Following the success of the Galaxy S20 FE and the general popularity of the Galaxy S21 series, Samsung has once again taken to producing a new FE-series device. These “Fan Edition” phones usually come later in a series’ life cycle and pack a punch at a mid-range price. And the name? It stems from Samsung’s claim that feedback is collected from users to create the best compromise between features and price possible – with the fan-favorite features making the cut.
In theory, this is a similar concept to Apple’s iPhone SE lineup – offering flagship-level performance with a lower price-tag while sacrificing some non-essential features. Unlike the SE, however, the Galaxy S21 FE doesn’t sacrifice its design or display.
In fact – the Galaxy S21 FE uses a 6.4-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X (marketing talk for an AMOLED screen with HDR10+ support and better color accuracy) – quite similar to the one that the S21 uses. This means its screen outperforms older Samsung devices and is a significant step up, even for people coming from mainline S20 models.
Oddly enough, Samsung tends to use two different chipsets in its flagship phones depending on the region the unit was sold. Usually, their own in-house Exynos SoCs have been used on international models, with some regions using a Snapdragon chip. With the Galaxy S21 FE, however, international models now use the Snapdragon 888 (the same chip all the S21 models use), while (as far as our research can tell) Exynos 2100-based handsets are only sold in Australia. This is good. Snapdragon chipsets have always slightly outperformed their Samsung counterparts.
The triple camera setup on the back seems unchanged from the decent system found on the back of the S20 FE. This means it’s behind what the other S21-series phones offer – but above Samsung’s non-flagship offerings.
Like the standard S21, the Galaxy S21 FE comes with a plastic back (which does, however, feel pretty decent in the hand), aluminum frame and a Gorilla Glass Victus-covered front panel. This should make the front as durable as the panels on the iPhone 12 and 13 range. Clearly, no expense was spared on this front.
There are some weird omissions, however – most notable of which being the microSD slot (fan favorite features, right?) and the lack of a more budget-friendly 4G version.
So far, the spec sheet seems impressive! Most of the features from the S21 seem to have made it through to the Galaxy S21 FE, including the snappy chipset and the dazzling display. So, let’s dig a little deeper into how the device feels and functions. We’d like to note here that Samsung has lent us our Galaxy S21 FE for this review – but has in no way influenced our opinions here.
Samsung’s use of plastic on the back on the S21 and Galaxy S21 FE was a shocker to many. People simply did not want to pay flagship-level prices for a phone made out of “cheap” materials. However, thanks to the sturdy frame and gorgeous finish, nothing about the Galaxy S21 FE looks or feels cheap. The back panel curves beautifully around the cameras seamlessly – unlike the S21 which has a discrete metal bezel around the main shooters. While this fully plastic back might have been implemented as a cost-cutting measure, in our opinion it looks better – and we’re glad a visually similar design is being sported by the S22 and its camera setup. The matte finish on this backplate also offers great grip – and the size of the handset is quite manageable, despite the sizable screen.
This screen is now a 1080-by-2400 pixel AMOLED panel with support for HDR10+ content. It supports a 120Hz refresh rate – and interestingly – a 240Hz digitizer rate when playing games – which does make inputs register more precisely. The screen is also accurate in color reproduction – both in the Vivid (P3) and Natural (sRGB) default color profiles. The screen brightness is also decent – peaking at around 746 nits. Overall, it’s a gorgeous screen which offers plenty of real estate for media consumption and just looks good.
The sound system is also on-par. The Galaxy S21 FE has two speakers – one next to the front-facing camera and another on the bottom. Naturally, this makes landscape mode have a wider soundstage, but the sound is plenty powerful in portrait mode, as well. The audio quality is decent, with good mid-range and highs, while the bass is somewhat lacking. With its unrestricted airflow, the bottom speaker does sound a tiny bit better compared to its tucked-in sibling, but when consuming media, this should not present a problem.
The SoC in our review unit is a Snapdragon 888. It’s a last-gen flagship SoC (the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is the new flagship, and it powers the new S22 series), but it’s still being used in many high-end devices and is plenty powerful for mobile use. It’s an octa-core chip featuring one Kryo 680 Prime core, three Kryo 680 Gold cores and four Kryo 680 Silver cores (ARM Cortex-X1, Cortex-A78 and Cortex-A55 derivatives, respectively), with an Adreno 660 GPU. This setup is familiar to us from the latest Galaxy Tab lineup.
Our 6GB RAM/128GB storage model scored a respectable 1133/3147 in the Geekbench 5 CPU benchmark. On an AnTuTu test, our model scored a 727382 points. These are similar results to the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra we’ve taken a look at before. While for a tablet, these scores aren’t the greatest, for a smartphone, they deliver more than enough oomph for all everyday tasks.
The power-hungry chipset of the phone is notoriously prone to throttling without active cooling, but in the Galaxy S21 FE it seems well-managed. The phone doesn’t get too warm during use, either. The 4500mAh battery lasts about 11 hours of continuous use, which should be more than plenty to get through a regular day.
The camera setup is good – with a 12MP main shooter, a 12MP ultra-wide lens and an 8MP zoom lens, which upscales photos to 12MP (somewhat losing out on sharpness). While the setup remains unchanged from the older S20 FE, it works splendidly here, and all of the sample shots we’ve taken have good color balance, if a bit oversaturated, with sharp details (no digital over-sharpening here) and good low-light performance.
Primer: photo taken with Samsung S21FE
Galaxy S21 FE ships with Android 12 out-of-the-box, and OneUI 4.0 on top of that. OneUI is Samsung’s own Android flavor and it completely changes the look and feel of this OS. On phones, OneUI significantly increases the utility of the device – offering many unique features like DEX – which turns your phone into a pseudo-desktop.
As hinted at before, the port selection is… minimalistic. Gone are the days of Samsung mocking Apple for the removal of the headphone jack and the days of the S20 FE which somehow managed to pack a microSD card slot. Instead, we have a singular USB-C port on the bottom for charging and data transfer. And that’s it.
The Galaxy S21 FE truly is a good phone – and offers all the bells and whistles of a flagship smartphone at a lower price with only a few drawbacks. In late 2022, with the release of the S22 behind us, the price of the Galaxy S21 FE fluctuates from the MSRP of $699 to the discount price of $599, making it a decent deal for those looking for flagship performance at a slightly lower cost. The power of the Snapdragon 888 is sure to make the phone viable for years to come – but with the base S22 retailing for $749, we don’t recommend picking up the Galaxy S21 FE at its full price. If you’re able to get a discount, however, it is a worthy upgrade investment for owners of older Samsung phones.
He’s also the key person behind Mehatronika's English translations, especially of education- and maker-oriented texts.
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