Earlier this month, Samsung announced a slew of new products to end 2023 on a high note. Alongside some new tablets and a pair of earbuds, one of those new products was the Galaxy S23 FE. It looks a lot like the other S23 phones released earlier this year, but it has some lower specs and a cheaper price. When Samsung announced the S23 FE on October 3, it said the phone would be available for $600.
However, it looks like something changed between then and now. The Galaxy S23 FE officially went on sale today, October 26, but it doesn’t cost the $600 Samsung claimed it would. Instead, you’ll have to pay $630 for the base model with 128GB of storage — a seemingly random increase of $30. Samsung didn’t previously confirm how much the 256GB variant would cost, but it’s currently listed on Samsung’s site for $690.
What’s the cause of this sudden price increase? We aren’t really sure. Plans change all the time for smartphone launches, from tweaked specs to different release dates. However, I can’t think of another time when a phone was announced at one price and then launched at a different price, and with no explanation about why it happened. Interestingly enough, the S23 FE is available on Amazon for the expected $600, making the situation that much more confusing.
Although a $30 increase isn’t the end of the world, it does put the Galaxy S23 FE in a bit of an awkward spot. There’s now just $70 separating it and the Google Pixel 8, which is one of the best smartphones we’ve reviewed all year. It also pushes it ever-so-slightly closer to the regular Galaxy S23‘s $800 retail price. While $630 isn’t a horrible price for everything the Galaxy S23 FE has to offer — like a 120Hz AMOLED display, triple-camera system, and 4,500mAh battery — the value proposition is a bit worse than we’d anticipated.
After reaching out to Samsung for comment about this, the company told Digital Trends that the S23 FE still starts at $600, but that price is only for the carrier version, while the new $630 price is for the unlocked model. That doesn’t explain why Amazon and Best Buy are specifically selling “unlocked” versions of the phone for $600, and we’ve reached out for further clarification.
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