Samsung Galaxy S21FE

If Samsung slashes the price, this could be a fine mid-range phone. Right now, it's massively overpriced

- TOM BEDFORD

SCORE

PRICE 128GB, £583 (£699 inc VAT) from samsung.com

The Samsung Galaxy S21 FE really challenges the idiom better late than never: arriving almost a year after the other phones in the S21 family, the FE lands as we await news of the Galaxy S22 range. This Fan Edition is purportedly the budget member of the Galaxy S21 range, but, right off the bat, price is a problem. At £699, it's almost identical to the street price of the S21 (see issue 318, p68).

You'd be forgiven for confusing the Galaxy S21 FE with its non-FE sibling: other than its larger size, it's a dead ringer. Until you touch it, that is, for this is a plastic rather than metal phone. The positive to this is that it's less prone to scratches and easier to grip, but it feels cheaper than the S21. It shares the S21's strikingly slender design, though, and you have to admire the barely-there bezel around the 6.4in AMOLED panel.

This positions the FE between the 6.1in S21 and 6.7in S21 Plus in the family line-up. Like its sibling, the display has a 1,080 x 2,400 resolution and 120Hz refresh rate. Another point of similarity is Samsung's Dynamic AMOLED 2X technology, which ensures the screen is both vibrant and bright. Streaming TV shows and playing games on the phone is a treat.

Breaking up the display is a cut-out for the front-facing camera along the top edge, which is an upgrade on the S21:32 MP rather than 22 MP. Snaps looked bright and detailed, even in low-light settings, but I avoided the Portrait mode owing to its sometimes inaccurate application of bokeh blur.