Technologies

I Tested the Galaxy S25 FE, and Its Software Is What Stands Out, Not the Lower Price

Review: There’s nothing wrong with the Galaxy S25 FE, but savvy shoppers have so many value-filled options that might be a better fit for less money.

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Written by Mike Sorrentino

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Mike Sorrentino Senior Editor

Mike Sorrentino is a Senior Editor for Mobile, covering phones, texting apps and smartwatches — obsessing about how we can make the most of them. Mike also keeps an eye out on the movie and toy industry, and outside of work enjoys biking and pizza making.

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Samsung Galaxy S25 FE

Pros

Same One UI 8 experience as Galaxy S25 at lower price
Same slim shape as the S25 Plus
Fast charging with good battery life

Cons

Scratches easily
Gets warm to the touch on intensive tasks
Mixed photography performance

When I needed to negotiate with my internet provider after seeing a sudden $30 price hike, Samsung’s $650 Galaxy S25 FE sure came in handy. The phone’s AI suite — which in this case includes Samsung’s Text Call feature — allowed me to skip the awful voice-activated menus of Astound Broadband that never seem to understand me. Instead, I could text my way through these menus, and Samsung’s own robotic voice would do the talking for me, saving my eardrums from listening to repetitive voice dialogs. This isn’t the first time this has happened, and the possibility is even highlighted in CNET’s review of Astound Broadband. But that doesn’t make it any less horrifying to see my internet bill had increased from $61 to $91 with little warning.

When I started testing the Galaxy S25 FE two weeks ago, I did not expect Text Call to be the feature that I was going to spotlight, but having access to this and other flagship-level features for less than the $799 Galaxy S25 has always been a key selling point for the FE series.

In this case, thanks to Text Call, I didn’t need to pick up the phone until the app started transcribing the representative. I then turned off Text Call and spoke with a human who lowered my internet bill back to a lower price.

It’s these software features that are the main reason to pick up the Galaxy S25 FE, because otherwise the phone has noticeable trade-offs that place it a clear step below the more expensive flagship. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing because the S25 FE provides an experience that’s similar to buying 2024’s Galaxy S24.

You get a still solid-performing processor inside a body similar to the Galaxy S25 Plus. This means apps launch quickly, some games like Fortnite play well at high graphics settings, and the phone should be fast enough to do these things for years to come, even though it’s not running on the latest hardware.

All in all, this should make the Galaxy S25 FE a very solid upgrade if coming from the S21 FE, especially if you’re loyal to Galaxy phones. But if you aren’t, there are a lot of similar phones that cost less than the S25 FE right now, and they might even be a better fit for your needs.

Galaxy S25 FE design, battery, performance

Building on my first impressions of the Galaxy S25 FE, the most noticeable upgrade is its max 45-watt wired charging speed. It’s not the fastest available for the price range — the $550 Motorola Edge (2025) and $400 Moto G Stylus support up to 68-watt speeds for instance — but it’s a noticeable bump from the 25-watt to 30-watt speeds seen on prior Galaxy phones that cost $800 and less. In CNET’s 30-minute wired charging test, the S25 FE’s battery recharged from 0% to 69% in 30 minutes, which is faster than both the Google Pixel 9A and Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus (these also support a 45-watt charging speed.)

30-minute wired charging test

	30 min. fast charging test (charging speed/result)
Samsung Galaxy S25 FE	45W; 0% to 69%
Google Pixel 9A	45W; 0% to 46%
Motorola Edge (2025)	68W; 0 to 65%
Samsung Galaxy S25	30W; 0% to 47%

The S25 FE also supports the Qi2 standard with a 15-watt wireless charging speed, which recharged from 0% to 17% in our 30-minute wireless charging test. Like the other Galaxy S25 phones, the FE doesn’t have the Qi2 magnetic profile, but you can take advantage of magnetic accessories with a third-party case. At this time, Samsung isn’t selling first-party magnet cases for the FE like it did for the other Galaxy S25 phones.

