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00:00Hey what's up, MKBHD here. New intro and new phone. This is the Samsung Galaxy S21 Fan Edition.
00:11Even though now it's 2022 and we're probably like a month away from the new Galaxy S22, but we have a new S21.
00:20Huh. So I've had my hands on this phone for a couple days now, since last year actually.
00:25But really I feel like this is a super safe bet of a phone. It's very tame, doesn't really make any mistakes, maybe even a little bit boring.
00:33But this is something a lot of people are going to like. So this is the second Fan Edition now that we've seen.
00:37So we're kind of learning the formula of how Samsung likes to do this.
00:40And basically it's kind of the same way Apple's been doing the SE.
00:44And a lot of other phone manufacturers do this, but it's a lot of one-year-old parts that get put back together in a cheaper phone.
00:51And the biggest repeated part of that formula is the price. So they're launching with this phone at $699.
00:57Now, the S20 Fan Edition secured my phone of the year award back in 2020, it won a trophy and everything, for launching at that price and standing out.
01:07But now, now, well the landscape has changed a lot since then. There's a lot more competition at this medium flagship tier price.
01:17And so this phone isn't as much of a standout win as it was over a year ago. I think you'll see what I mean.
01:23So inside, it's the high-end stuff. Not over the top bleeding edge, but right at the flagship level.
01:29Snapdragon 888, and either 6 or 8 gigs of RAM, a 4500 mAh battery, triple cameras, and up front featured is a 6.4 inch 1080p, 120Hz AMOLED display.
01:41And this is a nice screen. It's flat for one, I like that. It has thin, even bezels with a slightly thicker chin.
01:47And then it has a fingerprint reader down low here at the bottom underneath the display, plus a selfie camera cutout at the top middle for the 32 megapixel selfie camera.
01:56I think this is a win for Samsung, the display company. They're just still so damn good at screens that this is right up among the best, brightest ones you'll find in phones in this class.
02:08It has a 240Hz touch sample rate, it's super responsive. I mean, yeah, this screen is flagship for sure.
02:14And the design is just super safe. It obviously looks just like the regular S21, but this is a new matte dark grey look with the camera module again pushed right up to the corner and curving over the side of the phone.
02:28It's got IP68 water resistance, 15W wireless charging, it's got reverse wireless charging, all pretty much flagship stuff.
02:36But from this exact moment on, you can see the Fan Edition formula kick in here, where they start to cut a few corners and drop a few things down to save that price.
02:45And so the real question will be, do you care about those sort of minor tweaks?
02:51So with the design, and you might have been able to see this already, it's a plastic back.
02:55And also they didn't quite fully commit to matte black.
02:59So it's like, it's this dark grey that unfortunately picks up a bit more fingerprints than I would like.
03:04And there's also these metal rails all the way around, which is more durable and less likely to crack when you drop it.
03:10And it explains these little cutouts on either side for your antenna pass through for millimeter wave.
03:15Now, the regular S21 was also plastic with metal rails, but the Fan Edition cuts that back even a little bit further, where the camera cutout isn't actually a part of the rail anymore.
03:27So there's a seam between that.
03:29So you can see here on the regular S21, metal rail includes the camera bump.
03:33Here on this new Fan Edition, that's an all plastic back.
03:36So I still like the camera bump design.
03:38This is probably the least impressive version of it.
03:41You might not ever notice any of this stuff if you put the phone in a case, but that is a real difference.
03:46And then there's even smaller things like this phone is, even though it has a larger battery than the S21, it's super light.
03:51And I think that was, you know, I first took it out the box and it felt kind of like one of those fake dummy phones where it's really big but doesn't have much weight.
03:59But yeah, it's probably just because I'm coming from phones that have more metal and glass.
04:04Also the fingerprint reader underneath the display, it's right around the same spot as the regular S21, pretty low on the display here.
04:10But it's an optical fingerprint reader instead of the ultrasonic ones on the rest of the S21 line.
04:16So you can see it's shining the light on your finger before unlocking.
04:19Now again, this is minor and this one still does seem to be pretty quick.
