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Samsung Galaxy S21 FE aims to take over midpriced android market

BY JIM ROSSMAN

Samsung must have a lot of engineers working on nothing but the next new phone.

It has such a deep lineup of phones — from top-of-the-line flagship phones to the very inexpensive handset you can get for signing up for new service — and it seems to release new phones every few months. Not that I’m complaining.

New phones are exciting and a lot of fun to write about. I get pitched a lot more phones than I can reasonably review. I don’t want to turn this page into the “new phone of the week,” so I have to be a bit selective. Today we have 2022’s first phone review — the Samsung Galaxy S21

FE 5G (Fan Edition).

This is Samsung’s second FE phone. It follows last year’s Galaxy S20 FE, which was hailed by many as one of the best phones of the year.

How does the S21 FE stack up? And what’s a fan edition?

The FE is a midpriced phone (starting at $699.99) described by Samsung as “equipped with some of the most-loved aspects of the Galaxy S21 — eye-catching design, powerful

performance, pro-grade camera and seamless ecosystem connectivity.”

The FE is made for fans who love the features of the $799.99 Galaxy S21 but don’t want to spend quite so much.

The S21 FE has a 6.4-inch Dynamic Amoled always-on display with a 120-hertz refresh rate and a screen resolution of 1,080 by 2400 pixels. The screen is HDR10+ certified.

The screen is made of Gorilla Glass Victus while the back is plastic and the sides and frame are aluminum. The body is IP68 dust- and water-resistant. It can survive a dunk in 5 feet of water for up to 30 minutes. The screen is one of this phone’s strong features. Samsung has always made premium displays, and this is a good one.

Chipset and storage

The processor is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon octa-core 888 with 128 or 256 gigabytes of storage and 6 or 8 gigabytes of RAM.

The graphics processor is the Qualcomm Adreno 660.

The FE ships with Android 12.

Charging and connectivity The 4,500 milliamp-hour battery has 25-watt fast charging and can power up from zero to 50% in 30 minutes. The FE also has 15-watt fast wireless charging and reverse charging.

There is no charger in the box, just the phone and a USB-C charging cable. To take advantage of the fastest charging, you’ll want to buy at least a 25-watt fast charger.

The FE has Wi-fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.

It has both Sub6 and mmwave 5G.

There is an optical fingerprint reader under the screen, and the phone can also unlock with face recognition.

The fingerprint reader was plenty fast and worked every time.

Facial recognition worked well, but I could delay the unlocking if I made funny faces.

Cameras

Besides the screen, the stars of this handset are the cameras.

The rear of the FE has three cameras — a 12-megapixel 26mm wide angle with an f/1.8 aperture, a 12MP 13mm ultrawide with an f/2.2 aperture and an 8MP 76mm telephoto with an f/2.4 aperture. The telephoto is a 3x optical zoom. Samsung includes up to a 30x space zoom, which is a digital zoom.

The front camera has a 32MP sensor with an aperture of f/2.2.

The FE can capture 4K video at 60 frames per second. So how is it?

The S21FE is a really nice phone. It feels light compared to my iphone 13 Pro Max, but lighter is not bad if the battery life is good, which it is. The battery in the FE has more capacity than my iphone.

The screen is crisp and a bit larger than the S21. The CPU is plenty fast and RAM and storage are in line with the competition.

To me, the cameras are what will drive sales of the S21 FE.

For comparison, the S21 has a 64MP telephoto camera but only a 10MP selfie camera.

The FE does have slots for two SIM cards, which is nice if you travel or want to carry one phone with different numbers for work and personal use.

About that pricing

Phone lineups are all about slotting in to a price point.

The S21 FE starts at $699.99. The S21 starts at $799.99, the S21+ is $999.99 and the S21 Ultra goes for $1,199.99.

The S21FE is available from all the major carriers and electronics stores, and it comes in olive, lavender, graphite or white.

If you buy from Samsung, you can get up to $100 in

Samsung credit for accessories or a free pair of Galaxy

Buds Live or a pair of Galaxy Buds Pro for $30.

Time to buy?

Should you buy the FE now or should you wait for the Galaxy S22 models, which should be announced soon? Samsung has traditionally introduced its new Galaxy flagship phones in January or February.

The S22 models will inevitably cost more. Look for S22 pricing to be in line with the S21 model pricing, but what new goodies does Samsung have in store?

To me the timing of the FE is odd. Why wait a full year after the S21’s introduction to release the FE? If you look around, you can find a refurbished S21 for under $500.

I like the S21 FE. I’d say I prefer it over the S21 just because of the bigger screen and bigger battery, but I’d wait for the S22 announcement before I made my choice.

Pros: Good feature set, not a bad price, really nice cameras, dual SIM.

Cons: Not a lot different from the S21. Bottom line: I’d wait for the S22 release to make a decision.

BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY

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2022-01-24T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-01-24T08:00:00.0000000Z

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The Gazette, Colorado Springs