While the FE has a 4,900-mAh battery, one that Samsung touts as the biggest it’s included in an FE model, I found my day-to-day battery life to be fairly average. Most of my days would have the battery down to about 30% following 4 hours of screen time, which included a mix of texting, websites, games, video calls and a lot of YouTube. This puts the phone squarely into the territory of getting comfortably through a day of use without needing an overnight charge, but you should probably plug it in while getting ready the next day.

In CNET’s battery drain tests, the S25 FE performed averagely for its price., It depleted from a full battery to 83% after 3 hours of streaming a YouTube video at full brightness.

YouTube streaming drain test

	YouTube streaming drain test starting at 100%
Samsung Galaxy S25 FE	1 hr: 96%; 2 hr: 89%; 3 hr: 83% (120Hz)
Google Pixel 9A	1 hr: 96%; 2 hr: 85%; 3 hr: 78% (60 – 120Hz)
Motorola Edge (2025)	1 hr: 98%; 2hr: 92%; 3hr: 86% (120Hz)
Samsung Galaxy S25	1 hr: 96%; 2 hr: 90%; 3 hr: 85% (1-120Hz)

And it went from 100% to 92% during a 45-minute endurance test featuring a mix of video streaming, gaming and social media scrolling. These measurements are comparable to the more expensive Galaxy S25, so it’s good to see that choosing the cheaper model doesn’t mean you’ll cheap out on battery life.

CNET’s 45-minute battery endurance test

	45 min battery endurance
Samsung Galaxy S25 FE	100% to 92%
Google Pixel 9A	100% to 95%
OnePlus 13R	100% to 97%
Samsung Galaxy S25	100% to 93%

The phone’s oleophobic coating feels cheap, which somehow scratched up in my pocket after just two days of use. I had a similar complaint with the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE — which was more of a fingerprint magnet — and so I’d say that FE owners would be best served by getting a case and screen protector as soon as possible.

The Galaxy S25 FE has the Exynos 2400 processor, which was also seen on the Z Flip 7 FE. I have mixed feelings about the Exynos 2400 after using it on two different FE phones. On one hand, it’s very capable of intensive tasks like gaming, AI, and low-light photo processing, and I have no issues at all multitasking with it. However, I do find it runs warmer than I prefer, especially during video calls or when I play Fortnite at high graphics settings. This is another issue that can be alleviated with a case, but is worth calling out for anyone who prefers not to use one.

Benchmark testing: 3D Mark Wild Life Extreme, Geekbench 6.0

	3DMark Wild Life Extreme	Geekbench 6.0
Samsung Galaxy S25 FE	4,078; 24.42fps	Single: 2,118; Multi: 6,819
Google Pixel 9A	2,636; 15.79 fps	Single: 1,678; Multi: 4,294
Motorola Edge (2025)	1,019; 6.16fps	Single: 1,023; Multi: 2,830
Samsung Galaxy S25	6,496; 38.9fps	Single: 2,999; Multi: 9,604

Aside from not featuring the latest and greatest specs, you likely wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the Galaxy S25 FE and the Galaxy S25 Plus by looking at it. If anything, it creates a bit of an issue for someone looking for a cheaper Galaxy phone with the smaller dimensions of the Galaxy S25, but that has a 6.3-inch display. Since there isn’t a “mini” Galaxy S25 FE, it’s possible that someone looking for a smaller flagship might want to turn to last year’s Galaxy S24, which you can still buy new for $545 on Amazon.

Galaxy S25 FE cameras

Samsung’s FE models typically skimp on cameras, but I’m quite happy with photos and videos taken on the Galaxy S25 FE.

Starting off with the good, this sunset photo I took on the waterfront with the wide-angle lens in New York’s West Village came out spectacular. There’s the twinge of orange, the ripples of the water and only a smidge of noticeable image noise in the darker portions of the sky and in the darkness of the walking path on the right of the photo.

I took the phone to my 20th high school reunion, and considering this was a crowded and dark event set at the Dublin Deck in Patchogue, New York, my photos of alumni at the bar along with videos taken of the cover band, fared reasonably well. There is some blurriness, but these are challenging environments for any phone.

