up later, you will see that it’s completely out-of-focus.
I definitely recommend you tapping on the subject to “force” the camera app to visibly try to focus. If it fails, you know that you are much too close. It’s also a good habit to tap to focus anyway, as this 50 MP camera has a narrow depth-of-field.
There is no need to worry about the “loss” in resolution from 64 MP to 50 MP. In most cases, you probably won’t even realise that the camera defaults to just 12.5 MP!
Even at 12.5 MP, there is more than enough detail in the photos that the Galaxy A54’s 50MP camera delivers, even if you want to zoom in.
But that does not mean that its 50 MP sensor is pure marketing. You can use it to take 50 MP shots, but you will have to live with significantly larger file sizes.
The full 50 MP resolution isn’t needed for 90% of the photos that most people take, but it is useful for long-distance shots. The Samsung Galaxy A54 does not have a telephoto camera, so taking photos in 50 MP effectively gives you a 4X zoom capability.
For example, if you need to take a faraway shot of a bell tower, you can switch to 50 MP before taking the photo. Then you can zoom into the 50 MP photo you took and crop out a much closer looking shot of that bell tower without using software or digital zoom.
Samsung Galaxy A54 : 50 MP Camera Summary
I’m glad Samsung switched from the 64 MP camera to a 50 MP camera in the Galaxy A54. The “loss” in megapixels is more than made up by the larger and better Sony IMX766 image sensor, with 25% larger pixels.
This improved 50 MP main camera performed well in our tests, generally delivering good photos with accurate colours in most cases. It has a good level of detail, even at 12.5 MP.
The biggest problem I have with it is its minimum focus distance. The camera seems to work best with subjects that are at least 50 cm away, or so. If I get too close to the subject, the shot ends up out-of-focus, especially if I tried to let the camera auto-focus by itself.
This is not readily apparent in the camera app, so you need to tap to focus. That triggers the camera to seek a better focus. That’s when you can see whether it can really focus properly. Even then, I sometimes end up with out-of-focus shots, because I was simply too close to the subject.
For most people, this won’t a problem if you are taking the usual photos – people standing at a distance, landscapes and buildings at a distance, etc. Just keep this in mind if you are taking close shots of products or food, etc.
Samsung Galaxy A54 : Price + Availability
The Samsung Galaxy A54 smartphone is available in three main colours with a glossy finish :
Awesome Graphite
Awesome Violet
Awesome Lime
The Samsung Galaxy A54 comes with 8 GB of RAM, and 256 GB of storage, with the option to add a microSD card in the hybrid SIM tray. It is covered by a 2-year warranty, with the following launch prices:
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Take a look at the performance of the Samsung Galaxy A54, and find out how well the Exynos 1380 performs against the competition!
Samsung Galaxy A54 : Powered By Exynos 1380
The Samsung Galaxy A54 runs on the Samsung Exynos 1380 mobile platform that was officially launched on 23 February 2023.
Fabricated on the latest 4nm process technology, the Exynos 1380 comes with an Arm Mali-G68 MP5 GPU, as well as eight processor cores in a dual-cluster architecture :
four Arm Cortex-A78 high-performance cores, and
four Arm Cortex-A55 low-power cores.
On paper, this is a powerful mid-range mobile platform, but let’s take a look at how it actually performs!
We first tested the Galaxy A54 Ultra using PCMark, which simulates work applications like web browsing, playing video, writing text and editing photos.
Work 3.0
S23
Ultra
Galaxy
A54
S22
Ultra
S21
Ultra
Galaxy
A52
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
Exynos
1380
SD 8
Gen 1
Exynos
2100
SD
750G
Performance Score
16408
13523
12860
12535
7874
Web Browsing
15680
10659
10442
10185
7021
Video Editing
7879
7363
7444
6336
5693
Writing
22257
17485
15471
15247
7454
Photo Editing
35533
28805
30177
37847
15812
Data Manipulation
12171
11443
9691
8310
6424
Will you look at that?! The Samsung Exynos 1380 that powers the Galaxy A54 actually beat Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 which powered the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
It was also just 17.5% slower than the latest flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 mobile SoC that powers the new Galaxy S23 Ultra flagship smartphone!
