Galaxy S23 FE rumors so far have suggested that it will be powered by the two-year-old Exynos 2200 chip. And if you silently wished that it was not true, you are in for disappointment. A newly-published Geekbench entry confirms that Samsung will indeed ship the new Fan Edition (FE) phone with an outdated processor.
An unannounced Samsung smartphone with the model number SM-S711B recently popped up on Geekbench. While the OpenCL (Open Computing Language) benchmark run, which yielded a score of 8,986, didn’t name the device, we have already seen this model number numerous times in the past. It’s the global version of the Galaxy S23 FE.
The benchmarking run confirmed a few key details about the device. Firstly, it will arrive with Android 13 onboard. No Android 14 out of the box. This likely means that Samsung won’t push the Galaxy S23 FE launch deep into 2023. At least a few markets may get the phone early—maybe even before it releases the stable Android 14 update (One UI 6.0) for eligible Galaxy devices, which is expected in October.
But more than its launch date, we are interested in the Galaxy S23 FE’s processor. The s5e9925 chip, which has one prime CPU core operating at 2.80GHz, three mid-cores at 2.52GHz, and four efficiency cores at 1.82GHz, is none other than the Exynos 2200. This chip powered the Galaxy S22 series in some markets in early 2022. About two years later, Samsung is using it again on a new phone that it plans to sell as a flagship. It will pair the CPU with the same Xclipse 920 GPU.
The Galaxy S23 FE is all but confirmed to ship with Exynos 2200 globally
This would be a massive letdown from the Korean behemoth. After all those years of Exynos troubles and the Galaxy S23 series exclusively using a Snapdragon processor for everyone’s linking, the company is going back to an old Exynos chip. The Exynos 2200 has had its fair share of troubles too. Samsung has optimized it a lot over the past year or so, but its bad reputation may affect Galaxy S23 FE sales.
To make the matter worse, there may not be a Snapdragon version of the phone. The Galaxy S21 FE used the Exynos 2100 in some markets and Snapdragon 888 in others. The Galaxy S23 FE, meanwhile, will seemingly ship with the Exynos 22 globally. Samsung may be looking to utilize excess Exynos 2200 stock here, but the plan may backfire. A lot would depend on the pricing of the Galaxy S23 FE. Stay tuned for more about the upcoming FE phone.