Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G – Peek

Samsung launches “Remix” Galaxy S21

Samsung has finally launched the Galaxy S21 FE, after a lot of hype in the rumor mill, and we just got a sneak peek at the phone.

The phone is a slightly different and slightly cheaper addition to the S21 series, and if the speculation is correct, it should have been among us already in the fall of last year. But the claim over the rumor mill was that the constant shortage of chips and an unexpectedly large need for hardware in the Galaxy Z Flip 3 foldable phone all together meant that this more traditional phone was put on hold.

It has some of the same differences from the “originals” that I did S20 FE 5G last year is very exciting. Among other things, different and slightly more powerful devices are under the hood. Just a slightly different focus – but also a fairly high price at around 8200 kr.

Fortunately for the S21 FE, it is a little different than all of its relatives.

With a price tag of around 1,700 kron above where you’d find the Galaxy S21 today, and a small hundreds of dollars cheaper than the Galaxy S21+, it’s a good idea to look at the most obvious differences first. We’re talking about a phone with a 6.4-inch screen — it fits nicely in the middle between the two models, with the regular S21 measuring 6.2 inches and the S21+ 6.7 inches. In terms of size, we don’t spare much compared to the Plus model – just over a millimeter in width makes this phone not among the largest, but it’s not very compact.

In terms of design, here you get a design more similar to plastic – which in itself is a bit “blunt” when the back is made of plastic. The cheapest S21 also has plastic on the back, but it looks like the two big brothers, which have a glass back. But here’s also a small appeal – for a hundred dollars you get the S21 + with a larger screen and a glass back.

But the design still looks a little simpler and therefore perhaps a little more difficult to think of than the slightly “ornamental” look of the S21 series. In terms of color, it is the olive color that stands out the most among most phones, while the purple variant is reminiscent of what we’ve seen on the Galaxy A series and S21 series before.

These were the obvious differences – the most important difference remains in practice.

In recent years, Samsung has chosen to use its own processors in the mobile phones it sells in Korea and Europe, while the US has gotten phones with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors. The exceptions were the special models, some cheaper models, and last year’s FE phone. Without going into technical details of it; Samsung’s penultimate generation of processors delivered disappointing performance, battery consumption, and heat generation compared to devices that ended up in US models. There was also an effect in practicality with little bits of “slippery skates” in the uprights that stopped and bounced a bit every now and then.

It was just one of the things that made the Galaxy S20 FE 5G an excellent choice. It had a processor from the better-received US S20 models. Until now, you had to buy a foldable mobile phone from Samsung to get the same processor found in the US S21 models here on the mountain, but that’s changing now. There is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5G processor in this phone.

In practice, the performance gap has narrowed dramatically in this latest generation of equipment – so much so that then GSMArena Comparing S21 models from Europe and the US last year, they found nearly identical battery life in normal use. However, they did point out that the Exynos uses more power on the band’s baton.

Where the S21 FE 5G has potential advantages on the processor front, the entry model comes with plenty of RAM — actually less than both of the other S21 models we’re comparing. It starts at only 6GB, and it’s starting to get relatively thin in 2022 — it’s okay we’re in January and such, but it’s the rib fat that will be removed from the car ring. Phones could easily have failed to fall into specs.

At first glance, the S21 FE’s engine appears to be smoother and nicer than the other S21 models. It’s the same good flow that can also be observed on the Galaxy Z Flip3 and Galaxy Z Fold3 – phones with which it has pretty much in common hardware, if we ignore the curved screens.

There is a separate “tight flow” in everything that displays on the screen as soon as you switch to the scroll controls. Oddly enough, the onscreen buttons are still standard, even though this is the first phone in Samsung’s selection to come with Android 12 as standard.

By the way, it’s worth noting that new security features, such as notification of apps using the camera, appear immediately. Soon after using the eyes of the phone, an icon is stuck in the top right of the screen. Upon activation, the phone tells you which app used the camera. my work.

Visually, the screen does not seem to lag behind the flagship models, although it has a lower resolution.

One big difference on paper, but apparently smaller in practice – is the zoom function of the camera. The simplest of the two S21 models has a zoom camera with massive accuracy and a small optical zoom factor. In practice, they zoom in by taking very detailed pictures. This phone has a low-resolution camera but a 3x optical zoom factor. It seems to give very good results there too, despite the differences.

In short, it is a little difficult to decide which S21 model to choose. At least before we spend a little more time with the new S21 FE.

But the starting point is that you get a much more obvious daily benefit, but it costs a lot of money. Additionally, I’m a little unsure how secure a phone with 6GB of RAM will be in the future, when everything else on the higher models will be much more. It must be said that you can still buy cheaper models with 2 to 4 GB of RAM, so the software should seem With these specifications for a long time to come.

Another important consideration is this anyway; Samsung guarantees three major updates as well as security updates for its phones. The S21 FE 5G was released with Android 12 – a version that other S21 models had to upgrade to. It’s also released a year later, and indicates that the phone should be able to last for a while even after flagship models receive no more updates.

At the same time, it is difficult to predict exactly this. Some also think four years of updates is too weak, and we’ve seen instances of updates after support originally disappeared.

By all accounts, this is a lightning-fast S21 model with a lot in common with the collapsible galaxies sold here on the mountain. This is not that stupid per se.

But the price is high, and also know that the S21 series is now one year old. While we’ve got a few years of weird technology behind us, it won’t be too long before the S22 series announces its arrival – so far they’ve been The latest rumor says February 9.