If you saw the words "Fan Edition" etched on a product, you would expect some exclusive features for the company's most devoted followers, right? Not according to the company. Many of the same features as the high-end S21 from last year are included in the Fan Edition, with a few cost-cutting measures.
Fans of the company will probably want to buy the latest and greatest. On February 9 the company is expected to announce its range of flagship phones. When we know there is something better around the corner for not much more, why spend $700 on the recently launched FE?
I have no answer. It is puzzling. Don't buy the S21 FE at full price. We have already seen it drop to $600 here and there. It is a pretty darn good phone that just arrived.
There are small changes.
You can read our review of the S21 FE here. It will eventually replace the entire S21 lineup as stock for those older models declines, so it is worth talking about.
I have been using the FE for nearly four weeks and have been able to run all my usual apps and games with barely a hitch thanks to the flagship chip inside. I saw the phone getting warm and stuttered as I was playing Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier, but that is to be expected. This isn't a completely different experience than the S21 The base model comes with 6 gig of RAM instead of 8. You can upgrade to 8 gigabytes for $770, but most people don't need that much storage.
It is a slightly bigger phone with a 6.4-inch screen than the S21, but I never felt that it was too big. It's light and thin, and you won't need to worry about the back shattering after an accidental drop because it's made of plastic. The rear of the phone can look dirty at times, but it attracts a lot of fingerprints, so I am more upset that the camera module was not accented in color. That gave the S21 a playful, fun look that helped it stand out from the crowd. The S21 FE is dull and drab. It's possible to get it in olive, lavender, or white.
The screen is the same. The colors are bright, the blacks are not, and it gets plenty bright to see outdoors. It will look and feel better when you scroll through it at a 120-hertz screen refresh rate. The S21 can adjust the refresh rate based on what you do, but the S21 FE can only be set to 60 or 120. The screen won't need to refresh so many times if you're just static on the home page.
The 4,500-mAh battery on the S21 is a tad larger than the 4,000-mAh battery on the S21, but it still lasts a full day. The S21 FE excelled over its predecessor in this area. The S21 only lasted me a day.
Camera talk.
The measure of a good camera is when I take photos with it. It can happen when you test many phones with different camera quality. I have taken a lot of photos since I started testing the S21 FE. I like them!
The triple-camera system has the same 12-MP main sensor and 12-MP ultrawide as the original S21. The results are bright and colorful, but not as contrasty as I would like. You can usually expect a blur-free image at night with the dedicated Night mode.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
