In this article, I have to talk about the new phone released by Samsung, the Galaxy S21 FE. This phone is quite similar to the regular S21 and even looks almost exactly like it. However, some corners were cut to bring down the retail price by a hundred dollars. It’s important to note that we can’t expect the S21 FE to be on sale often, so it’s not really a $699 phone. In fact, it’s already on discount for basically $540 on Amazon right now. So, if you can get this at $540, the S21 FE is at the same price as the Google Pixel 6.
When this phone first launched, there was quite a bit of hype surrounding it due to its strong specs, and it was considered to be one of the best value phones. However, there were also many reports of the Pixel being buggy and having issues, which I did experience myself. So, now that the FE is here, is this the new best value phone?
In this article, I’ll be compare the S21 FE vs S21 in perspective against its competitors, mainly the Pixel 6. And at the end, I’ll also have some camera comparisons between these two. Let’s just get into it!
Related: Samsung S23 Review
Samsung S21 FE vs S21
Specs
| Samsung S21 FE 5G | Samsung S21 5G |
|---|---|
| CPU Type – Octa-Core | CPU Type – Octa-Core |
| CPU SPEED – 2.9GHz, 2.8GHz, 2.2GHz | CPU SPEED – 2.9GHz, 2.8GHz, 2.2GHz |
| Size & Display – 16.29cm (6.4″) full rectangle / 15.89cm (6.3″) rounded corners | Size & Display – 15.84cm (6.2″) full rectangle / 15.46cm (6.1″) rounded corners |
| Resolution – 2340 x 1080 (FHD+) Dynamic AMOLED 2X | Resolution – 2400 x 1080 (FHD+) Dynamic AMOLED 2X |
| Price: $540 | Price: $263.34 |
Alright, let’s talk about the specs of the S21 FE. Overall, they’re very similar to the one-year-old S21. It has the same Snapdragon Triple Eight, which is a last-gen flagship CPU at this point. The phone boasts a 1080p AMOLED screen at 120Hz, which can go just as bright as the S21 screen. This means that the FE has a bright and fast screen that you’ll have no problem seeing even under bright sunlight.
Some other flagship features that the FE has are IP68 water and dust resistance, 15-watt fast wireless charging, and a Gorilla Glass Victus screen. Interestingly, the FE is slightly heavier and has a larger screen than the S21, but to be honest, the weight difference is barely noticeable, even when holding both phones at the same time. The FE does have the same plastic body with an aluminum frame, and the plastic back has a nice and smooth texture that doesn’t catch too many fingerprints.
Selfie Camera
| Samsung S21 FE 5G | Samsung S21 5G |
|---|---|
| Front Camera – 32.0 MP, F2.2 | Front Camera – 10.0 MP, F2.2 |
Let’s talk about the cameras. The S21 and the FE version actually have the same exact main camera sensor, which is quite nice. And somewhat surprisingly, the FE does have a higher resolution selfie camera that takes better photos. As you can see here, it is a bit less noisy in the shadows on the FE’s photos.
In addition to the sharper selfie camera, the FE does have a few more advantages over the S21. For one, the one-year later release date means that the FE will receive one more year of software support.
Rear Camera
| Samsung S21 FE 5G | Samsung S21 5G |
|---|---|
| Rear Camera – 12.0 MP + 12.0 MP + 8.0 MP, F1.8 , F2.2 , F2.4 | Rear Camera – 12.0 MP + 64.0 MP + 12.0 MP, F1.8 , F2.0 , F2.2 |
| Rear Camera Zoom – Optical Zoom at 3x , Digital Zoom up to 30x | Rear Camera Zoom – Hybrid Optic Zoom at 3x , Digital Zoom up to 30x |
| Video Recording Resolution – UHD 4K (3840 x 2160)@60fps | Video Recording Resolution – UHD 8K (7680 x 4320)@24fps |
The telephoto lens on the FE is only 8 megapixels versus 64 megapixels on the S21. This difference is definitely noticeable. The FE’s photos just don’t look as clear and sharp. However, it’s still better than what the Pixel can produce with no telephoto lens, which I’ll get to a bit later. The FE’s ultrawide is also a slight downgrade with a smaller sensor, resulting in more noise and less sharpness in the photos.
Battery
| Samsung S21 FE 5G | Samsung S21 5G |
|---|---|
| Battery– 4500mAh | Battery– 4000mAh |
Additionally, the FE being a slightly larger phone has a larger battery at 4,500mAh versus 4,000mAh on the S21. However, somewhat disappointingly, this does not result in a longer battery life than the S21 in my testing. This could be because the FE’s 120Hz screen is not adaptive.
Besides the screen, there are a few more places where corners were cut for this phone. For instance, the camera bump is plastic instead of aluminum. Now, this doesn’t really have an impact on the phone functionally, but it does make it look lower quality. The plastic camera bump certainly doesn’t help with the look, and the silver rings around the camera don’t do much either.
