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What's up guys and welcome back to our head-to-head series. Today we're comparing Samsung's new Galaxy A57 with last year's Galaxy S25 FE. Out of these two Samsung phones, which is the better value? Let's go through all of our test results and find out. The Galaxy A57 is actually the lower tier mid-range of these two phones. The S25 FE is marketed to be on the edge of flagship territory. But the differences between these two might be smaller than you expect. The Galaxy A57 is the thinner phone and over 10 grams lighter. The two devices are made of the same premium materials though. And they both have IP68 ingress
protection against dust and water submersion. The screens are also very similar, both at 6.7 inches with the same specs. This means you'll get the same viewing experience either way and the same HDR features, too. The brightness is also about the same. We measured a maximum of over 1200 nits in automatic mode either way. You even have a very adaptive system frame rate on both devices. And you can wake up and unlock either phone with an optical under-display fingerprint reader.
The interface of the Galaxy A57 is Samsung's One UI 8.5 and the Galaxy S25 FE is already updated to that version as well. You can check out our dedicated One UI 8.5 video for a more in-depth look. For software support, at the time of making this video, both phones are looking at 6 years of updates from Samsung. Now we start to get into more differences starting with the speakers. The A57 stereo setup is not quite as loud as the S25 FE's, which also has better sound quality with more warmth, cleaner vocals and crisper highs. Let's have a listen to compare.
Absolute beginners came to Georgetown. They're wearing Harris Tweed for the This These two phones have different chip sets. The A57 has a mid-range tier Exynos 1680. The S25 FE on the other hand gets an Exynos 2400, a higher tier chip found in Samsung's 2024 flagships. In benchmarks, the difference is clear with the S25 FE beating the A57 across the board by a wide margin. At least the A57 did a better job with thermal management with less throttling in our prolonged stress tests. These two phones have nearly the same battery capacity. The A57 is 5000 mA hours versus the S25 FE's 4900.
The difference in battery life is significant though with the A57 earning an overall active use score of about 14 hours compared to about 12 on the S25 FE. Both of these Samsung phones support the same 45 W wired charging. And there's no difference in the charging speed. It's just the same between the two. However, only with the S25 FE will you get wireless charging and there's reverse wireless charging, too. There is a difference in the cameras as well. Only with the S25 FE do you get a dedicated telephoto zoom.
The A57 has a 50 MP main cam, a 12 MP fixed focus ultra wide, and a 5 MP macro camera. And instead of that macro camera, the S25 FE has an 8 MP three times zoom. During the day, the main camera photo quality is similar though the S25 FE seems to have more natural looking detail. The FE's native three times zoom camera produces well detailed and likable shots, a clear advantage over the three times digital zoom you'd have to use on the A57. When it comes to the ultra wide photos, there's not a lot to set the two phones apart.
There's not a huge difference when shooting with the main cameras at night, but you will notice a different color presentation. Here's a look at night time three times zoom from the S25 FE. And neither ultra wide is very good in the dark with both phones producing soft results. Selfies are pretty great on both phones and we'd be hard pressed to pick one over the other. They're as good as identical. And here we can see the 4K selfie video quality.
The two phones have quite different video recording capabilities with the A57 maxing out in 4K at 30 FPS while the S25 FE can do 4K 120 FPS and 8K recording. In 4K resolution, the two phones video quality is comparable but the A57 has a more processed rendition with added sharpening compared to the FE's more laid-back processing. And in the dark, both phones can capture solid clips with their main cameras. So there you have it guys, the Galaxy A57 and the Galaxy S25 FE. Let's do a quick recap of what you get with either phone. Both phones are made of the same premium materials. And the display is nearly identical.
You get Samsung's One UI 8.5 interface. And the same charging speed. And you get very similar quality from the main cam, ultra wide, and selfie cameras. The Galaxy A57 does bring advantages like a slimmer, lighter build, longer battery life, and the same user experience for a bit less money. With the S25 FE, you get better speaker quality. The chipset is much more powerful. There's wireless charging. There's Samsung DeX support both wired and wireless. There's a dedicated three times zoom camera. And you can record videos in 4K 120 FPS slow-mo and 8K.
Right now, the price gap between the two is about 150 bucks. That should get even smaller as time goes on. I'd say if you don't need the chipset power or the zoom camera, go for the A57 and save the money and get better battery life to boot. But if you do need those things, it could be worth investing a bit more for the S25 FE. Thanks for watching and I'll see you on the next one.