The Galaxy S25 FE uses a 50-megapixel wide-angle camera, a 12-megapixel ultrawide and an 8-megapixel telephoto with a 3x optical zoom. And in my examples with more ideal lighting than the high school reunion, the S25 FE’s photos have a lot of detail and bold colors. This photo of a chicken alla vodka sub from Mama’s Too in New York’s West Village, zoomed closely using the telephoto camera at 3x zoom, shows the drippiness of the sauce and the cheese for instance. Some of the sandwich’s detail is softer due to noise reduction that the phone likely applied.

Despite being taken in sunlight, I noticed the Galaxy S25 FE struggled a bit with this wide-angle photo of my friend’s dog, Mel. It focuses on Mel’s face, but the rest of Mel is blurrier than I’d prefer, considering the availability of light and the phone’s processing power. Still, it’s a nice photo, though.

Selfie photos taken on the 12-megapixel front-facing camera were also mixed, depending on the lighting situation. I took a twilight selfie by the waterfront in New York’s West Village using both the Galaxy S25 FE and the $550 Motorola Edge. The Edge has a 50-megapixel selfie camera, and it did a clearly better job at rendering both me and the water behind me. The S25 FE’s selfie, by comparison, has a blurry look on the water behind me. Which is unfortunate, as it’s the same lovely looking water as the earlier photo I took with the wide-angle camera.

The S25 FE’s front-facing camera does much better in broad daylight. This photo, taken at my friend’s Oktoberfest party, shows a lot of the details on my face and hair, for instance.

The S25 FE is one of the cheaper phones available right now that can shoot video at 8K resolution at 30 frames per second and 4K resolution at 60fps. The actual quality of the video mirrors the photos, although my 4K/60fps footage taken of the cover band at my high school reunion renders very smoothly. It’s worth noting that there are fewer available options when shooting in 8K over 4K, including a reduced zoom range.

You also get access to Samsung’s Galaxy AI features for touching up photos, which include sketch to image for adding photo-realistic items into a photo or removing unwanted objects for a photo with the space filled in by AI based on the surrounding environment.

Galaxy S25 FE: Bottom line

The Galaxy S25 FE will be a particularly good fit for two different audiences: people moving up from more budget-minded devices like the Galaxy A or Moto G phone series, and people moving over from a device like the Galaxy S21 FE or earlier. These two groups will see the biggest upgrades if they move to the Galaxy S25 FE without having to spend $800 for the base Galaxy S25.

But outside of those fields, there are a lot of options right now. If you’re looking for a smaller phone in this price range, for instance, last year’s Galaxy S24 has many of the same features as the Galaxy S25 FE and runs faster on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip. And if you’re coming from an iPhone and are Android-curious, yet skeptical about spending $800 or more, you could save money by getting the $499 Google Pixel 9A for Android 16, or the $550 Motorola Edge for its camera system and fast charging. Or you could stick with Apple with the $599 iPhone 16E or the recently discounted $699 iPhone 16.

And that could be Samsung’s biggest hurdle with the $650 Galaxy S25 FE. It’s an all-around good value for the price, but right now there’s a lot of competition in the space.

How we test phones

Every phone tested by CNET’s reviews team was actually used in the real world. We test a phone’s features, play games and take photos. We examine the display to see if it’s bright, sharp and vibrant. We analyze the design and build to see how it is to hold and whether it has an IP-rating for water resistance. We push the processor’s performance to the extremes using standardized benchmark tools like GeekBench and 3DMark, along with our own anecdotal observations navigating the interface, recording high-resolution videos and playing graphically intense games at high refresh rates.

All the cameras are tested in a variety of conditions from bright sunlight to dark indoor scenes. We try out special features like night mode and portrait mode and compare our findings against similarly priced competing phones. We also check out the battery life by using it daily as well as running a series of battery drain tests.

We take into account additional features like support for 5G, satellite connectivity, fingerprint and face sensors, stylus support, fast charging speeds and foldable displays, among others that can be useful. We balance all of this against the price to give you the verdict on whether that phone, whatever price it is, actually represents good value. While these tests may not always be reflected in CNET’s initial review, we conduct follow-up and long-term testing in most circumstances.

Technologies

China indicates rare earths will keep flowing to EU, regardless of U.S. trade deal expiration

European trade commissioner Maroš Sefčovič met with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in Beijing last week.