04:23I registered both my thumbs.
04:25It's definitely still faster than the Pixel 6's optical fingerprint reader.
04:28But it might not work with some moisture on my hand or some wear and tear on the screen as well as the ultrasonic ones and Samsung's more expensive phones.
04:37There's a single speaker at the bottom, which is part of a stereo system with the earpiece speaker.
04:41But it's definitely still pretty easy to block this one.
04:43And you'll notice when it's blocked, even though the earpiece is still putting out sound.
04:47And the haptics are overall a small step down from the other flagships.
04:51The S21s, the Pixels, even the OnePlus 9 Pros of the world, not quite as tight and precise.
04:57And then the triple cameras back here.
04:59You got one 12 megapixel primary, a 12 megapixel ultrawide, and an 8 megapixel 3x telephoto.
05:06And they are very solid.
05:08You've got OIS on that main camera.
05:10It puts out sharp images with a shallow depth of field.
05:12Great dependable shots in good light as you'd expect.
05:16Sometimes a bit noisy or blurry in low light.
05:18But seriously, not bad.
05:20I'd give this easily a B plus camera.
05:23Hanging with a lot of flagships, but not really beating any.
05:26And then, maybe most importantly, is the fact that this S21 series will be outdated or old the second the S22 series comes out.
05:34Which is like right around the corner.
05:37And they typically also drop the prices of the S21 series when the S22 series comes out.
05:43Also, on a sustainability note, there was no charger in the box.
05:46It's that small box again that basically just comes with the phone, a cable, and some paperwork.
05:51So I guess that's even more flagship experience stuff, if you want to look at it that way.
05:56But certainly nothing better.
05:58So the real question with the Fan Edition, again, is do any of these little shortcomings take away from the flagship experience that it's getting you?
06:05Do they matter to you?
06:07Like the little extra bit of plastic on the back, does it make a big difference?
06:11Not really.
06:12Does the optical fingerprint reader on the front versus ultrasonic mean anything to most people?
06:17No.
06:18Does the 8 megapixel telephoto camera on the back versus the previous 64 megapixel with a bigger max zoom actually matter?
06:269 out of 10 people probably won't notice.
06:28And so honestly, this would all be totally fine with me in this phone.
06:32If the S21 wasn't literally just sitting at $699 for most of the past few months.
06:40And right now refurbished ones are going for $599 on Amazon.
06:43So that's the crazy part of this phone's existence now in 2022.
06:47It's like the S21 Fan Edition was lighting the market on fire with basically giving us all this flagship stuff for like $300 less than expected.
06:55But now in this new landscape, you've got to fit somewhere between Pixel 6, which is an incredibly good value at $599 with an arguably better camera and software experience.
07:05And then the higher up phones, some of which are even in Samsung's own lineup.
07:09The fact that this FE is so similar to the S21 but is launching so close to the S22.
07:16That's the swing and a miss in my opinion.
07:18Like I think this phone would have obviously killed that like $549 or even $599 or something like that.
07:24But it didn't.
07:25This launch price and timing is what sort of just blends it in with the rest of the market.
07:31And this has happened to Samsung before.
07:33The Note 20, you might remember, was the recipient of the bust of the year trophy because it was just a phone that was fine, but it just priced itself out of where it was supposed to land in the market.
07:45And it was actually not a bad phone at all.
07:48This is not a bad phone at all.
07:51And I think lots of people who buy it with the blinders on, like they're going to really like this phone.
07:56But if you take your blinders off, there's a lot more around in this landscape around this price, which is a much more interesting decision.
08:03So great performance, familiar software, really nice cameras, a battery upgrade, and of course Samsung's awesome display.
08:11This is a great phone, but at this price, people are going to be cross-shopping.
08:15They might want to take a risk on a Pixel or on a OnePlus 9 or an iPhone SE for that matter.
08:22There's a whole bunch more happening in this region.
08:25Balls in your court.
08:26What do you think of the S21 Fan Edition?
08:29Let me know.
08:30Either way, that's been it.
08:31Thanks for watching.
08:32Catch you guys in the next one.
08:34Peace.