Does the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE have an SD card slot?

Many phone makers — Samsung included — have been moving away from including SD slots on their products, despite them extremely useful to the customers who own them. Even if you buy a phone with a lot of internal storage, SD cards can be a handy way of shifting photo, video, and music libraries between devices. So what direction is Samsung taking with the new Galaxy S23 FE?

Does the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE have an SD card slot?

No, sadly, it’s missing the microSD slot some Android phones include. This is consistent with the flagship S23 lineup, and it would be a little strange if the $599 FE offered something missing even from the $1,199 S23 Ultra. The Galaxy S24 series also lacks an SD card slot across the range.

There are probably a few reasons Samsung is going this route, some more selfish than others. First is that it costs the company extra money to integrate microSD, and it might not consider the sales potential worth the expense. Omitting a slot also lets Samsung upsell customers on more expensive configurations, whereas people could otherwise buy the cheapest one and save money with third-party storage.

A microSD slot further consumes internal design space that could be used for other components, such as chips, cameras, or a larger battery. Lastly, internal storage tends to be faster than most microSD cards, which can make the latter a bottleneck on the performance of installed apps and video.

What storage options does the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE have?

There are just two storage tiers, 128GB and 256GB. That matches the options on the baseline S23, even though the FE is built to be a lower-cost mid-range device. For perspective, the S23 Plus gets 256GB and 512GB, and the Ultra has 256GB, 512GB, and even 1TB tiers. A fully-loaded S23 Ultra costs $1,620, putting it on par with a respectable desktop gaming PC.

Is 128GB of storage enough on a Samsung Galaxy S23 FE?

Quite possibly, although we’re getting to a stage with smartphones that 128GB can potentially be confining. It’s going to depend on how you use your phone, as well as how long you’ve been using it.

If you’re continually shooting photos and videos, for instance, it may not be hard to run up against storage limits, especially if you’re a parent, active on social media, and/or using maximum quality settings. Not everything needs to be in 4K. Additionally, the longer you’ve been using smartphones, the larger your photo and video library tends to grow, so storage that might’ve seemed excessive in your 20s could be too little to avoid deleting memories in your 30s. Cloud backup is your friend here.

You’re also more liable to find 128GB small if you install multiple triple-A 3D games, cache a lot of offline music or video, or do some mix of everything we’ve talked about so far. In fact it’s a combination of factors that’s most likely to push you over the tipping point, so you should think carefully about your habits before pulling the trigger on a Galaxy S23 FE.