Finger Print
Now, aside from the cameras, the fingerprint reader on the FE is optical instead of ultrasonic. So, it will flash a bright light every time you use it, and this can be pretty annoying at night. However, functionally, it’s still very fast. But I did notice that when the finger is a little bit moist, the optical one doesn’t really work anymore, whereas the ultrasonic one still works perfectly fine.
Speakers
In addition to that, the haptics and speakers on the FE are also slightly worse. The best way that I can describe the haptics of the FE is that they feel more violent, kind of like more shaky. And as for the speakers, even though they are still stereo, they have a slightly more tinny sound. Lastly, note that the bass is also not as good on the FE compared to the S21.
Storage
| Samsung S21 FE 5G | Samsung S21 5G |
|---|---|
| Memory (Ram) – 8 GB | Memory (Ram) – 8 GB |
| Storage – 256 GB | Storage – 128 GB |
The FE version comes with 8GB on the S21 with 256GB Storage. However, the difference in RAM does not significantly affect performance, even in heavier tasks like gaming. Despite the FE and S21 scored very similarly in tests.
Conclusion
The corners that were cut to bring down the FE’s price do not negatively impact performance or user experience. It’s great that they didn’t downgrade the system-on-a-chip (SoC) and kept the 120Hz AMOLED screen, IP68 water and dust resistance, and wireless charging. Using the FE feels very similar to using the S21. Note that the S21 can often be found on discount for about $700, so it doesn’t make much sense to get the FE at the same price point. Therefore, it’s worth considering the FE only if it’s on discount, and at its current discounted price of $600, the FE seems like a great value phone, especially if you don’t mind the downsides mentioned.
Samsung S21 FE vs Pixel 6
Now I’ll talk about how the Samsung S21 FE competes against the Pixel 6. Regarding the Pixel, I do want to first clarify that the Pixel 6 launched at $599, so $100 less than the FE at $699. However, the Pixel 6 will likely not go on sale. It wasn’t even on sale during the holiday season, whereas the FE is already immediately on sale for the same price as the Pixel.
| Samsung S21 FE 5G | Google Pixel 6 |
|---|---|
| CPU Type – Octa-Core | CPU Type – Octa-Core |
| CPU SPEED – 2.9GHz, 2.8GHz, 2.2GHz | CPU SPEED – 2×2.80 GHz Cortex-X1 & 2×2.25 GHz Cortex-A76 & 4×1.80 GHz Cortex-A55 |
| Chipset – Samsung Tensor | Chipset – Google Tensor |
| Operating System – Android | Operating System – Android v12 |
| Price: $540 | Price: $398.96 |
Design
So these two phones are very similar in size. Both of them have a 6.4 inch display. However, the Pixel has a glass back which I prefer over the all-plastic back, but it can also be a downside since it makes the phone heavier and easier to crack.
Screen
| Samsung S21 FE 5G | Google Pixel 6 |
|---|---|
| Size & Display – 16.29cm (6.4″) full rectangle / 15.89cm (6.3″) rounded corners | Size & Display – 6.4 inches (16.26 cm) FHD+ OLED |
| Resolution – 2340 x 1080 (FHD+) Dynamic AMOLED 2X | Resolution – 1080 x 2400 Pixels |
As for their screens, both the Samsung S21 FE and Pixel 6 have a 1080p AMOLED screen, but the Pixel 6 only goes up to 90Hz, rather than 120Hz on the FE. While 90Hz is a significant upgrade over 60Hz, it is still noticeably worse than 120Hz, which makes scrolling around on the phone feel really smooth. A 120Hz screen would be great for playing games too, but neither of these two phones handle heavy games very well.
Speakers
The Samsung S21 FE and Pixel 6 both have stereo speakers that sound pretty similar in terms of quality, but I do prefer the haptics on the Pixel a bit more because they feel more refined and controlled.
Performance
So, on paper, the Pixel does have a faster GPU and it performs better initially. However, for both of these phones, the main concern is actually the thermal management. Under a heavy load for 20 minutes, both of them overheated pretty quickly, after around just five minutes. So in reality, the Pixel doesn’t really have an advantage in terms of gaming performance, especially with a 90Hz screen. In contrast, the Realme GT, which was designed with gaming in mind, has much better thermals overall. Under the same test, it was able to sustain its performance for much longer. But in non-gaming day-to-day tasks, both the Tensor and the Snapdragon are going to perform more than fast enough, and there likely won’t be any overheating issues either.
Battery
| Samsung S21 FE 5G | Google Pixel 6 |
|---|---|
| Battery– 4500mAh | Battery– 4614mAh |
In terms of battery life, the Pixel does have a noticeably longer battery life. In my test, both phones started out at 100% and after about 30 minutes of benchmarking and 30 minutes of playing a video in a loop, the Pixel was left at 85% whereas the FE only had 75%. This may be due to the Pixel’s lower 90 hertz refresh rate that’s also adaptive.
