**The Galaxy S21 vs Galaxy S20 FE: A Comparative Analysis**

When it comes to flagship smartphones, Samsung's Galaxy series is always at the top of the game. However, not all devices are created equal. In this article, we'll be comparing two devices that have been making waves in the tech world - the Galaxy S21 and the Galaxy S20 FE. Both phones have received their Android 11 update, but which one comes out on top?

**The Verdict: Paper vs Reality**

On paper, the Galaxy S21 is the better phone. It boasts superior specs in virtually every respect, from its display to its performance. However, this is where things get complicated. The removal of MST technology, a feature that made the S20 FE worth using, is a major blow for the S21. Additionally, the lack of an SD card slot and charger on the S21 means it's not as convenient to use as some users might like. On the other hand, the Galaxy S20 FE has consistently received discounts, making its value factor significantly higher than the S21.

**The Differences Between the Two Devices**

When we compare the two devices side by side, it becomes clear that they're very similar. The only differences are in the display and performance. The S21's One UI 3.1 provides a smoother experience than the S20 FE's One UI 3.0, but this is something that only a handful of users will notice. In terms of features, both devices offer many of the same things, including Samsung Dex mode, HDMI out, and Dolby Atmos.

**The Pros and Cons of Each Device**

Both devices have their pros and cons. The S21 has the better specs, but this comes at a cost - it lacks some of the features that made its predecessor so appealing. On the other hand, the Galaxy S20 FE is still a great phone that offers excellent value for its price. It's not the latest device on the market, but it's still consistently performing well.

**The Verdict: Which Phone Should You Buy?**

In the end, the decision comes down to your personal preferences and budget. If you want the best specs and don't mind paying a premium for them, the S21 is the way to go. However, if you're looking for a more affordable option that still offers great performance and features, the Galaxy S20 FE is an excellent choice.

**What's Next?**

As we wrap up this comparison, it's worth noting that the first version of this article had a typo - Samsung actually removed the external storage from the S21, not the other way around. However, after changing it, our observations and opinions remained the same. The S21 is indeed the better phone on paper, but in reality, both devices are very similar.

**Connectivity**

Both phones support 5G and Wi-Fi 6, although the S21 supports more bands due to its newer modem. In terms of connection options, both devices offer identical performance. This means that if you're looking for a reliable connection, either phone will do the job.

