The last of the S21 series caters to the true fans of the brand and combines all Galaxy S21 essentials into one powerful no-nonsense smartphone. Samsung has focused on three fan-favorite features for this Fan Edition – display, performance, and camera.
Then there is performance – quite expectedly, the Galaxy S21 FE offers the same hardware as the rest of the S21 series – either the Snapdragon 888, or the Exynos 2100 chipset.
But the chipset segmentation is reversed here – the international model is the one with the Snapdragon, while Samsung’s silicon is limited to Australia (so far).
It looks like a copy-paste from the Galaxy S20 FE – a 12MP primary, another 12MP camera for ultrawide photos, and an 8MP tele for 3x optical zoom. Samsung is not advertising the hardware as more capable, but it brags with better processing and cool features like Object Eraser – all possible thanks to the new chipset.
The stereo speakers and the UD fingerprint scanner are here to stay, too, but the microSD slot didn’t make the cut. But on a positive note – the S21 FE now features a proper proximity sensor instead of a virtual one, something that should solve the numerous complaints.
Misc: Fingerprint reader (under display, optical); NFC; Bixby natural language commands and dictation, Samsung Pay (Visa, MasterCard certified).
The phone supports 25W fast charging, but if you want to enjoy that and you haven’t purchased such an adapter yet, now is a good time to do it.
Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G review
It still has the usual 1,080 x 2,400 px resolution (411ppi), supports a 120Hz refresh rate and Always-on features. This, with the combination of the Widevine L1 DRM support, allows you to stream Full HD HDR10 content from all popular services (we tried). Unfortunately, the 120Hz mode is not a dynamic one – 120Hz is always forced no matter the content on the screen – video, streaming, browsing, gaming. This came as a surprise as we expected a dynamic refresh rate like on the rest of the Galaxy S21 devices. Once we reached the end of the slider (when manually adjusting), we captured 385 nits at point white. Then we readjusted it a bit and hit the end again, a warning appeared, and then the screen lit up as high as 792 nits.
The minimum brightness we measured at point white was 1.8nits – an outstanding result. Display test 100% brightness Black, cd/m2 White, cd/m2 Contrast ratio Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G 0 792 ∞ Samsung Galaxy S21 5G 0 416 ∞ Samsung Galaxy S21 5G (Max Auto) 0 856 ∞ Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 0 404 ∞ Samsung Galaxy S20 FE (Max Auto) 0 823 ∞ Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G 0 459 ∞ Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G (Max Auto) 0 883 ∞ Apple iPhone 13 0 802 ∞ Apple iPhone 13 Pro 0 856 ∞ Xiaomi Mi 11 0 498 ∞ Xiaomi Mi 11 (Max Auto) 0 926 ∞ Xiaomi Mi 11T Pro 0 516 ∞ Xiaomi Mi 11T Pro (Max Auto) 0 837 ∞ Asus Zenfone 8 0 440 ∞ Asus Zenfone 8 (Max Auto) 0 800 ∞ OnePlus 9 Pro 0 525 ∞ OnePlus 9 Pro (Max Auto) 0.038 871 22921:1 Realme GT 5G 0 443 ∞ Realme GT 5G (Max Auto) 0 650 ∞
The Galaxy S21 FE 5G scored a good endurance rating of 92 hours on our battery life test. The new FE does marvelously when handling calls and playing videos, while its web time stays above the average.
Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSerDevice app. The endurance rating denotes how long the battery charge will last you if you use the device for an hour of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily.
Web browsing test done at the display’s highest refresh rate whenever possible. To adjust the endurance rating formula to match your own usage patterns check out our all-time battery test results chart where you can also find all phones we’ve tested. The Galaxy S21 FE 5G supports up to 25W fast charging, but it ships without a power adapter. A full charge requires 1 hour and 15 minutes, another adequate time.
The Galaxy S21 FE 5G supports up to 15W wireless charging with compatible Qi pads. It can also wirelessly charge other devices such as earbuds, watches, and even phones – you just need to activate this from the battery settings and then put the power-hungry gadget on its back. The two speakers are balanced very well if you are listening to music in landscape or portrait orientation. When compared separately, the bottom piece is a bit louder and slightly more bassy.
Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones).
Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G hands-on review
Samsung has upgraded two of the most important aspects of the previous Galaxy S20 FE with S21 features. And then, it’s about performance – the Galaxy S21 FE utilizes the same chipsets as the S21 series – the Snapdragon 888 for the European unit and Exynos 2100 for Australia and possibly other markets.
It is also among the first Galaxies to come with the latest Android 12 and One UI 4.0, and we can’t wait to see them in action. Misc: Fingerprint reader (under display, optical); NFC; Bixby natural language commands and dictation, Samsung Pay (Visa, MasterCard certified). We are glad Samsung updated the screen and the chipset, though we are not as excited about the same camera kit even if there are some new tricks in the bag. We do agree this is the optimal setup for a smartphone these days, though – a good main camera, an ultrawide shooter, and a 3x telephoto. Both of these developments would put some serious competitive pressure on the S21 FE even within its own portfolio, so it remains to be seen how well it can handle it.
Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G review
The Galaxy S21 FE should have offered ‘more for less’ – those are Samsung’s words, mind you – yet, it’s quite an expensive smartphone at launch with a starting price of €750. It is an equally stylish smartphone, water-resistant as well, with a similar 120Hz AMOLED screen and quite a powerful Snapdragon 778 5G chipset. If you can live without optical zoom and HDR10 support for the paid streaming apps, the 6GB+128GB model of the A52s costs as low as €360 – and compared to the S21 FE’s €750 price – that’s a bargain!
The Realme GT 5G is €250 cheaper, and it beats the S21 FE with a better AMOLED with a dynamic 120Hz refresh rate (and it supports HDR10). It has a superb 5.9-inch AMOLED with 120Hz and HDR10+, runs on the same Snapdragon 888 chipset, has powerful speakers, and offers fan-favorite goodies like a 3.5mm audio jack, FM radio, AF for the selfie camera. Their Snapdragon 865 / Exynos 990 chips are still great performers and part of the flagship crop, plus they run amazingly under 1080p screens. It excels in the most critical departments – display, performance, camera, speakers, software, even design. For a phone that’s supposed to cater to the fans, ditching the charger and the microSD slot does not make sense. And it doesn’t bring any substantial camera updates, not even AF for selfies or ultrawide, though the improved photo quality could be arguably enough.
Once Samsung introduces its first price cut, though, the Galaxy S21 FE should get a spot on the shortlists of everyone looking for a no-nonsense flagship-like smartphone.
Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G review
You can barely see anything of Android as One UI completely overhauls its interface. Samsung has brought Android 12’s Color Palettes to One UI 4 – these change the accent colors of the entire UI – icons, menus, buttons and even the backgrounds. There are also new widgets with rich customization options and new emojis and GIFs available on the keyboard.
The lock screen looks the same as before with two monochrome shortcuts – dialer and camera.
It can be more convenient in certain situations, but it generally is less secure since it’s just using the selfie camera, meaning tricking it isn’t too hard. Always-on display is available – it’s the simplified version from One UI 3. The feature can be always-off, always-on, scheduled, shown only when new notifications are available, or you can opt for tap to show for 10s. The OneUI 4 looks even cleaner than v.3.x, but its logic remains the same – there are homescreen, widgets, notification center, task switcher and an app drawer. This is the implementation of the vanilla Android 12’s Wallpaper colors.
There are usually four Color Palette suggestions in addition to the default One UI Blue/Black one. Those are picked automatically by the software, depending on your current wallpaper. These accent colors are applied on the dialer, the quick toggles, among other tiny bits of the UI.
The dialer allows you to pick between two layouts for the in-call screen. You can also set up a background image or video for that screen, though it’s going to be all the same for all of your calls – you can’t have a different one on a per-person basis. Here you can easily see which apps are using some of the most important (for privacy) permissions. You can control the camera and control access across apps, opt for clipboard access alerts (useful if you copy passwords, social security numbers, IBANs, among others), and there is, of course, a full-blown permission manager of you like to dig deeper.
You get a whole bunch of options for using your Galaxy with other devices to enable various use cases. DeX is the proprietary feature that lets you use the phone as the ‘computer’ and add a monitor and a keyboard for added productivity – it works wirelessly or over HDMI.
Alternatively, the Link to Windows feature provides you with an interface to your phone from your computer so you can exchange images, manage notifications on your PC or even make calls from it. Another option along those lines but with more limited potential is Continue apps on other devices. You’ll then be able to copy and paste text and images across and open the same tabs in the browser. DeX • Continue apps on other devices • Link to Windows Other staples of proprietary Samsung software include the Edge panels – the panes that show up when you swipe in from the side and provide tools and shortcuts to apps and contacts. Otherwise, the software package is similar to other Samsung phones, with an in-house Gallery app, the Game Launcher app, and a proprietary file manager.
Samsung’s Internet web browser is also available on the Galaxy S21 Ultra. Gallery • Game Launcher • File manager • Internet • Edge panel
The Gallery is where you’d find the new Object Eraser feature. Once you enter photo edit mode, you can opt for object eraser from More options.
This is a fancier way of saying smart delete – you either paint over an object or tap on it for automatic selection. And then you hope for the best – if the object’s surroundings aren’t too complex, you will get a good outcome, otherwise – it’s a mixed-bag. The international/global variant of the Galaxy S21 FE 5G employs the popular Snapdragon 888 5G chipset by Qualcomm, while the limited/local model found so far in Australia only, runs on the Exynos 2100 SoC by Samsung. We have already reviewed the original Galaxy S21 5G with Exynos 2100, so you can refer to its test results for comparison here.
For the unfamiliar, this chip is based on a 5nm manufacturing process. The Galaxy S21 FE 5G is available in three versions, all with LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.1 storage – 6GB/128GB, 8GB/128GB and 8GB/256GB. The Snapdragon 888 5G CPU is still one of the best on the market, even if, for some reason, it scores a bit lower than the rest of the SD888-featuring peers. Same goes for the GPU – it’s an outstanding performer under the 120Hz 1080p screen of the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE.
GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen) AnTuTu 9 also puts the Galaxy S21 FE among the top-scoring phones right now. The phone doesn’t get incredibly hot, so there is nothing to worry about.
And this throttling appeared only when we ran stress tests and prolonged benchmarking.
The Galaxy S21 FE is adequately equipped to be a flagship even by 2022 standards. Sure, there is a new chip on the horizon, but for a Fan Edition that’s based on the Galaxy S21 series, the S21 FE has exactly what it is supposed to – the favorite hardware among the S21 trio – the SD888.
And it can handle everything for the next couple of years, hassle-free, with zero stutters.
Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G review
The phone has a flat front, a thin metal frame, and a slightly curved back that flows into the raised camera block. The build is identical to the Galaxy S21 as well – there is a Corning Gorilla Glass Victus at the front, the frame is brushed aluminum, and the back is a piece of grippy plastic with a matte finish. The FE version is obviously larger – it’s 4mm taller, 3mm wider and 8 grams heavier than the original S21 model. Sure, not as compact as an iPhone mini, but still among the smallest premium Androids around – especially if you count the three separate cameras.
As we’ve established, the Galaxy S21 FE 5G employs a bit smaller 6.4-inch display than the previous S20 Fan Edition. The back is one nicely smooth piece of plastic, and Samsung calls its design a Contour Cut one. The aluminum frame is slightly curved and brushed, matching the touch and feeling of the back. It is a grippy device, which is rare these days, and then it’s not a large handset – something that’s even rarer.
And we will remember it exactly for those things – a no-nonsense clean design with pocket-friendly size and good grip.
Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G review
The ultrawide camera is a bit of an oddball – it has either Sony IMX258 or the Hynix Hi1336 – both are 13MP sensors with 1.12µm pixels behind 13mm f/2.2 lens and with a focus fixed at infinity. Whatever sensor turns out in your Galaxy S21 FE, it will save 12MP images – as advertised by the PR materials. And just like on the previous Fan Edition, this zoom camera also saves a bit upscaled 12MP photos for whatever reason.
Finally, the 32MP selfie camera is also identical to the one on the S20 FE – it relies on a Sony IMX616 Quad-Bayer sensor with a 25mm f/2.2 lens, and a focus fixed at infinity.
This camera, contrary to the majority of the Quad-Bayer selfie shooters, saves native 8MP images. The colors are quite pleasant, even if not perfectly accurate – they came out looking a bit warmer than they really were in real life, but that’s fine.
The colors are nicely popping, a match to the main camera, and just a bit warmer and punchier than they should have been. This camera has a 13MP sensor, but it saves 12MP images, and our guess is that the corner straightening involves a minor crop, too. Their resolved detail is in the high range, even if the sharpness isn’t on par with the other cameras because of the minor upscaling. The contrast, dynamic range and color presentation are a match to the rest of the cameras, too, meaning you get high contrast, high dynamic range, and a bit warmer and punchier colors than they actually were that day.
In broad daylight, the Galaxy S21 FE telephoto camera is the better shooter, even if by a small margin. The S21 FE offers sharper images with less noise, noticeably better contrast, and more likable colors.
The difference in the resolved detail isn’t a major one, but the S21 FE has the upper hand – especially if you crop the photos or inspect them from up close. Portrait mode is available on the Galaxy S21 FE, and while it defaults at the 3x zoom camera, you can switch to the primary one as well.
The portraits from the main camera also excel in separation and bokeh, but their subjects are much sharper, more colorful, and the contrast is better.
They are rich in detail, contrasty, with excellent color saturation, high dynamic range and realistic exposure and look.
While Auto HDR succeeds in restoring most clipped highlights in the normal shooting mode, it doesn’t do much for brightening up the shadows. The 12MP ultrawide photos at night offer good color saturation, life-like exposure and higher than expected dynamic range, they are often extremely soft and overrun by noise.
The Night Mode on the ultrawide camera produces likable photos with enough detail, low (or at least tolerable) noise, improved exposure and dynamic range, and excellent color saturation. These Night Mode images are not as great as the ones from the main camera, but they are much better than the default ones and perfectly usable.
Most of the time, the low-light 3x zoomed photos you are going to shoot will turn out to be cropped and upscaled from the main camera’s output. The selfie camera on the Galaxy S21 FE, just like on many other Samsung phones, features a toggle to determine how wide the frame will be. They’re natural-looking, with low noise, balanced sharpness, and excellent colors, contrast, and dynamic range. The fixed focus sweet spot, however, is not ideally tuned for shooting at an arm’s length, so selfie sharpness is less than stellar.
The 4K clips from the main camera are very good – the captured detail is above the average, the dynamic range is outstanding, the colors are great, and the noise is low. There is plenty of detail in them; they are sharp, and share all likable qualities we observed on the main camera – great colors, dynamic range, contrast, and even low noise.
The low-light videos from the main camera are alright – they have good color saturation and realistic exposure. The gentle noise reduction leaves a lot of detail visible, the exposure is not bad, and the colors aren’t that much desaturated.
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