The Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G is a very good smartphone. Its rigorous testing in different categories tells us that it will give a user excellent performance. However, battery life has disappointed us. A flagship smartphone should come with a good battery.
The testing shows it is better than the regular Galaxy S21 5G.
The display is bright and colorful, and there’s a smooth refresh rate of up to 120 Hertz. The smartphone comes with all the essentials.
The camera performance is also very good. However, the smartphone has a proud introductory price of around 820 euros. The Galaxy S21 FE 5G will soon have strong competition from its own company.
Samsung says this special edition is aimed specifically at die-hard Samsung fans.
Samsung now wants to build on this success with the “Fan Edition” of the S21 series, the Galaxy S21 FE. Just like the previous fan edition
There are only a few small but subtle differences in the S21 FE. The display grows from 6.2 to 6.4 inches – and scores in the test with similarly excellent results. The OLED display offers a Full HD Plus resolution of 2,340 x 1,080 pixels, which results in a very good pixel density of 398 ppi – that’s easily enough for a high-resolution display. The maximum brightness is 900 candles per square meter – also an excellent value. Together with the reasonable contrast values of 150:1 (checkerboard contrast in the dark) and 48:1 (contrast in ambient light), the image content can be read very well under all lighting conditions.
The color representation is also great: the Galaxy S21 FE covers 139 percent of the standard RGB color space and also 100 percent of the large DCI-P3 color space. Like the other S21 models, the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE also offers an adaptive refresh rate of 120 Hertz. In the test, this ensures pleasant and smooth operation on the one hand and energy savings on the other. Because if the situation allows it, the screen regulates itself down to 48 Hz.
Snaps (almost) as good as the other Galaxy S21 models – but not quite.
We find one of the biggest differences to the original model in the camera structure of the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G. Because the telephoto lens now only comes with an 8-megapixel sensor with a conventional f/2.4 aperture – instead of 64 megapixels and an f/2.0 aperture. The rest of the lenses remain unchanged:
• Wide-angle sensor with 12 megapixels and bright f/1.8 aperture
• Ultra wide-angle lens with 12-megapixel sensor with f/2.2 aperture – suitable for landscape and group shots
• 10-megapixel sensor in the front camera
The photo and video quality of the main lens is still at a high level . In daylight conditions, the test lab photos of the main camera are very detailed, although the
Samsung Galaxy S21 performs even better in direct comparison. Some details are also lost in twilight, so that the Galaxy S21 FE does not quite come close to the classic S21 – but the quality is still very good – we criticize this at a very high level. Smartphone photo enthusiasts will definitely get their money’s worth here, because the photos are great in a subjective comparison. The “Fan Edition” also has its strengths. For example, the Galaxy S21 FE performs better in the measurements in the areas of “detail” and “noise”.
The “Fan Edition” shoots videos in 4K at up to 60 frames per second. The Samsung Galaxy S21 FE also comes with the fun “director’s view”. This allows you to switch back and forth between the different perspectives of the other lenses during the video shoot. With the “vlogger view” videos can be recorded simultaneously with the front and rear cameras. Together with the optional “portrait video” video setting, the S21 FE literally screams TikTok and Instagram.
Performance and battery in the test: unfortunately, no Exynos processor
Samsung has used the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 instead of the in-house Exynos chip.
The Snapdragon is by no means a slow processor – it gives excellent performance. The problem is that Snapdragon is not energy efficient as Exynos 2100
Because in our battery tests, the Galaxy S21 FE 5G only delivers good, but not outstanding performance. After 11 hours and 35 minutes in our online runtime test, the lights go out – despite a battery that has grown by 500 mAh to 4,500 mAh. The FE only manages 49 minutes longer than the original.
The battery then recharges fully in 1 hour and 43 minutes. If you are in a hurry, you can look forward to a charge level of almost 50 percent after 30 minutes of quick charging. Unfortunately, Samsung does not include a power adapter in the scope of delivery. If you have a power adapter with a USB Type-C socket at home, you can use this. I used the official Samsung power supply with 25 watt charging power. Wireless charging has been a part of Samsung’s high-end range for many years, and the Galaxy S21 5G is no exception. If necessary, even Qi-enabled peripheral devices can be charged wirelessly via the smartphone. Qi is the standard for wireless charging.
Smartphone and the price
Galaxy S21 FE 5G is not giving power supply and headphones. It is also not giving without a 3.5 millimeter jack.
Unfortunately, the manufacturer has also removed the SD card slot. So you have to be sure when you buy that you have chosen a model with sufficient memory, because retrofitting is no longer possible.
The Galaxy S21 FE is protected against the ingress of water, dust and other dirt according to the IP-68 standard.
NFC is on board and thus enables mobile payment via Google Pay or Samsung Pay, among other things.
Bluetooth is included in the current version 5.2 and USB with type C socket in the 3.1 standard.
The Galaxy S21 FE can be unlocked biometrically via face recognition and with a fast and reliable fingerprint scanner in the display.
The Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G is available in the colors “Olive”, “Lavender”, “White” and “Graphite”. There are also two memory models to choose from: 256 GB of internal memory with 8 GB of RAM from a price of around 720 euros ( for price comparison ) and 128 GB of internal memory with 6 GB of RAM from a price of around 510 euros ( for price comparison ).
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