**The Final Verdict**

After spending nearly two weeks using both phones, it became clear that I wasn't comparing competing devices - I was comparing a predecessor to its eventual successor. And that's exactly what it feels like when you use both of these phones at full price. The S21 is the better phone on paper, but the Galaxy S20 FE is still an excellent choice if you find one at a discount.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello again ladies and gentlemen i'm joe hendy from android authority and after i had to take down the previous version of this video due to an over dramatic reaction to a minor typo i am once again going to attempt to compare the 700 galaxy s20 fe with the 800 galaxy s21 let's try this again from a distance both of these phones look demonstrably similar they are both obviously modern samsung smartphones and you can definitely tell the camera bumps are in the same spot as is the single pinhole camera on the front of the screen both devices have the same speaker grille design on the bottom the same usb c port placement and even the same volume rocker and power button placement both of these phones have the same matte glass stick back for better or for worse in fact after a good once over i only noticed a few differences the sim card trays are in slightly different spots as are the camera flashes additionally the pinhole camera of the s20 fe has a little silver ring around it whereas the s21 has a black ring that looks better integrated with the screen finally the only real difference in design is the camera bump the s20 fe has a fairly standard looking camera bump that is close to what everybody else is doing the s21 by contrast has its frame molded to look like the camera module melts right into the frame it's not of course and you can see there's a little line where they separate but i think it's a really neat effect a lot of which one is better comes down to personal preference but i like the s21 design a little bit more the silver ring and the pinhole camera and the generic looking camera module give the s20 fv a slightly less modern look compared to the smoother sleeker touches on the s21 although to be fair i am a phone blogger and i've seen hundreds of camera modules like the s20 fe so maybe i'm just itching to see something different in any case i'm giving this one to the s21 the screens are where we really start to see a difference between these two phones just kidding both of these devices sport 1080p displays with support for up to 120 hertz and they look basically the same at the same screen brightness level except for ones a little bit colder and one's a little bit warmer there are some minor differences though the first one is the obvious one which is the size the s21 is slightly smaller at 6.2 inches versus the 6.5 inch display of the s20 fv the s21 also has a dynamic amoled display which includes support for hdr 10 something the s20 fes super amoled display lacks the s20 fe also includes a constant 120 hertz mode whereas the s21 uses the more battery friendly adaptive mode under the display the s20 fe rocks an optical fingerprint reader while the entire s21 lineup has the second generation snapdragon ultrasonic fingerprint reader i actually had this wrong at first because i have no idea why samsung wouldn't use the same fingerprint reader in the s20fe as it did in the s20 and it took me a little bit by surprise both systems have their pros and cons and both worked almost just as well during my testing in day-to-day typical use the screens are more than good enough on both phones colors are bright and punchy on both displays and those just browsing the web or using social media will be happy with either one games looked bright and colorful on both displays and everything seemed to be in order overall the s21 obviously has the better display on paper it has more features better one-handed use and it uses more modern technology however the gap simply isn't that big anymore so it's not like the s20 fv is trash by comparison but for real this time performance is where we see these two devices start to separate from one another the s20 fv rocks a snapdragon 865 with six to eight gigabytes of ram and an adreno 650 while the s21 rocks a snapdragon 888 with eight gigabytes of ram and an adreno 660. now i'm gonna sound like a broken record but in 2021 basic use won't be any different apps will open quickly scrolling will be smooth in most social media and browser apps and you should be able to move through the phone without any noticeable hiccups or problems i tested the performance on levelhead a platformer from 2020 with a frame counter on the s20 fv held firm on max graphics at around 250 frames per second while the s21 maxed out at around 280 to 300 frames per second this is far higher than the game's native 60 fps frame rate so neither phone stuttered or lagged playing the game even once the only other thing i want to bring up is that i tested the snapdragon 888 version of the galaxy s21 there is also an exynos 2100 version that i did not get to play with however according to our testing which is linked in the video description below the exynos 2100 competes favorably with the snapdragon 865 and lags a bit behind the snapdragon 888 at least in terms of graphics exynos folks should be fine with either phone but gamers may want to consider the galaxy s20 fe since these snapdragon gaming numbers were a little more consistent we used gary's speed test g benchmark here because phones act more natural with it and sends most oem's juice performance when it detects that it's running a mainstream benchmark okay that was a lot of technobabble so let me simplify it the too long didn't read version of this is that on paper and in testing the snapdragon version of the s21 was the best overall option while the exynos 2100 version of the galaxy s21 and the s20 fv basically tie for second you may draw your own conclusions accordingly but no version