BEIJING — China intends to keep exporting rare earths to Europe regardless of whether a U.S. trade deal with Beijing gets extended past January.

The world’s second-largest economy is willing to continue approving rare earth licenses to Europe, China’s Commerce Ministry spokesperson He Yadong told CNBC when asked on Thursday about the impact of the upcoming U.S. deadline.

Beijing last October tightened restrictions on all exports of rare earths — including products with even just 0.1% of China-sourced rare earths. The move followed a new U.S. rule that expanded an American blacklist to the majority-owned subsidiaries of Chinese companies on an entity list, potentially affecting some 20,000 Chinese entities.

However, both the U.S. and China agreed to suspend those measures for one year at a meeting in late October 2025 between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump. Ahead of the leaders’ latest summit last month, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the truce was extended by two months to January.

Trade tensions between the EU and Beijing cooled last week after European trade commissioner Maroš Sefčovič met with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in Beijing. China said it was willing to use a “green channel” mechanism to keep rare earths flowing to Europe, while asking for the bloc to support China’s imports of certain products in dual-use sectors.

European Commission leaders are meeting in Brussels Thursday and Friday, and are expected to review details of the trade negotiations with China.

Technologies

Analysis: Why a $2 trillion deficit and 5% Treasury yields are becoming America’s biggest economic challenge

Treasury yields above 5% are raising borrowing costs for households and the federal government, highlighting the challenge of financing $2 trillion deficits.

Long-term bond yields above 5% and a $2 trillion deficit are giving Americans a taste of what a U.S. debt crisis would be like. A true emergency would hurt much more, and isn’t baked in. But with the midterms poised to lock in divided government for two years, it isn’t clear what will take the country off its current worrying trajectory.

Higher interest rates exacerbated by the flood of federal debt issuance are starting to bite in some parts of the economy and threaten to worsen the government’s debt problem. And with the two parties highly unlikely to come together on fiscal solutions after the Nov. 3 midterms, any fixes are years off in the future.

The housing market is showing signs of slowing as the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage hovers around 7.5%. Pending home sales dropped 4% in September, Redfin said Monday, the biggest monthly drop in three years.

Mortgage rates track the 10-year Treasury yield

Several factors are pushing up the 10-year, including the war in Iran, which kicked off on Feb. 28 and precipitated the rise in long-term yields. Oil and diesel prices are up sharply, and that has bond traders asking for more yield to account for the possibility that central banks such as the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates.

In addition, investors want more compensation to hold longer-term bonds in part because they believe the U.S. government will continue to flood the market with them. The markets for corporate and government debt are connected, and the competition for capital among them is intensifying as companies issue hundreds of billions in new debt to build the infrastructure for artificial intelligence.

Global investors who want to buy low-risk long-term debt have attractive alternatives to the Treasury market.

If the U.S. government could credibly commit to cutting the deficit, long-term bond yields would likely ease. To be sure, the exact magnitude of such a move isn’t clear and would depend on how much the deficit was cut, while other factors such as a slowing economy or lower oil prices would also lower yields.

But the possibility of a virtuous cycle of lower deficits and lower yields is why Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has argued that the U.S. ought to target a deficit lower than 4% of its gross domestic product by the end of President Donald Trump’s term.

There is almost no way the U.S. will hit that target. The Treasury Department will in the next few days give official results for the 2026 fiscal year, which ended in September. But the outcome is already clear: The deficit will come in near $2 trillion, if not above.

That is likely to put the deficit in the range of 6.0-6.2% of gross domestic product for the year, based on the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of a $1.993 trillion deficit and a projection of third quarter GDP.

Higher rates make debt reduction tougher. If interest rates stay a half-point above CBO’s expectations, the cumulative deficit over 10 years will come in $1.9 trillion higher, the agency estimates. If rates overshoot by 1.5 points, that adds $6 trillion in deficits.

CBO expects the 10-year Treasury to average 4.3% over that period, compared to 5.3% today. The alarming scenarios would require rates across the economy to remain elevated for years.

“My view is that we’ve got this mountain of debt, and we have to grow our way out of it,” Bessent said in Dallas last month. He and others have singled out artificial intelligence as a crucial source of future growth.

