The Samsung Galaxy F23 Is A Ridiculously Affordable Smartphone You Can't Buy

Samsung, today, launched a new smartphone called the Galaxy F23 that'll only be available in one country – unless you find a way to have it shipped elsewhere. A successor to the Galaxy F22 from last year, the Galaxy F23 finds itself in the country's highly competitive budget smartphone segment that includes the likes of the Redmi Note 11 series from Xiaomi and the Realme 9 Pro+. The Galaxy F23 is a crucial launch for the Korean smartphone maker. It is part of Samsung's strategy to regain the status of India's top smartphone brand — a throne that Xiaomi usurped nearly two years ago.

Priced at just over Rs 17,499 ($227), the Galaxy F23 offers really good hardware for its price, including a 120Hz display, a 5000 mAh battery with fast charging support, and a 50 MP primary camera.

If you're wondering why you haven't heard of Samsung's Galaxy F series before, it is because these devices are co-branded with Walmart-owned Indian e-commerce platform Flipkart (that's what the F stands for) and are only sold in India. Unlike Xiaomi and Realme, Samsung does not rebrand its F series for other markets — thereby giving these devices some amount of exclusivity. As you read about this device, consider the possibility that Walmart would team with Samsung outside of India to make shockingly affordable devices like this around the world. 

The Samsung Galaxy F23 is a reasonably large smartphone, given that its display measures 6.6-inches across. This is an FHD+ panel with a waterdrop notch for the front camera and a layer of Gorilla Glass 5 for scratch resistance. Notably, the panel is of the IPS LCD type, and Samsung has chosen not to equip the phone with an AMOLED panel as an apparent cost-cutting measure.

Powering the Samsung Galaxy F23 is the now aging Qualcomm Snapdragon 750G chipset that has been around for quite a while now — having been announced back in December 2020. This is an 8nm chip that also integrates the Adreno 619 GPU for graphics while also offering support for 5G networks. This is Samsung's way of future-proofing the phone for India, where 5G networks likely still have a number of years before any sort of full-powered rollout.

The Galaxy F23's rear-facing camera array includes a 50MP primary camera, an 8MP secondary camera, and a 2MP macro sensor. As for the selfie camera housed within the waterdrop notch, this one happens to use an 8MP sensor. At 198g, the Galaxy F23 is a fairly heavy phone, and a large proportion of this weight comes courtesy of the massive 5,000 mAh battery that also supports 25W fast charging. And yes, Samsung ships the phone with a charger in the box.

Note that the 5.000 mAh battery on the phone is a step-down from its predecessor, which featured an even larger 6,000 mAh battery last year.

At launch, the Samsung Galaxy F23 runs OneUI 4.1 atop Android 12, and Samsung's software update policy ensures that it will benefit from two years of OS updates and four years of security updates.

The Samsung Galaxy F23 goes on sale starting March 16, 2022, and comes in two color options; Aqua Blue and Forest Green. There are two storage/RAM options on offer. The base variant that gets 4GB RAM and 128GB storage costs Rs 17499 ($227) while the 6GB+128GB variant costs Rs 18499 ($240). Apart from Flipkart, the Samsung Galaxy F23 shall also be available for purchase directly from Samsung's online store and select brick and mortar stores across India.