of these phones will struggle with normal basic everyday stuff like taking photos or scrolling facebook you may only see minor differences during long or intense activities after all of that performance stuff let's ease it up a bit with the battery life the galaxy s21 has a smaller battery at 4 000 milliamp hours while the galaxy s20 fe has a slightly larger 4500 milliamp hour cell one would expect the larger battery to house the better battery life but that is not the case the galaxy s21 has the more power efficient cpu it has the adaptive 120hz mode that we discussed earlier and it's a smaller screen and screens are the biggest power draw on a smartphone so believe it or not we actually got better battery numbers on the s21 than we did on the s20 fe but not by a whole bunch in my personal use things were a little bit different the s21 only lasted longer if i used the phone a lot over the course of a day the s20 fv lasted longer when in standby i suspect just as a function of having a larger battery so on light use days the f20 fe had a little more battery left at the end of the day but on heavy use days the s21 lasted just a little bit longer that is just my experience though and your mileage may vary there are ways to change this of course you can turn off the 120 hertz mode on the s20 fv and it regains quite a bit of its battery life but the s21 is just a little bit more optimized in terms of charging both phones have identical wired and wireless charging numbers you get 25 watts over a wired connection and 15 watts if you go wireless neither phone actually comes with a 25 watt charger in the box but at least the s20 fv does come with a charger even if it's not the fastest in any case i was able to comfortably make it through a whole day with some social media browsing like gaming some messaging snapchat and some other stuff it certainly won't go two days under most circumstances but you should only need to top off on those heavy use days with either phone as is the running theme in this video the camera sensors are more alike than they are different both feature a 12 megapixel main shooter with optical image stabilization and a 12 megapixel ultra wide sensor the rest of the cameras are thankfully different the s20 fb has a 32 megapixel front-facing camera bend it down to 8 megapixels while the s21 has a 10 megapixel shooter additionally the s21 has a 64 megapixel telephoto lens with ois while the s20 fv has an 8 megapixel telephoto lens also with ois so knowing that it didn't come as a complete shock to me that the s21 was a bit sharper when shooting with that telephoto lens the camera bends itself down to 16 megapixels by default but there is an optional 64 megapixel mode that really brings in the details that said the s20 fe was certainly no slouch either and many of the photos i took are difficult to tell apart between the two in my testing there were really only subtle differences the s21 defaulted to a brighter slightly more washed out image while the s20 leaned a bit more on high saturation of course samsung phones have this little exposure slider so you can tone down the exposure of the s21 and take what i think are better photos both sensors struggled with moving targets to an extent where i honestly just deleted the ones of my dogs walking around the living room both phones have samsung's night mode which is fine but not great the optical image stabilization worked quite well on both devices in terms of software the camera apps are basically identical it's the same ui you get a bunch of extra shooting modes if you want them and aside from some device specific settings like the aforementioned 64 megapixel mode both apps are functionally identical in short you can get some great shots with both devices however and this is just me talking here i had a better time shooting with the s21 as long as i remembered to move that exposure slider down a little bit to take the edge off the phone's brightness however we're talking minor quips and feelings here both cameras do more than well enough in most instances since i had the opportunity to revisit the video i will add two more little tidbits here the s21 supports ak video recording versus the 4k maximum on the s20 fv also the s20 fv has a three times optical zoom while the s21 uses a hybrid zoom with both maxing out at 30 times digital zoom honestly though you have to look really hard to tell any difference now that we've taken a walk around these devices let's dive in and see what they have both devices run android 11 the s21 actually got its march security update during the test period and the s20 fv is lagging just behind with the february update the s21 runs one ui 3.1 while the s20 fv runs one ui 3.0 but i'll be damned if you can tell the difference between the one ui versions like 99 of the time the software isn't overly bloated and everything is nice and smooth the s21 gives you the option to choose google discovery instead of samsung's native feed on your far left home screen but otherwise the changes are extremely minimal both devices should get android 12 and security updates for a good long time both devices have the prominent samsung software features including samsung dex mode which means both also support hdmi out link in the description if you need an adapter by the way both devices also have the link to windows feature so you can text and mirror your screen on your pc both have dolby atmos both have screen recorders you get the picture whatever you can do on one you could probably do on the other however in the extras department the s21 suffers its first decisive loss against the s20 fv the s21 no longer supports the mst technology that made samsung pay worth using additionally the s21 comes without an sd card slot so you are stuck with the base storage moving on neither phone has a headphone jack which is always a disappointment both phones rock stereo speakers and they both support the same bluetooth