Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G Review

. However, the FE version has a fast Snapdragon 888 under the hood, a great 120 Hertz OLED display and an IP68 certification. Still. It lacks a few points that fans would have liked to see. In this video. Well, take a closer look at the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE.. Compared with the predecessors. The S21 FE has shrunk, a bit. With its 6.4 inch display. It is slimmer.. The phone is noticeably lighter at 177 grams., The build quality is excellent, The frame is made of aluminum and the front is protected by Corning Gorilla, Glass Victus., The gaps are small and even and the device can hardly be twisted.. The plastic back is the only thing keeping it from true premium: status. The camera bump protrudes 1.4 millimeters from the chassis and prevents the device from resting flat on a table making it wobble when laid on its back.. In order to test the accuracy of the GPS. We sent the Galaxy S21 FE on a test lap alongside the Garmin Venu 2.. The total deviation is only 50 meters on the entire 10 kilometer route.. Thus, there should be no problems in everyday use.. It should be noted that Samsung only offers single band connectivity., Whether outdoors or indoors, the connection works quickly and reliably.. Unlike its predecessor, the S21 FE is only available with 5G.. It can manage two nano SIM cards, but doesnt support eSIM. The device supports Wi Fi 6 and offers broad frequency coverage with both 5G and LTE.

In our tests. The S21 FEs reception, strength and speed were in line with similar devices. According to the spec sheet. The S21 FE uses the same cameras as its predecessor.. The front camera offers a 32 MP lens with pixel binning to either 6.5 or 10 megapixels, depending on whether a solo or group selfie is taken.. The quality of the photos from the front shooter are excellent. Despite the lack of autofocus. On the back, the FE relies on a triad of wide angle, ultra wide angle and zoom cameras.. The picture composition of Samsungs smartphone is pleasing to the eye with ocassionally overdone sharpening.. The somewhat low resolution is noticeable in panorama. Scenes and details can look a bit muddy.. The 3X telescopic zoom on the S21 FE is what we would describe as usable and doesnt stand. Out. Images at the maximum zoom level are unimpressive.. Videos can be recorded in Ultra HD at up to 60 frames per second on both sides. Samsung opts for a 6.4 inch AMOLED display with a sampling rate of 240 Hz for the S21 FE. Inputs are perfectly recognized and precisely registered.. The screens resolution is slightly lower than the S20 FEs, but the maximum brightness is higher. At a peak of 1044 nits. Minimum brightness gets as low as 1.66 nits.. The maximum refresh rate of the display is 120 Hz, but, unlike the S22 series, it is not adaptive.. The refresh rate can be downclocked to 60 Hz manually via the settings.

. We noticed screen flickering at a frequency of 247.5 Hz due to PWM. The brighter. The panel gets the more even this flicker becomes, so complaints should be limited.. The display convinces with a very natural color reproduction in the Natural profile, though the Vivid color profile, is a bit too saturated for our tastes.. It also supports HDR content, including HDR10 and HLG.. Samsung does not use its own Exynos processor in the Fan Edition, but opts instead for a Qualcomm SoC., The top model from 2021. The Snapdragon 888 beats at the heart of the phone.. It is supported by 6 GB of RAM.. The CPU performance is as expected in single core mode, but it is slightly slower than other smartphones with the same SoC in multi core tests.. The 128 GB of UFS 3.1 storage offers excellent performance, but is bested by some competitors from the likes of Xiaomi and Asus.. Unfortunately, Samsung has nixed the microSD slot.. There is a version with 256 GB of storage and 8 GB of RAM for those that need more storage. In terms of graphics. The Adreno 660 shines with a very strong performance without compromising in frame rates or detail levels.. Thus Samsungs smartphone is one of the few that can run the popular title League of Legends Wild Rift at 120. Fps, albeit not at max settings. PUBG Mobile, easily hits 60 FPS in most settings but drops to 40 FPS at Ultra HD.. The S21 FEs speakers are thin and lack bass, but are decent overall.

At higher volumes. We noticed a fair bit of distortion., While the speakers are passable. Sound output via the USB C port or Bluetooth is significantly better.. The S21 FE supports the SBC AAC aptX and LDAC codecs.. The S21 FE comes with a 4500 mAh battery.. However, it also has surprisingly high power consumption, primarily due to the lack of adaptive display refresh rate control.. The battery delivers quite good runtimes overall, but it falters even to the S21. In some situations, like our Reader and H.264 playback tests., We would have hoped for longer runtimes, due to the larger battery. Unofortuantely, the S21 FE lasts a just under 10 hours in our WiFi battery test.. This is a fair result, but its beat out by competitors like the Pixel 6.. The S21 FE supports fast charging up to 25 watts via cable and 15 watts wirelessly.. The device can be fully charge from 0 to 100 in about 74 minutes.. Unfortunately, Samsung does not include a charger.. The Samsung Galaxy S21. Fe 5G is a very good smartphone, but it comes too late to the market.. The S22 series is already available and the standard S21 has dropped significantly in price.. The Fan Edition convinces with an accurate AMOLED display with 120 Hz, a fast Snapdragon 888 wireless charging and an IP certification.. However, Samsung cannot really use the strengths of the Qualcomm SoC. In terms of battery runtimes. The FE is only partly slightly better than the regular S21.

Even though the battery is much larger., The removal of the microSD slot and the lack of a charger will keep fans from jumping for joy.. If you want to learn more about the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G check out our detailed review on notebookcheck.net. Be sure to like the video and subscribe. So you dont miss future reviews.