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It’s possible we could see a Samsung Galaxy S21 FE launched at CES 2022 in January. Here’s what we know so far!
Samsung Galaxy S21
It is clear that Samsung plans to launch the phone, but when? Hardly anyone can find out.
A tip from August 27th suggested the Galaxy S21 FE might debut on September 8th. It never happened. We expected the phone to hit the market even earlier, but that didn’t happen either.
Then, at the end of September, rumours began to circulate that the phone was not going to hit the market at all. The current global chip shortage was named as the cause.
However, we heard two more rumours that the Galaxy S21 FE will be launched in January 2022. On October 15, leakers Max Weinbach, Ross Young and Jon Prosser said Samsung was preparing to launch the S21 FE in January, with Prosser citing January 11 as the release date.
As of November 1st, SamMobile’s theory assumes that Samsung will present the Galaxy S21 FE a few days earlier than expected at CES 2022. We’ll keep you updated when we learn more.
Samsung Galaxy S21 FE: Design
Last year, the Galaxy S20 FE looked very similar to the Galaxy S20 line. This year, we expect Samsung to do the same with the 2021 iteration.
Thanks to trustworthy speaker Steve Hemmerstoffer (aka @OnLeaks) we already have a solid idea of what the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE would look like and no, surprisingly, it looks a lot like the Vanilla Galaxy S21.
It seems that the overall size of the phone is slightly larger than that of the Galaxy S21. At 155.7 x 74.5 x 7.9 mm, this phone should be comfortably between the sizes of the Galaxy S21 (151.7 x 71.2 x 7.9 mm) and the Galaxy S21 Plus (161.5 x 75, 6 x 7.8 mm).
A few weeks after the Hemmerstoffer leak, serial leaker Evan Blass stepped in with a few more renderings.
Note that the Galaxy S20 FE got six colour combinations and we’ve only seen five for follow-up so far.
Apart from the colour palette, the Galaxy S21 FE looks almost exactly the same as the Galaxy S21 range (except for the Galaxy S21 Ultra, of course). Unfortunately, Samsung doesn’t seem to be getting the headphone jack back, which is disappointing. But not surprising.
Interestingly, Samsung leaked the Galaxy S21 FE in a now-deleted Instagram post on August 10th. The phone in the promo seems to match the leaked pictures of the phone we’ve seen so far.
On August 20th, a 3D model of the Galaxy S21 FE left little doubt about the phone’s design. Check it out above.
Leaker Rolan Quandt tweeted four pictures showing the back of the Galaxy S21 FE in grey, pink, white and green.
Samsung Galaxy S21 FE: Specifications
As for specs, we’ve heard that the Galaxy S21 FE may not have the same battery as this year’s Plus model, which it did last year. 4,500 mAh cell. That makes it 500mAh bigger than the Galaxy S21 but 300mAh smaller than the Galaxy S21 Plus. That FCC listing we mentioned also suggests 45W wired charging could be included, which would be a huge change for the series (the Galaxy S21 Ultra is the only phone with those charging speeds).
A big question is whether or not the Snapdragon 888 processor would be included with the Galaxy S21 FE. Thankfully, the previously mentioned FCC listing suggests that it will be onboard.
Most recently, a listing on the Chinese certification site TENAA confirmed a lot of these rumours. It also gave away the camera specs, which appear to be largely the same as the Galaxy S20 FE and Galaxy S21: a 12MP main, a 12MP ultrawide, and an 8MP telephoto.
Finally, one curious rumour is the Galaxy S21 FE’s relation to the Note line. Samsung confirmed that there wouldn’t be a Note phone in 2021, but Evan Blass posits that the S21 FE could be what lands in place of a Note. This could now mean that Samsung will set the same resources behind the faith S21, which has a note phone.