codecs 3.5 millimeter headphone jack adapters and all of that so once you get past the s21's deficiencies both phones basically do the same thing the last quick thing i'll mention is connectivity both phones support 5g although the s21 does support more bands as a function of having a newer modem both devices also support wi-fi 6 and had almost identical reception strength in terms of connection options both of these are for the most part the same okay you people have listened to me ramble on about these phones for several minutes now and some of you have had to suffer through this twice so i'll just pull off the band-aid the galaxy s21 is the better phone on paper it has the better specs in virtually every respect with the only downsides being the lack of a microsd card slot the lack of a charger and the removal of mst however that's on paper and we don't live on paper we live in real life samsung removing the external storage the included charger and the mst from the s21 kind of sucks it's one of those rare instances where you're paying more money and getting fewer perks and it's a tough pill to swallow and certainly irritating to deal with in any case both of these phones act virtually the same most of the time you have to really look at the photos to see a huge difference you have to enable frame rate counters and games to see the performance gains and you have to abuse your phone to see the battery difference those of you who bought an s20 fe last year you made a good decision it's a perfectly serviceable phone with no outstanding issues even in 2021 it's still a good phone to buy since it's consistently on sale making the value factor much more significant than the s21 which is newer and hasn't seen the kinds of discounts the s20 fv has yet later in 2021 when the s21 sees similar discounts that'll change the story but for now this is how things are one minor point of clarification as well in this comparison i'm obviously talking about the 5g version of the galaxy s20 fv since that is the variant i was using and not the exynos 990 version without 5g for the very minor price bump i would just go with the snapdragon 865 variant anyway since it's available to most people for those in regions where the exynos 990 is your only option i would honestly just wait for the s21 to go on sale later this year the first version of this video may have had a typo but after changing it it didn't change my observations or opinions after spending nearly two weeks using both of these phones a feeling i just couldn't shake was that i wasn't comparing two competing devices but rather a predecessor to its eventual successor and i think that pretty well sums up what it's like using both of these phones when they're both at full price the s21 is the better phone however if i found an s20 fv at a crazy discount i'd probably buy one of those instead and that about does it for this one folks if you like this video you know what to do and if not you still know what to do you can also check out the written reviews for both of these devices in the video description for more details camera examples and other information as always thank you all very much for watching and have a wonderful dayhello again ladies and gentlemen i'm joe hendy from android authority and after i had to take down the previous version of this video due to an over dramatic reaction to a minor typo i am once again going to attempt to compare the 700 galaxy s20 fe with the 800 galaxy s21 let's try this again from a distance both of these phones look demonstrably similar they are both obviously modern samsung smartphones and you can definitely tell the camera bumps are in the same spot as is the single pinhole camera on the front of the screen both devices have the same speaker grille design on the bottom the same usb c port placement and even the same volume rocker and power button placement both of these phones have the same matte glass stick back for better or for worse in fact after a good once over i only noticed a few differences the sim card trays are in slightly different spots as are the camera flashes additionally the pinhole camera of the s20 fe has a little silver ring around it whereas the s21 has a black ring that looks better integrated with the screen finally the only real difference in design is the camera bump the s20 fe has a fairly standard looking camera bump that is close to what everybody else is doing the s21 by contrast has its frame molded to look like the camera module melts right into the frame it's not of course and you can see there's a little line where they separate but i think it's a really neat effect a lot of which one is better comes down to personal preference but i like the s21 design a little bit more the silver ring and the pinhole camera and the generic looking camera module give the s20 fv a slightly less modern look compared to the smoother sleeker touches on the s21 although to be fair i am a phone blogger and i've seen hundreds of camera modules like the s20 fe so maybe i'm just itching to see something different in any case i'm giving this one to the s21 the screens are where we really start to see a difference between these two phones just kidding both of these devices sport 1080p displays with support for up to 120 hertz and they look basically the same at the same screen brightness level except for ones a little bit colder and one's a little bit warmer there are some minor differences though the first one is the obvious one which is the size the s21 is slightly smaller at 6.2 inches versus the 6.5 inch display of the s20 fv the s21 also has a dynamic amoled display which includes support for hdr 10 something the s20 fes super amoled display lacks the s20 fe also includes a constant 120 hertz mode whereas the s21 uses the more battery friendly adaptive mode under the display the s20 fe rocks an optical fingerprint reader while the entire s21 lineup has the second generation snapdragon ultrasonic