Samsung Galaxy S21 FE: Exactly What We Want (With a Few Exceptions)

For our 100th Need to Know YouTube video, we wanted to talk about a fan favorite: Samsung S21 FE. Samsung Galaxy Note may be out of commission, but FE is surely coming back! And it’s exactly what we expected… with a few exceptions.

Against all odds, Samsung S21 FE found its reason to be from day one thanks to OnePlus and other phone makers. Those were among the first companies to understand that people may be enchanted by crazy features but will eventually buy the sensible thing – the phone that felt premium and was still reasonably priced. 

Samsung asked for steep prices for their super competitive flagships (like the Galaxy S series) and were targeting downright unbelievable ones for their foldables, the Z Fold and Z Flip series. 

However, they lacked a cut-down version of a flagship… until Fan Edition showed up. The S20 FE was a wild success last year and this year, S21 FE won’t be any different.

Samsung Galaxy S21 FE: Design and Colors

You’ll get a phone with a great cost to performance ratio, a phone that’s every bit a Galaxy S21 but cheaper and in a more relaxed package. You’ll see the latter when it comes to colors and materials. 

Galaxy S21 FE won’t bother with glass but go straight to polycarbonate so no fingerprint drama in sight! Since the material allows it, you’ll be able to choose between two beautiful shades of violet and green, besides the traditional white and grey. 

Samsung Galaxy S21 FE: Camera and Release Date

The same finish might translate to the camera bump too, which, honestly, I’m pretty relieved to see as it will give a more unibody impression of it. How do I know? It was leaked by Samsung itself. One of their staff pressed the wrong button and the photo went on Instagram. Even though the post was later deleted, there was time to appreciate the lavender shade and get the idea of a September / October launch (the backpack was a dead giveaway).

The other thing that peeked shily from the backpack was the triple back camera.

Here it gets interesting. Many thought Samsung wasn’t going to change anything about it; as in you would still get the 12MP main camera, 12 MP ultra wide camera and 8MP tele with 3x zoom; but there’s a chance Samsung might throw in a 32MP main camera. 

If that happens, the selfie shooter could be downgraded to a 12MP camera. In other words, if Samsung ups the main, the selfie will feel the aftershock.

Samsung Galaxy S21 FE: Specs and Price

Memory will likely range from 8GB to 12GB, depending on the region, with up to 256GB of storage. The same rule will apply when it comes to chip. Europe and North America should get an Exynos 2100 Galaxy S21 FE while South Korea will receive the Snapdragon 888 phone.

The overall appearance of the phone will deviate slightly from the original S21 model. The display will be bigger than that one but ultimately smaller than the S20 FE. 

This translates into a 6.4-inches AMOLED with an 120Hz refresh rate and a 20:9 aspect ratio. Plus, it’s gonna be thinner than the 2020 edition, if you care about that.

Will it affect the battery in any way? I’m happy to say it won’t! Samsung Galaxy S21 FE should come with a 4,500mAh cell and 45W fast charging. Speaking about nice additions, I can’t help but note that this is one of few phones on the market right now that still preserves the microSD in place.

A rarity, I know, just like the price is. After having to quickly adapt to three zeroes, we finally get a phone under the 1000 dollar mark.

For all the things we talked about so far, Samsung is said to charge $699, tops! How does that sound?