Tensor Chip
And let’s talk a bit more about the Tensor chip. It does bring some unique features, such as faster and smarter voice typing. Other Pixel-only features include using your Google Assistant to screen calls and automatically displaying a song that’s playing in your environment. There are also live captions, which generate captions for any video that’s playing on your phone, and these captions can be translated too. However, I recently found out that Samsung can do this too, so this is no longer a Pixel-only feature.
Samsung DeX
Speaking of which, Samsung does have some of its own unique features as well, like Samsung DeX, which turns your phone into a desktop. It’s pretty cool, but it’s still far from a true desktop experience.
Wireless Charging
The Samsung S21 FE also comes with the wireless powershare feature, which is super convenient for charging up accessories like Airpods or Galaxy Buds. Moreover, the FE has a nice ecosystem with other Samsung accessories and computers. For example, the Galaxy Buds can use the higher resolution codec called Samsung Scalable Codec. However, this isn’t the full picture since the Pixel has some unique and somewhat strange flaws. The Pixel’s wireless charging behaves pretty weirdly; it either doesn’t charge at all or charges at extremely slow speeds. I have tested this on three different wireless charging pads with many different bricks, and the same problem persists everywhere.
Updates
Both my Pixel 6 and 6 Pro have had all sorts of bugs pretty much since launch, and at one point, I couldn’t even scroll through YouTube Studio, a Google-made app, without it crashing. Now, I did get the new January 2022 update, which does seem to resolve most of those issues. However, adaptive brightness on the Pixel still doesn’t work very well for me. It kind of feels like it just erratically does its own thing. Being left with buggy software for two months straight, ever since November, is not a great feeling. And this certainly left me with some doubts regarding the quality and the software support for these Pixels.
Camera
| Samsung S21 FE 5G | Google Pixel 6 |
|---|---|
| Rear Camera – 12.0 MP + 12.0 MP + 8.0 MP, F1.8 , F2.2 , F2.4 | Rear Camera – 12.2 MP f/1.7, Wide Angle (77° field-of-view), Primary Camera, 12 MP f/2.2, Ultra-Wide Angle Camera |
| Rear Camera Zoom – Optical Zoom at 3x , Digital Zoom up to 30x | Rear Camera Zoom – 5 x Digital Zoom, Auto Flash, Face detection, Touch to focus. |
| Video Recording Resolution – UHD 4K (3840 x 2160)@60fps | Image Resolution – 4032 x 3024 Pixels |
| Front Camera Resolution – 32.0 MP, F2.2 | Front Camera Resolution – 8 MP f/2.0, Wide Angle, Primary Camera |
So, the main sensor actually looks pretty comparable in terms of technical abilities; both are detailed with great dynamic range. However, I did notice that the Pixel’s processing sometimes creates a different look that isn’t very realistic. For example, in this photo, the Pixel made the sky blue, even though it was golden hour, and the sky was definitely more orange, like the one on the Samsung. As for the telephoto, the Pixel 6 doesn’t have one, and the difference between digital crop and a telephoto lens is immediately apparent. You can still see some of the details in the windows on Samsung’s photo, whereas on the Pixel, there’s almost no detail, and in general, the Pixel’s photo just looks a lot worse. The selfie cameras on these two are quite similar in terms of quality, but I would say that the FE is a bit better with more detail. However, you might prefer the processing and look of Pixel selfies.
Final Thought
Overall, I prefer the FE over the Pixel 6 for a few reasons. The FE has a faster screen, wireless charging that actually works, and a more fully featured camera system. Compared to the S21, even though the FE is $100 less, it doesn’t lose out on a lot of those staple flagship features, so the overall performance and user experience of this phone is very strong.
Compared to phones from other brands that are similar or lower priced, such as the Realme GT or the ZTE Axon 30, I find that those other phones oftentimes lose out on more flagship features, like water resistance, stereo speakers, wireless charging, and Gorilla Glass, just to name a few. Of course, the FE being part of the Samsung Galaxy series means that it has great software support, and in my roughly nine months of daily driving the regular S21, Samsung’s One UI has always been great, very reliable, with no weird bugs like the Pixel.
For $540, this is definitely my favorite phone. However, I wouldn’t get this for the retail price of $700, because at that price point, you can probably pick up an S21 on discount. Regarding the upcoming S22, I think the S22 will be far more expensive and isn’t really meant to compete with this phone in any way. So, if you’re looking to pick up a phone for around $540, then this is probably as good of a time to do so as any.
Alright, so that’s going to be it for this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it interesting and helpful. Also, let me know your thoughts on the S21 FE down below.