fingerprint reader i actually had this wrong at first because i have no idea why samsung wouldn't use the same fingerprint reader in the s20fe as it did in the s20 and it took me a little bit by surprise both systems have their pros and cons and both worked almost just as well during my testing in day-to-day typical use the screens are more than good enough on both phones colors are bright and punchy on both displays and those just browsing the web or using social media will be happy with either one games looked bright and colorful on both displays and everything seemed to be in order overall the s21 obviously has the better display on paper it has more features better one-handed use and it uses more modern technology however the gap simply isn't that big anymore so it's not like the s20 fv is trash by comparison but for real this time performance is where we see these two devices start to separate from one another the s20 fv rocks a snapdragon 865 with six to eight gigabytes of ram and an adreno 650 while the s21 rocks a snapdragon 888 with eight gigabytes of ram and an adreno 660. now i'm gonna sound like a broken record but in 2021 basic use won't be any different apps will open quickly scrolling will be smooth in most social media and browser apps and you should be able to move through the phone without any noticeable hiccups or problems i tested the performance on levelhead a platformer from 2020 with a frame counter on the s20 fv held firm on max graphics at around 250 frames per second while the s21 maxed out at around 280 to 300 frames per second this is far higher than the game's native 60 fps frame rate so neither phone stuttered or lagged playing the game even once the only other thing i want to bring up is that i tested the snapdragon 888 version of the galaxy s21 there is also an exynos 2100 version that i did not get to play with however according to our testing which is linked in the video description below the exynos 2100 competes favorably with the snapdragon 865 and lags a bit behind the snapdragon 888 at least in terms of graphics exynos folks should be fine with either phone but gamers may want to consider the galaxy s20 fe since these snapdragon gaming numbers were a little more consistent we used gary's speed test g benchmark here because phones act more natural with it and sends most oem's juice performance when it detects that it's running a mainstream benchmark okay that was a lot of technobabble so let me simplify it the too long didn't read version of this is that on paper and in testing the snapdragon version of the s21 was the best overall option while the exynos 2100 version of the galaxy s21 and the s20 fv basically tie for second you may draw your own conclusions accordingly but no version of these phones will struggle with normal basic everyday stuff like taking photos or scrolling facebook you may only see minor differences during long or intense activities after all of that performance stuff let's ease it up a bit with the battery life the galaxy s21 has a smaller battery at 4 000 milliamp hours while the galaxy s20 fe has a slightly larger 4500 milliamp hour cell one would expect the larger battery to house the better battery life but that is not the case the galaxy s21 has the more power efficient cpu it has the adaptive 120hz mode that we discussed earlier and it's a smaller screen and screens are the biggest power draw on a smartphone so believe it or not we actually got better battery numbers on the s21 than we did on the s20 fe but not by a whole bunch in my personal use things were a little bit different the s21 only lasted longer if i used the phone a lot over the course of a day the s20 fv lasted longer when in standby i suspect just as a function of having a larger battery so on light use days the f20 fe had a little more battery left at the end of the day but on heavy use days the s21 lasted just a little bit longer that is just my experience though and your mileage may vary there are ways to change this of course you can turn off the 120 hertz mode on the s20 fv and it regains quite a bit of its battery life but the s21 is just a little bit more optimized in terms of charging both phones have identical wired and wireless charging numbers you get 25 watts over a wired connection and 15 watts if you go wireless neither phone actually comes with a 25 watt charger in the box but at least the s20 fv does come with a charger even if it's not the fastest in any case i was able to comfortably make it through a whole day with some social media browsing like gaming some messaging snapchat and some other stuff it certainly won't go two days under most circumstances but you should only need to top off on those heavy use days with either phone as is the running theme in this video the camera sensors are more alike than they are different both feature a 12 megapixel main shooter with optical image stabilization and a 12 megapixel ultra wide sensor the rest of the cameras are thankfully different the s20 fb has a 32 megapixel front-facing camera bend it down to 8 megapixels while the s21 has a 10 megapixel shooter additionally the s21 has a 64 megapixel telephoto lens with ois while the s20 fv has an 8 megapixel telephoto lens also with ois so knowing that it didn't come as a complete shock to me that the s21 was a bit sharper when shooting with that telephoto lens the camera bends itself down to 16 megapixels by default but there is an optional 64 megapixel mode that really brings in the details that said the s20 fe was certainly no slouch either and many of the photos i took are difficult to tell apart between the two in my testing there were really only subtle differences the s21 defaulted to a brighter slightly more washed out image while the s20 leaned a bit more on high saturation of course samsung phones have this little exposure slider so you can tone down the exposure of the s21 and take what i think are better photos both sensors struggled