For gaming, we tested the Galaxy A54 using 3DMark, with these results :
3DMark
S23
Ultra
S22
Ultra
Z Flip
3
Note20
Ultra
Galaxy
A54
Device
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 1
SD
888
Exynos
990
Exynos
1380
Sling Shot Unlimited
16344
11094
9248
8026
6195
Wild Life Unlimited
14554
9106
3952
4504
2860
Wild Life
Extreme
Unlimited
3814
2220
1174
1387
799
This is where the Samsung Galaxy A54’s Exynos 1380 falls short – it is just not very good at gaming!
It was 23% to 42% slower than the Exynos 990, and 28% to 32% slower than the Snapdragon 888!
That does not mean it’s bad for gaming. It can certainly handle most games. It just won’t be able to deliver high frame rates in graphically-demanding 3D games like Genshin Impact, Black Desert Mobile, etc.
Samsung Galaxy A54 : Overall Performance
We then tested the Galaxy A54 using AnTuTu, yielding these results :
AnTuTu
S23
Ultra
S22
Ultra
S21
Ultra
Galaxy
A54
Galaxy
A52
Device
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 1
Exynos
2100
Exynos
1380
SD
750G
AnTuTu Score
1212174
889167
624411
522411
341908
CPU
261886
203090
166290
153230
105098
GPU
538823
402617
258995
149596
88068
Memory
236163
146002
120805
86578
60642
UX
175302
137458
78321
133007
88100
According to the AnTuTu benchmark, the Samsung Galaxy A54 is about 53% faster than the Galaxy A52, and only 16% slower than the Galaxy S21 Ultra.
What’s important to note is that the Exynos 1380’s CPU is fast, coming within 8% of the Exynos 2100. However, it has a relatively weak GPU, and slower memory than the flagship-class mobile platforms in this comparison.
Samsung Galaxy A54 : Performance Summary
Built around the Samsung Exynos 1380, the Galaxy A54 smartphone has a very fast CPU, but a relatively weak GPU.
What that means is that it offers snappy performance for most part – web browsing, work applications, casual gaming, etc.
It only has trouble delivering high frame rates for graphics-intensive 3D games, and AI or 3D apps may take longer to process in comparison to flagship devices.
But that’s what you need to keep in mind – the Exynos 1380 is a mid-range mobile platform, not a flagship-class. And it is a fast one.
Samsung Galaxy A54 : Price + Availability
The Samsung Galaxy A54 smartphone is available in three main colours with a glossy finish :
Awesome Graphite
Awesome Violet
Awesome Lime
The Samsung Galaxy A54 comes with 8 GB of RAM, and 256 GB of storage, with the option to add a microSD card in the hybrid SIM tray. It is covered by a 2-year warranty, with the following launch prices:
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
HP just launched its new 2023 Smart Tank and LaserJet printers targeted at home / hybrid workers, and enterprises!
2023 HP Smart Tank 580 / 520 Printers
HP just unveiled a new line of budget-friendly 2023 Smart Tank printers to cater to home- and office-based hybrid workers.
The 2023 HP Smart Tank 580 and 520 printers offer an intuitive setup process, with smart features and better connectivity, including self-healing Wi-Fi, and Smart App and Smart Advance capabilities.
They also offer low printing costs with a pre-filled ink supply that can print up to 6,000 black or colour pages. Assuming a monthly output of 150 pages a month, that’s almost 3 years of printing from the start!
Smart Experience
HP Smart App helps to guide you through everyday tasks like print, scan, copy and fax.
Automatically detects IDs, and prints with the ID copy button
Comes with self-healing Wi-Fi and better mobility with Smart App and Smart Advance.
Protected by HP Wolf Essential Security to protect sensitive information.
Affordable Cost
Engineered for high-volume printing with cost-effective colour and monochrome printing
Up to 6,000 pages of black or colour from ink bottles provided in-box
Easy monitoring of ink levels with integrated ink sensors
Sustainably Designed
Sustainably manufactured using 45% post-consumer recycled content.
HP also introduced new laser printers – the LaserJet Managed E800 and E700 series printers, which are intelligent solutions to streamline enterprise workflows.
The new HP LaserJet Managed E800 / E700 series offers enterprises centralised control with HP Web Jetadmi, and HP Workpath for personalised, integrated digital workflow.
Customisable design – they come with five colour panels, to match your office decor, and HP Speed Licence for flexible configurations to meet different business needs
Comprehensive workflow solutions with new Flow 2.0 features, including the ability to make edits directly to the content on the control panel (highlight, redact, even sign) as customised shortcuts.
Reverse and Retry technology which detects and resolves double feed issues and paper jams.
