Last year, Samsung released the Galaxy S20, a fan edition, and the goal was to collect the specifications and features that users of the S20 series liked and put them in one phone at an acceptable price… The phone was a great success, and was ranked among the best phones that offer value for money… And everyone is waiting The new generation of the phone, until Samsung opened the New Year 2022 by announcing the new fan version phone Galaxy S21 FE after a long wait and a torrent of leaks… As expected, the phone looks like the S21 with some modifications and concessions, but it preserved the basic features.
Digital review of the Galaxy S21 FE
the design:
The design of the device is completely inspired by the S21 family of phones from Samsung, so it is similar to it in terms of appearance. The front end came with slim edges, with a hole in the middle above the front camera. From the back, we find the cameras arranged within a prominent rectangular frame at the top left, and connected to the body of the device, much like the regular S21 phone. The design is beautiful, it feels modern and it inspires you with luxury. In terms of workmanship, the back of the phone is covered in reinforced plastic with a rough and matte feel, but it collects few fingerprints. The frame is aluminum, and the screen is protected by tough Corning Gorilla Glass Victus. The protruding cameras unit at the back also came from plastic, unlike the regular S21 phone, which came with the same metal frame manufacture.
To the right of the phone we find the power button and the volume control buttons, and from the bottom there is an external audio headset, a USB Type-C port and a two-SIM port, and there is no 3.5 mm input to connect wired headphones.
The device supports IP68 water and dust resistance, ensuring that the phone withstands water up to one and a half meters for 30 minutes.
In general, the phone is beautiful and attractive, and the body space has been used in the best possible way, but on the other hand it lacks the leading workmanship.
Phone Dimensions:
Length: 15.57 cm
Width: 7.45 cm
Thickness: 7.9 mm
Weight: 177 g
As we can see, the phone is medium in size, and its weight is relatively light, and this is what made its grip somewhat comfortable. It should also be taken into account that the screen is flat, which is what many prefer over a curved screen.
Screen and sound:
came Galaxy S21 FE With a flat panel of Dynamic AMOLED 2X saturated colors… It has a medium size of 6.4 inches and a refresh rate of 120 Hz… And we felt very smooth with this feature when navigating menus and games, with a touch sensitivity of 240 Hz. But here there is no dynamic mode that enables the system to change the update speed automatically, the update speed is fixed and is set in the settings. The screen comes with FHD + quality, supports Always On Display technology and HDR content display. As we can see, the screen has powerful and pioneering specifications… In fact, the screen provided distinctive and beautiful colors, and we enjoyed watching the content on the phone. In terms of brightness, the screen reached a maximum brightness of about 790 nits… The screen also includes an optical fingerprint reader built into it… We found it to be responsive and reliable…
As for the sound, the phone has stereo headphones, working through a speaker at the bottom with a call headset at the top… The speakers are tuned by AKG and support Dolby Atmos technology. Unfortunately, there is no 3.5 mm input to connect the wired headphones, as the headphones must be connected to the charging port. The speakers are well balanced if you are listening to music in landscape or portrait orientation. When compared to them separately, the bottom speaker is slightly louder. In general, the phone provided a good audio experience, and we noticed that the sound was loud and clear.
the performance:
In terms of performance, the phone comes with the same hardware as the S21 family. The Snapdragon 888 processor from Qualcomm, the leading processor in the first half of 2021… It is manufactured with a 5 nm architecture.. It is an eight-core processor with a maximum speed of 2.84 GHz. The graphics processor is Adreno 660. There is another version of the phone that carries the Exynoss 2100 processor from Samsung for some markets, which is an octa-core 5 nm also with a maximum speed of 2.9 GHz, and is accompanied by a Mali-G78 MP14 graphics processor.
In fact, the performance of the phone is fast and smooth, and you will not feel slow or heavy during normal use… The experience of opening applications and games and switching between them was excellent. For games, we found the phone’s performance well, especially with the high refresh rate… In terms of heat, we had no problems with the phone’s heating… It was able to easily override daily tasks, but of course it experienced some heating after prolonged use and heavy games. Note that it is not intended for games in the first place, and there are other phones that perform this purpose better.
The device comes with three options for RAM and storage space: 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage, 8 GB RAM with 128 GB storage space, or 8 GB RAM with 256 GB internal storage. As for expanding the space, the phone does not support the installation of an external storage chip.
the system:
The phone runs on the new Android 12 system developed by Google, with the new Samsung interface OneUI 4… It is the first Samsung phone to come with the updated interface directly inside the box… The most prominent feature of the interface is the new color scheme, where it extracts the background colors and applies them to the system in a way. A year of menus and icons… The new interface with Android 12 also gives more control over privacy… New photo editing tools have also been added in the Gallery Gallery app. Our experience with the updated operating system and interface was beautiful and satisfying.
