CES isn’t a big phone show in general. That certainly applies to Samsung, which is holding its big mobile news for Mobile World Congress in a month or two. Instead, the event is more about big things: TVs, washing machines, etc.
In recent years, however, the electronics giant has been using the show as a platform for launching its budget flagship – again just before the launch of its … flagship flagship S series. Over the years, Samsung played around with different names for the product, including “Lite” before settling on “FE” – short for “Fan Edition”. It seems that the device has been a huge hit for the company over the past year. It says: “Since its launch in the fourth quarter of 2020, the Galaxy S20 FE has sold 10 million units in just over a year, making it one of Samsung’s best-selling Galaxy smartphones last year.
Credit: Samsung
Ultimately, the company no doubt got the idea that naming a device “Lite” really led the way as the product was “less than” from a technical point of view. So it positions these devices as a kind of fan service – offering some of the luxury of higher-priced devices while dampening some of the bleeding edges in the name of cutting costs.
For the newly announced Galaxy S21 FE 5G, that’s a starting price of 699 US dollars (about one US dollar per letter of the product name). That’s the same price the company got for last year’s S20 – and $ 100 more than Google’s Pixel 6, which catapulted itself to the top of the affordable flagship list (sorry if the flagship and budget differences here somehow become nebulous).
Credit: Samsung
“We have seen an incredible response to the Galaxy S20 FE and Galaxy S21 series,” said Samsung’s TM Roh in a press release. “So we took the same approach with the S21 FE 5G and added the premium features that are most important to our loyal Galaxy fans – because we’re focused on delivering a smartphone that meets their most important needs.”
The handset has a 6.4-inch display with a refresh rate of 120 Hz, powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 processor, as its successor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, begins rolling out on flagships from companies like Xiaomi. There is a triple camera system with a 12-megapixel main camera, 32-megapixel ultrawide and 12-megapixel telephoto. The system is equipped with 6 or 8 GB of RAM and 128 or 256 GB of storage as well as a solid 4,500 mAh battery. And of course, as the name suggests, 5G is on board.
Credit: Samsung
The design borrows a lot of cues from the S21 standard, although the premium construction has been swapped for a cheaper plastic construction. The S21 FE will be delivered from January 11th.
