The Galaxy S21 FE officially joins Samsung’s crowded midrange lineup
After a year of will-they-or-won’t-they speculation, Samsung has, at last, announced the Galaxy S21 FE. Like the 2020 Galaxy S20 FE (the FE stands for Fan Edition), this device features most of the flagship-level specs of the Galaxy S21, including a Snapdragon 888 chipset and 120Hz display, at a lower price: $699 for the 128GB base model. With the S21’s nearly midrange price tag and a compelling upper-midrange option in the Galaxy A52 5G, it’s yet another addition to an already crowded spot in Samsung’s lineup.
The Galaxy S21 FE offers a 6.4-inch display, slightly larger than the S21’s 6.2-inch panel. Outside of that size difference, the S21 FE has a whole lot in common with the S21. Its screen is a 1080p OLED panel with 120Hz like the S21’s. Even the design language is consistent, with the camera bump blending into the phone’s side rails.
The FE includes a flagship-worthy 5nm chipset (Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 in the US, Samsung’s own Exynos elsewhere) and a 12-megapixel f/1.8 main camera with optical stabilization, same as the S21. It even does one better on battery capacity, with a 4,500mAh cell compared to the S21’s 4,000mAh (though its slightly bigger screen likely evens out battery performance). Fast 25W wired charging, 15W wireless charging, an IP68 weather-resistance rating, and both flavors of 5G (sub6-GHz and speedy mmWave) are all carried over from the S21.
So what does paying more for the S21 get you? More RAM — 8GB in the base configuration versus the S21 FE’s 6GB — and a higher-res telephoto camera. Aside from the previously noted screen and battery size differences, that’s about it. The Galaxy S21 FE will sell for $699 with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage or $769 for 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. It ships with Samsung’s Android 12-based One UI 4.0 installed.
I’ve had the S21 FE in my hands for a few days, and it feels to me like a device that rides the ever-muddled line between a flagship and a midrange phone. The back is composite plastic with a matte finish, which feels midrangey to me, but the screen is big and bright with all the buttery smoothness of its 120Hz refresh rate — flagship territory for sure. Overall performance feels flagship-worthy, too, with the exception of a little lag in the camera’s portrait mode live preview. Oh, and there’s no charger in the box, which is a flagship thing now, too.
Samsung introduced the S20 FE last year as a lower-cost, full-featured alternative to the S20. Also priced at $699, there was a bigger gap between it and the $999 base model S20, which made it a heck of a deal. Things are a little different this time around, with the S21 coming down in price to $799. There’s also the Galaxy A52 5G, one of Samsung’s higher-end budget phones for $499. And don’t forget that Samsung lowered the price of admission for its foldables — with the Galaxy Z Flip 3 priced at $999, it’s part of the conversation, too.