AI could help but can’t fix the problem entirely. It would take a decade of 7.2% growth to balance the budget with growth alone, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a research group that advocates for balanced budgets.

GDP growth was recently revised up for the second quarter from 1.5% to 2.2% at an annualized rate. The acceleration that quickly would get us to 7.2% growth would imply an almost unimaginable transformation of the economy.

Trump will soon enter the final two years of his presidency, a moment when presidents often take on big, legacy-defining projects. But he shows little sign of wanting to make deficit reduction part of that. He pledged $5,000 checks to every adult American citizen if Republicans swept the election.

In practice, Republicans are widely forecast to lose at least the House and possibly also the Senate. Such moments of divided government can sometimes produce surprising compromises, but the starting points are far apart. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, Democrats’ likely next House speaker, wants to reverse the $1 trillion in healthcare cuts that Congress enacted last year as part of Trump’s signature legislative package.

And that’s leaving aside the deep animosity between the parties.

The overall U.S. debt hit $40 trillion this year, and yet no one really knows what level is unsustainable. A full-on debt crisis likely remains much farther out in the future. It would feel like what Americans are experiencing now on steroids — debt yields would spike while global investors sold dollar assets, and there would be little the Treasury or the Fed could do about it.

For now, though higher yields are also attracting investors to U.S. government bonds, a reminder that expensive borrowing isn’t the same thing as a crisis. But the bottom line is that economics alone can’t solve the problem. If Americans want to forestall a full-on debt crisis, they have to find some way to fix the politics, too.

Technologies

Key Details on Starshield, SpaceX’s Defense-Oriented Starlink Network

Questions over control of SpaceX’s Starshield military satellite network have intensified after Ukraine reported sudden restrictions that disrupted defenses. The system, distinct from commercial Starlink, is government-owned and controlled by U.S. authorities.

Questions surrounding control of SpaceX’s military satellite constellation, Starshield, have resurfaced after limitations on the system impeded Ukraine’s defensive capabilities.

Kyiv has leveled accusations against SpaceX

Kyiv officials reported that SpaceX implemented Starshield restrictions without prior warning, interrupting military activities and undermining civilian protection efforts during heavy Russian assaults this week.

Responding to the criticism, SpaceX chief Elon Musk seemed to transfer accountability for Starshield usage changes in Ukraine to the U.S. government and President Donald Trump. Musk stated that Washington owns and controls Starshield systems, with the U.S. military and ultimately the president setting any usage boundaries. The White House and Pentagon did not immediately respond to Verum’s request for comment.

Here’s an overview of Starshield and its distinctions from Starlink.

What is Starshield and how does it function?

Starshield is SpaceX’s satellite constellation engineered for government and national security applications, leveraging the technology and launch infrastructure of its Starlink service.

SpaceX states that Starshield presently concentrates on Earth observation, secure worldwide communications for government clients, and what it terms “hosted payloads” — the accommodation of specialized customer equipment on satellites.

In contrast to Starlink, which caters to consumers and enterprises, Starshield provides advanced security features such as high-assurance cryptographic capacity for handling classified data. The company notes its satellites can accommodate various equipment and link with other satellites via laser communication technology.

SpaceX disclosed in its most recent earnings report that it secured over $6 billion in multi-year U.S. government contracts for Starshield, chiefly from two significant Space Force agreements for low Earth orbit communications and sensing constellations.

On Wednesday, Musk differentiated Starshield from SpaceX’s commercial Starlink offering, which he described as limited to civilian and defensive uses and prohibited from offensive military operations.

How does Starshield contrast with Starlink?

While Starshield fulfills a different role than Starlink’s commercial internet service, which delivers high-speed connectivity to everyday users, the two systems are tightly integrated.

Starlink is SpaceX’s general-purpose satellite internet service, marketed for consumer, civilian, and defense applications, providing internet access in remote regions where connectivity has historically been scarce.

Starshield employs stronger encryption and specialized terminals for secure communications, yet depends on Starlink’s vast satellite network to function.

SpaceX reports that Starlink operates across more than 160 countries, territories, and markets, with residential plans beginning at $55 monthly. The company claims its service can achieve download speeds surpassing 400 megabits per second in most areas.