Better performance with up to 70 ppm print speed, and 300 ipm duplex scan, powered by HP’s custom-designed quad-core processor.
Auto-sensing technology to save time with tone and colour management, two sided document detection, and automatic job separation features.
Protected by HP Wolf Enterprise Security, the HP LaserJet Management E800 / E700 series protects, detects, and self-recovers. They also come with Memory Shield, which helps to detect malicious attacks on the printers, and automatically self-heals if detected. Memory Shield uses a hardware-protected solution called Runtime Intrusion Detection to actively scan memory for anomalies, and Guard CFI from Karamba to monitor the execution flow of the printer firmware to help prevent zero-day attacks.
HP is giving away a RM50 e-wallet rebate for the Smart Tank 580, and a RM100 e-wallet rebate for the Smart Tank 520. And if you purchase any of these printers from now until 30 April, you will get an extra black ink bottle.
Here are online purchase options for your convenience:
HP did not reveal the prices for the LaserJet Managed E800 or E700 series printers, but they are available for sale to interested enterprise customers.
Please Support My Work!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Take a look at the battery recharging speed of the new Samsung Galaxy A54, and find out how its two refresh rate options affect its battery life!
Samsung Galaxy A54 : Two Fixed Refresh Rate Options
The new Samsung Galaxy A54 offers two refresh rate options (Settings > Display > Motion smoothness) :
Adaptive : Get smoother animation and scrolling by automatically adjusting your screen refresh rate up to 120 Hz.
Standard : Get longer battery life by automatically adjusting your screen refresh rate up to 60 Hz.
Although the description seems to suggest that the display switches dynamically between 1 Hz to 120 Hz like the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, that’s not true.
By turning on the frame rate counter, we can see that the Galaxy A54 switches between two fixed refresh rates – 60 Hz or 120 Hz in the Dynamic mode, and uses just 60 Hz in the Standard mode.
The true Adaptive refresh rate offered in the Galaxy S23 Ultra is variable, changing from 1 Hz to 120 Hz according to the situation. This not only reduces power consumption, it also prevents “screen tearing” – a visual artifact that occurs when the game frame rate does not match the display’s refresh rate.
In the next section, we will look at how the two refresh rate options affect the Galaxy A54’s battery life.
To test its battery life, we turned off Automatic Brightness, and set its display brightness to 50%.
Why 50%? That is actually slightly higher than the average indoor brightness level of 40% during the day, and is what we usually use in all our mobile battery life tests.
It is important to fix the brightness level, to make sure the screen brightness does not change as the ambient brightness changes.
We then ran the PCMark Work 3.0 battery life test until its battery capacity dropped to 20% several times, and this was the best result we obtained with 60 Hz and 120 Hz refresh rates :
Not bad at all! The Samsung Galaxy A54 has a battery life of 12.5 hours with Adaptive refresh rate enabled, and almost 14 hours with the Standard refresh rate. That’s equal to the Galaxy S22 Ultra at the Standard refresh rate, and 16.7%better at the Adaptive refresh rate.
But let’s also compare its battery life at 60 Hz and 120 Hz, against the S23 Ultra, S22 Ultra and Z Flip 3 smartphones.
Standard Refresh Rate (60 Hz)
The Samsung Galaxy A54 lasted almost 14 hours with the refresh rate set to 60 Hz. But it isn’t quite as efficient as the new S23 Ultra, or even last year’s S22 Ultra.
Work 3.0
S23 Ultra
(60 Hz)
S22 Ultra
(60 Hz)
Galaxy A54
(60 Hz)
Z Flip 3
(60 Hz)
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
3,300 mAh
Battery Life
15 hrs 18 mins
14 hrs 15 mins
13 hrs 57 mins
8 hrs 11 mins
Utilisation
per min.
4.36 mAh
4.68 mAh
4.78 mAh
5.38 mAh
Adaptive Refresh Rate (120 Hz)
Will you look at that! The Samsung Galaxy A54 was about 13.6% more efficient than the S22 Ultra with the Adaptive refresh rate enabled, coming within 8% of the power efficiency of the S23 Ultra.
Based on what we see here, I definitely recommend turning on the Adaptive Refresh Rate on the Galaxy A54, unless you absolutely need the extra 1.5 hours of battery life.
Work 3.0
S23 Ultra
(120 Hz)
Galaxy A54
(120 Hz)
S22 Ultra
(120 Hz)
Z Flip 3
(120 Hz)
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
3,300 mAh
Battery Life
13 hrs
0 mins
12 hrs 25 mins
10 hrs
38 mins
6 hrs
44 mins
Utilisation
per min.