with moving targets to an extent where i honestly just deleted the ones of my dogs walking around the living room both phones have samsung's night mode which is fine but not great the optical image stabilization worked quite well on both devices in terms of software the camera apps are basically identical it's the same ui you get a bunch of extra shooting modes if you want them and aside from some device specific settings like the aforementioned 64 megapixel mode both apps are functionally identical in short you can get some great shots with both devices however and this is just me talking here i had a better time shooting with the s21 as long as i remembered to move that exposure slider down a little bit to take the edge off the phone's brightness however we're talking minor quips and feelings here both cameras do more than well enough in most instances since i had the opportunity to revisit the video i will add two more little tidbits here the s21 supports ak video recording versus the 4k maximum on the s20 fv also the s20 fv has a three times optical zoom while the s21 uses a hybrid zoom with both maxing out at 30 times digital zoom honestly though you have to look really hard to tell any difference now that we've taken a walk around these devices let's dive in and see what they have both devices run android 11 the s21 actually got its march security update during the test period and the s20 fv is lagging just behind with the february update the s21 runs one ui 3.1 while the s20 fv runs one ui 3.0 but i'll be damned if you can tell the difference between the one ui versions like 99 of the time the software isn't overly bloated and everything is nice and smooth the s21 gives you the option to choose google discovery instead of samsung's native feed on your far left home screen but otherwise the changes are extremely minimal both devices should get android 12 and security updates for a good long time both devices have the prominent samsung software features including samsung dex mode which means both also support hdmi out link in the description if you need an adapter by the way both devices also have the link to windows feature so you can text and mirror your screen on your pc both have dolby atmos both have screen recorders you get the picture whatever you can do on one you could probably do on the other however in the extras department the s21 suffers its first decisive loss against the s20 fv the s21 no longer supports the mst technology that made samsung pay worth using additionally the s21 comes without an sd card slot so you are stuck with the base storage moving on neither phone has a headphone jack which is always a disappointment both phones rock stereo speakers and they both support the same bluetooth codecs 3.5 millimeter headphone jack adapters and all of that so once you get past the s21's deficiencies both phones basically do the same thing the last quick thing i'll mention is connectivity both phones support 5g although the s21 does support more bands as a function of having a newer modem both devices also support wi-fi 6 and had almost identical reception strength in terms of connection options both of these are for the most part the same okay you people have listened to me ramble on about these phones for several minutes now and some of you have had to suffer through this twice so i'll just pull off the band-aid the galaxy s21 is the better phone on paper it has the better specs in virtually every respect with the only downsides being the lack of a microsd card slot the lack of a charger and the removal of mst however that's on paper and we don't live on paper we live in real life samsung removing the external storage the included charger and the mst from the s21 kind of sucks it's one of those rare instances where you're paying more money and getting fewer perks and it's a tough pill to swallow and certainly irritating to deal with in any case both of these phones act virtually the same most of the time you have to really look at the photos to see a huge difference you have to enable frame rate counters and games to see the performance gains and you have to abuse your phone to see the battery difference those of you who bought an s20 fe last year you made a good decision it's a perfectly serviceable phone with no outstanding issues even in 2021 it's still a good phone to buy since it's consistently on sale making the value factor much more significant than the s21 which is newer and hasn't seen the kinds of discounts the s20 fv has yet later in 2021 when the s21 sees similar discounts that'll change the story but for now this is how things are one minor point of clarification as well in this comparison i'm obviously talking about the 5g version of the galaxy s20 fv since that is the variant i was using and not the exynos 990 version without 5g for the very minor price bump i would just go with the snapdragon 865 variant anyway since it's available to most people for those in regions where the exynos 990 is your only option i would honestly just wait for the s21 to go on sale later this year the first version of this video may have had a typo but after changing it it didn't change my observations or opinions after spending nearly two weeks using both of these phones a feeling i just couldn't shake was that i wasn't comparing two competing devices but rather a predecessor to its eventual successor and i think that pretty well sums up what it's like using both of these phones when they're both at full price the s21 is the better phone however if i found an s20 fv at a crazy discount i'd probably buy one of those instead and that about does it for this one folks if you like this video you know what to do and if not you still know what to do you can also check out the written reviews for both of these devices in the video description for more details camera examples and other information as always thank you all very much for watching and have a wonderful day\n"