Samsung promised two years ago that it would offer fans the chance to buy its latest flagships at more affordable prices through its Fan Edition series of phones. Unfortunately, however, that promise has hardly been fulfilled. Despite the success of the 2020 Galaxy S20 FE in 2021, Samsung was so late with the S21 FE that by the time it was released, the “standard” S21 was already cheaper and the S22 on its way out. Apparently these delays led to the cancellation of the S22 FE.
Processors to be used in the Galaxy S22 FE, reworked for the S22 Ultra.
According to South Korean publication The Elec, Samsung has scrapped plans to release another Galaxy S22 FE in 2022, as expected. This would have been a similar version to the Galaxy S22 released earlier this year, with a larger screen and Snapdragon processor most likely, but with slight differences in cameras, RAM and build.
The Elec says that no evidence has so far been identified that an SM-S900 model exists or is in development, and that it should have already appeared somewhere, particularly in software packages. The Galaxy S22 FE was supposed to launch sometime this fall, so presumably including production of this phone should begin in the near future.
It’s possible that the success of the Galaxy S22 Ultra convinced the company to keep the chips it would have used to develop a cheaper model in order to make more expensive models. Those three million processors programmed for the S22 FE could now be used to develop twice as expensive phones that still sell very well, targeting both the Galaxy S audience, who always want Samsung’s most powerful flagship, and Galaxy Note fans, thanks to the included stylus.
But it seems that the eventual Galaxy S23 FE for next year is not yet a cancelled project, and the FE series will continue, even if we don’t get a new model like this in 2022. The chip crisis could end in 2023, according to industry analysts, which could provide enough stock for Samsung to develop both standard flagship models and FE variants.