The Galaxy S21 FE gets unboxed before it’s even announced

The Galaxy S21 FE is one of the worst-kept secrets we’ve seen in years, as Samsung was expected to announce the device a few months ago, only to delay it for various reasons. The latest batch of rumors point to a launch sometime early next year, but HDblog (via @rquandt) managed to actually purchase the Galaxy S21 FE before it was even announced.

The video pretty much confirms everything that was leaked about the Galaxy S21 FE leading up to this point. We have a design that matches up with the Galaxy S21 and S21 Plus, while using a combination of glass, plastic, and aluminum. HDblog points out that the phone feels a bit more like what you would expect from something like the Galaxy A52 or Galaxy A72, but that’s to be expected given the device.

Samsung packed a 6.4-inch display into the device with an FHD+ resolution and a variable refresh rate going up to 120Hz, which is pretty much to be expected from the company. Powering the Galaxy S21 FE is the Snapdragon 888 paired with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Found in the hole-punch cutout on the front is a 32MP selfie camera with an f/2.2 aperture. Moving to the back, we have a triple camera setup, headlined by a 12MP wide-angle lens and accompanied by a 12MP ultra-wide sensor and a 12MP telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom.

Other specs and features include a 4,500mAh battery with 25W charging speeds, to go along with 5G connectivity and support for Wi-Fi 6. In HDblog’s early testing, the camera seems to perform quite admirably but still falls a bit short of what you would find from other phones at this price point, and video recording leaves a bit to be desired.

One surprising aspect of the Galaxy S21 FE is that it arrives with One UI 4.0 based on Android 12 out of the box. There’s no need to wait for a software update to arrive to bring the latest features, and this marks the first non-Pixel device to launch with the latest version of Android.

There’s no mention in the video of how much the phone could be priced at, but we are expecting it to arrive between $500 and $700 whenever Samsung lets the cat out of the bag.