The Samsung Galaxy S20 FE set the stage for an affordable flagship that was missing in the company’s lineup until 2020. Its successor — the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE — has been reported to be under development for more than six months. Now, despite numerous rumors about Samsung ditching the Fan Edition lineup, it is finally launching the Galaxy S21 FE at a precursor event to CES 2022.
As pointed by the umpteen Galaxy S21 FE leaks, the smartphone largely derives its form from the Galaxy S21. Despite Samsung’s efforts to offer much more competitive pricing on its 2021 flagships, the Galaxy S21 couldn’t compete on price relative to its Plus and Ultra siblings. However, the Galaxy S21 FE is much more likely to remedy that issue with a more attractive $699 price as its key selling point, with some variation across carriers.
Other than its price, one thing that makes the Galaxy S21 FE a fairly attractive offering from Samsung is the Snapdragon 888 chipset, which is still powerful despite Qualcomm launching a successor last month. The chipset is bundled with either 6GB or 8GB of RAM and comes with up to 128GB or 256GB of storage. The phone gets 5G support with both sub-6GHz and mmWave 5G networks.
Despite having the same thickness as the Galaxy S21, the Galaxy S21 FE has slightly larger dimensions and a bigger display. The 6.4-inch Full HD+ Dynamic AMOLED display offers a 120Hz refresh rate and 240Hz touch response. The display also houses an in-display optical fingerprint scanner — unlike the much faster ultrasonic sensor on the Galaxy S21 series.
Besides a bigger display, the Fan Edition phone also comes with a larger, 4,500mAh battery. In addition to the fast wired charging at 25 watts and wireless charging at 15W, the smartphone supports Wireless PowerShare — Samsung’s moniker for reverse wireless charging that will allow you to juice up batteries on wirelessly charging accessories like the Galaxy Buds 2.
When it comes to cameras, the Galaxy S21 FE has an assortment identical to the Galaxy S21. The Fan Edition smartphone retains the 12-megapixel primary wide-angle with an f/1.8 aperture and optical image stabilization (OIS). The 12MP ultrawide-angle camera also appears the same on paper, with an f/2.2 aperture and a slightly wider 123-degree field of view. The tertiary camera on the back is an 8MP telephoto camera that offers 3X optical zoom and up to 30X digital zoom using an f/2.4 lens setup. Samsung is also hailing 30X Space Zoom on the S21 FE, but we don’t expect it to be anywhere close to the striking zoom capabilities of the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s periscope zoom camera. On the front, the Galaxy S21 Ultra sports a 32MP selfie camera with an f/2.2 aperture and an 81-degree wide field of view.
Like the previous generation, Samsung is offering a suite of colorful options for the Galaxy S21 FE to attract young buyers. This time, you get to choose from graphite, lavender, olive, and white with a “haze” finish, as Samsung dubs it. The company is also marketing a “contour-cut frame” that blends the camera bump seamlessly with the rest of the body. Like its predecessor, the Galaxy S21 FE is also expected to be clad in “glasstic,” which is Samsung’s name for a plastic back that has a glasslike finish. Despite its plastic back, the smartphone offers protection against dust and water with an IP68 rating.
The phone will run the company’s latest version of its custom skin, One UI 4 based on Android 12, right out of the box. One UI 4 gets a host of new features from Android 12, including dynamic theming, improved widgets, a privacy dashboard, and more.
The Samsung Galaxy S21 FE will be available in the U.S. starting January 11 for a price of $699 for the carrier-unlocked 128GB variant. The 256GB variant will be available for $769.
Verizon is offering a 30-month plan for $23.33 a month, along with up to $700 in trade-in credits. The prices in other regions are unknown at the time of writing, but we will update this story as more details emerge. Meanwhile, AT&T is offering a more affordable $15/month plan for the 128GB and $20/month for the 256GB variant with a 36-month agreement.
Merely days after the iPhone Duo hit the shelves, images of broken screens on the phone started popping up across social media. Until now, it’s been unclear what’s causing the line of defective pixels that appears vertically along the crease, as well as horizontally, on the phone’s inner display.
Apple has finally acknowledged the issue, which has shown up on iPhone Duo units owned by customers as well as demo units in stores. In a statement shared with Bloomberg, Apple says that not all iPhone Duo units are affected and that those that are tend to show the display fault early on. The company added that users who experience problems with their iPhone Duo display should contact AppleCare for a replacement.
Not long ago, Apple treated independent repair like an act of outright hostility. The Cupertino giant locked down parts with serial-number pairing, while repair tools remained firmly out of reach of anyone outside its authorized repair network. More importantly, the company waged a legal and lobbying battle against right-to-repair legislation.
I've covered enough of these fights over the years to know what a shift looks like. That's why what happened in October 2026 genuinely caught me off guard. The day the iPhone Duo went on sale, what may be the most mechanically complex iPhone to date, Apple pulled off a surprising about-face. It published teardown-style repair manuals for a handful of major components.
Apple's first foldable phone is now on shelves, in short supply, but with an unreal amount of buzz around it. After all, it's the first foldable iPhone, and there's plenty that this phone gets right. But there's also a lot that is either broken or underwhelming. What's peculiar is the dialogue around this phone, and how it has completely overshadowed every other attempt at making a phone with a similar form factor.
I've spent some time with the iPhone Duo, and I've used the Galaxy Z Fold 8 for almost three months now. In my opinion, Samsung deserves more credit. When the Galaxy Z Fold 8 arrived earlier this year, it was celebrated in some circles and ridiculed in others for supposedly copying what Apple would eventually deliver with the iPhone Duo. The dialogue was pretty odd, for multiple reasons. Samsung has been making foldable phones for years, so claiming that it copied a product Apple hadn't even launched was simply absurd.