After using the Galaxy S21 FE for months, I have mixed feelings. The display is fantastic- vibrant colors, smooth 120Hz refresh rate, and great outdoor visibility. The camera is decent, but the ultrawide lens has inconsistent color profiles compared to the main sensor. Performance-wise, the Exynos variant holds up well, but it does get warm under light usage. Battery life is average- lasting a full day with moderate use, but heavy gaming drains it fast. One frustrating issue is the random refresh rate drop during charging, which requires locking and unlocking the phone to fix.

So, I've been testing the Galaxy S21 FE (8GB/256 GB) for nearly three weeks now. Since I live in Germany, we use the Snapdragon 888 here. This is definitly a benefit, since Snapdragon's have less heating issues than Exynos proccesors. Furthermore, I bought that configuration for only 550€, which is a great deal considering that the original pricing of that configuration is 820€

1. Performance: The Performance is great! I used an iPhone SE 2 before with Apple A13 and this processor is definitly not the newest but faster than the A13. I think it can hold up with the A14 but it is definitly not as fast as the A15 (iPhone 13). No matter what you do, you won't feel any lags, except for the annoying start-up bug that every Samsung Smartphone has for years now. Animations are also fast. This phone was definitly made for Android 12. My Tab S7 has soo many unresolved bugs in Android 12, which are thankfully not present on my S21 FE. There is nothing more satisfying than scrolling and switching between apps with 120Hz on such a fast device.

Performace: 9/10

• 2. Battery: The Battery life is great as well, but could be much more better. I'm alwayssurprised when I see iPhones with 2400-3000maH, who last longer than Samsung'sphones with 4000+ maH. I was getting 8 hours SOT with my iPhone 13, which usually gotme through the entire day. However, if you are coming from a phone with miserablebattery life, like my older iPhone SE 2, you will love the S21 FE! I'm usually getting 6:30 hours of SOT. HOWEVER, be careful - I only used 60Hz and turned off Always-On-Display.You cannot change the screen resolution to HD only - it's always at FHD+ and if youconsider using 120Hz (not adaptive!) and Always On Display constantly, you will definitlyonly get 5 hours SOT. My phone always had Bluetooth on and was paired to my Watch 4.Moreover, the phone is still new. Battery life will get worse and worse over the nextcouple of months and years. Always keep this in your mind. My iPhone SE 2 started with4:30 hours of SOT and was barely usable anymore after 2 years. I was only getting 2Hours SOT max. any my capacity had dropped to 78% - catastrophe! I also used a GalaxyS8 a couple of years ago - battery life was good, never had any issues for 2,5 years.

Battery: 6,5/10

• 3. Camera: The front camera is great. Better than the S21/S21+/S22/S22+. Especially atnight, you will make great selfies, with a perfect lighting. The same can also be said forthe rear camera with it's 12MP sensor. I noticed that it isn't as good as the regular S21,especially at night. I love the zoom function. It's a shame that the 900€ iPhone 13 canonly zoom 5x, while this phone can perfectly zoom up to 30x. Pictures look very detailedand clear till 10x zoom. Videos look very dark when you film things at night, which is sad,since pictures actually look great.

Camera: 8/10

• 4. Design: I'm really mad at Samung for making the back of this phone out of plastic.Despite everyone saying that you will not feel the plastic, I can definitly tell you that itfeels and looks like 100% cheap plastic. If you tip at the back of the phone you will noticewhat I mean. If it would been made out of glass, the phone might have been a little bitmore expensive, but a wothy game changer! Well, at least the device has no heatingissues.. Idk if that's related to the plastic instead of glass design. The borders are madeout of aluminium, which is great tho.

Design: 4/10

• 5. Software: Samsung finally promises 4 years of OS-Upgrades, which is great.Furthermore, you will get an additional year of security updates only, which stretchessupport out to 5 years - that's definitly the maximum for this device and I am totally finewith that. I was mad at Samsung for offering my S8 only 2 years of OS Upgrades,although I had paid 800€ for it back in 2017. One UI 4 is very fast and well optimized forthis phone. Multitasking is great, the phone supports DeX, Dolby Atmos, BT5.0. Youwon't miss anything you liked on Samsung phones. The only thing I'm a little mad at, isthe fact that apps get killed a little too fast sometimes. If I leave Chrome for a while, itloads up everything up again, although the app was still running in the background.

Software: 9/10

Overall: 36,5/50

S21 FE Battery Life Snapdragon 888 (60Hz)

The most important factor is 1. Battery life 2. Battery life decline after many years.

Also is it true that updating the phone to newer versions will make it lose performance and battery life? If so is it even worth updating it?