While the entire Samsung community is waiting for the rumored Galaxy S23 FE to get unwrapped, the company might have a different surprise in store for its customers. A new rumor claims that Samsung intends to relaunch the Galaxy S21 FE in India, except this time, the Fan Edition phone features a different chipset.
Not too different, mind you. Samsung released the Galaxy S21 FE with two chipset configurations last year. Some markets got the Snapdragon 888 variant, while others got the Exynos 2100 SoC. As you may already know, India fell in the latter category, and the Galaxy S21 FE Samsung released in the South Asian country had the Exynos chip.
In an unexpected twist, a new rumor (via @tarunvats33) claims that Samsung intends to re-release the Galaxy S21 FE in India. And this variant would rock the Snapdragon 888 chip.
Too little, too late?
The rumor claims that Samsung will bring the Snapdragon 888-powered Galaxy S21 FE to India next month, i.e., in July 2023. The phone will supposedly cost around INR 40,000 ($487).
At this price point, the re-released Galaxy S21 FE would step on the Galaxy A54's toes. If the rumor is correct, we may see the Galaxy S21 FE cannibalize the A-series mid-range phone.
Would the re-released Galaxy S21 FE ship with newer firmware, like Android 13 and One UI 5.1? Would it benefit from a newer fourth OS upgrade down the line? Will this device introduce a third model number, or will it share this characteristic with the existing Snapdragon 888 variant in other markets outside India?
Unfortunately, there's no more information about the device, its firmware support policy, or its model number. But if Samsung plans to re-release the 2022 Fan Edition device next month, we should find out more soon enough.
Likewise, it would be interesting to see what this Galaxy S21 FE re-release would mean for the upcoming Galaxy S23 FE. Whatever happens to the latter device, the Snapdragon 888 version of the Galaxy S21 FE didn't feel all that different or better than the Exynos 2100 model. So, does this phone warrant a re-release this late into 2023?
It might be too little, too late, especially since the original S21 FE already felt like it came to the market at an inopportune time. But you can check out our original Galaxy S21 FE review for more details on that. We reviewed both the Exynos 2100 and Snapdragon 888 models, which at that time performed very similarly.