Camera:
For the camera, the Galaxy S21 FE includes three rear lenses. The primary lens came with a 12-megapixel camera with an f/1.8 aperture… with optical stabilization and supports autofocus via Dual Pixel technology. The lens also gives a natural depth that makes the photos look very satisfying, with lots of detail… The images are also bright and saturated… Not to mention the night mode which showed a great deal of detail…
The second ultrawide lens captures 123-degree wide-angle photos, 12-megapixel resolution, and f/2.4 aperture…
The third lens is a telephoto, its accuracy is 8 megapixels, and it gives an optical approximation of up to 3 times, and a digital approximation of up to 30 times, and it is also attached to an optical stabilizer…
The Night Mode feature has also been developed that works with image merging technology, which combines several images into one image to help produce better images under low light conditions. There is also an Object Eraser feature that works just like the Magic Eraser on Google’s Pixel 6 series, allowing for intelligent removal of extraneous objects in photo backgrounds.
The phone does not have a high-resolution lens, and therefore we miss the feature of shooting 8K clips, as in the previous S21 phones. But the primary camera allows you to shoot 4K videos at 60 frames per second. And Samsung gave the makers of Falluj content a new option through Dual Recording technology, or dual recording, which allows recording videos using the front and rear lenses at the same time.
As for the front camera, it came with a 32-megapixel camera with an f/2.2 lens slot… It produces 8-megapixel photos by combining 4 images in one image. It can record 4K videos at 60 frames per second. The results of the selfies and the recorded clips were also satisfactory and more natural with less noise… The selfies were also good in low light mode.
In general, the performance of the rear cameras and the front camera was good…of course it’s not the best camera in its class, but it does a good job and can be trusted.
Connection:
The phone supports the installation of two Nano-SIM cards. Of course, the phone supports connectivity to 5G networks.
The phone also supports fast WiFI 6, as well as Bluetooth version 5.0, which is surprising, as most phones now support Bluetooth 5.1 or 5.2 … and there is support for the NFC feature.
Battery and charging:
The Galaxy S21 FE includes a 4500 mAh battery, which supports 25W fast charging. But the charger is not available inside the phone case. The charger can charge the device to 50% within 30 minutes using the fast charger. The phone also supports 15W wireless charging and reverse wireless.
In terms of battery life, on the ground, the battery performance was average, not bad but not the best. It lasted barely a full day, and recorded about 7 and a half hours of average use, which is not among the best.
Availability and price:
The price of the Galaxy S21 FE starts from $ 700 for a 6 GB RAM and 128 GB memory version, and we are talking about a version that supports 5G networks. The phone is officially available in several Arab countries. The colors available for the phone are white, graphite, violet and green, which are the same as the Galaxy Buds 2 color range.
We liked:
- The phone is elegant, light in weight and comfortable to hold
- The screen is excellent and provides an optimal content viewing experience
- The system performance is smooth and the new interface OneUI 4 is beautiful and convenient to use
- The performance of the primary camera is generally excellent in both natural and dark modes
- The phone did really well in games
- There is support for water and dust resistance
We didn’t like:
- The build of the phone is not strong and durable enough compared to the price
- No input for wired headphones
- Vibration systems are not as in the flagship phones
- There is no charger inside the phone box, therefore it must be purchased separately
- The maximum charging speed does not live up to what competitors offer
digital opinion
There is no doubt that the Galaxy S21 FE is one of the most important Samsung phones now… It is a really powerful phone in which the company has put the best possible specifications in a package that does not exceed $ 700… There is an excellent screen, a powerful camera, high-end performance, and acceptable workmanship… But the problem lies in An important thing, Samsung was very late in launching the S21 FE phone… The timing of its release coincided with the beginning of the new year, as most companies are preparing to reveal their new ones… including Samsung itself, which is preparing to announce the S22 phones… And therefore the phone will not get its sufficient share of experience and competition… Especially since the S21 family has dropped in price as well… We don’t expect the phone to be a bargain at this time, unlike last year’s version.
This was a digital opinion of the Galaxy S21 FE phone … but we would like to hear your opinion, so share it with us in the comments, and do not forget to like and share the episode with phone lovers, this helps us to continue. We will see you in the next episode of My Digital Opinion on My TV…