5.13 mAh
5.52 mAh
6.27 mAh
6.53 mAh
Samsung Galaxy A54 : Battery Recharging Speed!
The Samsung Galaxy A54 supports up to 25 watts of wired fast charging, but unfortunately, does not come with the charger in-the-box.
So we relied on the standard 15 watt Samsung fast charger than shipped with their previous smartphones – something we believe most users will end up doing.
Work 3.0
S22 Ultra
S23 Ultra
Galaxy A54
Z Flip 3
Battery Capacity
3,300 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
3,300 mAh
Charger Output
15 watts
15 watts
15 watts
15 watts
Battery Life
64.5 minutes
88.8 minutes
120.7 minutes
88.5 minutes
Recharging Speed
(per minute)
62.0 mAh
45.0 mAh
33.1 mAh
29.8 mAh
The Samsung Galaxy A54 fully recharges from 20% to 100% in just over 2 hours with the standard 15 watt Samsung charger. Oddly enough, this is significantly (36%) slower than the S23 Ultra.
I have no idea whether this was an intentional design decision to reduce the Galaxy A54’s thermal output while charging, or to further differentiate it from the much pricier Galaxy S23 Ultra.
In any case, the Galaxy A54 has a good battery life : recharging ratio of 7:1. As a rule of thumb, for every hour of battery life, you only need to recharge it for 8.5 minutes.
Samsung Galaxy A54 : Price + Availability
The Samsung Galaxy A54 comes with 8 GB of RAM, and 256 GB of storage, with the option to add a microSD card in the hybrid SIM tray. It is covered by a 2-year warranty, with the following launch prices:
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Samsung just launched the Galaxy A54 smartphone, and here is our unboxing and hands-on preview!
Samsung Galaxy A54 : Quick Overview
The Galaxy A54 is Samsung’s latest mid-range smartphone, built around the Samsung Exynos 1380 mobile platform, which features:
four Arm Cortex-A78 high-performance cores,
four Arm Cortex-A55 low-power cores, and
an Arm Mali-G68 MP5 GPU
It has a large 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display, with a Full HD+ resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels. This display is capable of supporting a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz for smoother graphics.
Hidden in its display is a punch hole camera, with a 32 MP sensor and an f/2.2 aperture. At the back, it sports a triple camera system, that consists of:
a 50 MP main camera, with f/1.8 aperture,
a 12 MP ultra-wide angle camera, with f/2.2 aperture, and
a 5 MP macro camera, with f/2.4 aperture
All that is powered by a large 5,000 mAh battery, which supports up to 25 watt fast charging.
On top of that, Samsung guarantees up to 4 generations of OS upgrades, and 5 years of security updates, as well as 2 years of warranty for the Galaxy A54!
Samsung Galaxy A54 : Unboxing
The Samsung Galaxy A54 smartphone comes in a thin white cardboard box, which tells you that it definitely does not come with a USB charger inside.
It is protected by two security stickers. Please make sure they are intact when you receive the box. Do not accept it, if any of the security stickers have been cut or tampered with.
After cutting the security stickers and taking off the top of the box, you will find the Galaxy A54 smartphone wrapped in plastic.
But don’t chuck away the box cover yet. Hidden underneath is a cardboard packet containing its documents and accessories.
Once you remove everything, you should find these items inside the box:
Samsung Galaxy A54 smartphone
One set of documents : Quick Start Guide, warranty card, Samsung Pay leaflet, Regional Lock Guide
Type C to Type C USB cable
SIM tray pin
The package is pretty sparse. There is no USB charger, and no, it doesn’t come with a basic TPU case either.
Samsung Galaxy A54 : Hands-On Of Three Colours Options!
The Samsung Galaxy A54 smartphone is available in three main colours with a glossy finish :
Awesome Graphite
Awesome Violet
Awesome Lime
Samsung also offers an Awesome White colour option in certain countries.
In the following video, I will show you the three main colour options, and give you a closer look at the Galaxy A54 in the Awesome Graphite, Awesome Violet and Awesome Lime colours. Do let us know which you prefer!
Samsung Galaxy A54 : Price + Availability
The Samsung Galaxy A54 comes with 8 GB of RAM, and 256 GB of storage, with the option to add a microSD card in the hybrid SIM tray. It is covered by a 2-year warranty, with the following launch prices:
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.