The report states that Samsung has already made most of the preparations it needs to officially announce a cheaper version of the Galaxy S21 FE that would drop the 5G connectivity and support only LTE (4G).
What’s more, the chipset is also said to get a downgrade, discarding the high-end Snapdragon 888 found on previous flagship phones like the Galaxy S21 series, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Flip 3, and the Asus ROG Phone 5 and 5s series, to name a few. Instead, the supposed S21 FE 4G would rock the mid-range Snapdragon 720G chipset.
To throw in some context here and understand the magnitude of this downgrade, the Snapdragon 720G is the same processor that comes with the Galaxy A52 and A72 — two lower mid-range or straight-up budget phones that are now more than a year old.
The silver lining here is that there are no other reported downgrades. That means the same beautiful 6.4-inch 120Hz AMOLED screen, 45000mAh battery and charging speed, camera system, and colors.
Why might Samsung be downgrading the Galaxy FE?
Nevertheless, it is hard not to scratch your head at first when you hear this alleged decision Samsung has made. The Galaxy S Fan Edition (FE) is supposed to be what it sounds like — for the fans, to bring good specs with carefully cut corners to make the price more reasonable.
On the other hand, the Galaxy S21 FE had a tough launch, being so closely priced ($700) to the actual flagship Galaxy S22 series ($800) from Samsung. There are also phones like the Pixel 6 that cost just $600, showing how serious the competition is in this price segment, not to mention the upcoming Pixel 6a that is said to come with the same chipset as its more expensive brothers. When you look at the bigger picture, Samsung seems to be making the right move here, and not that surprising of a one either.
