After months of waiting for the Galaxy S21 FE to become official, Samsung ended the stream of leaks this week by bringing the phone on stage at CES. The Galaxy S21 FE arrives on the market roughly four months after the Google Pixel 6, which should give Samsung's mid-range hero device a leg up. And indeed, it does. Here are five reasons why the Galaxy S21 FE is better than the Google Pixel 6.
Display refresh rate and touch sampling rate
The Galaxy S21 FE has a 6.4-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with a resolution of 2340 x 1080, a refresh rate of 120Hz, and a touch sampling rate of 240Hz — in Game Mode.
The Google Pixel 6 is equipped with a similarly sized and pixel-dense display, except it has a lower 90Hz refresh rate and a slower touch sampling rate of 144Hz.
In essence, this discrepancy means that the Galaxy S21 FE has a more responsive display than the Pixel 6 — especially in Game Mode — and one that's capable of rendering animations more fluidly inside games and throughout the general UI.
Samsung's 25W should beat Google's 30W
The Google Pixel 6 has 30W fast charging, so it should be superior to the Galaxy S21 FE's 25W fast charging solution. But it probably isn't, as surprising as that may sound.
As proven several times before in our tests, the Pixel 6 with 30W super fast charging can't keep up with the Galaxy S21, even though the latter has 25W charging, which should be slower.
Regardless of what the official spec sheets say, Samsung's 25W fast charging solution is seemingly better than Google's 30W charging in the real world. So, if the same applies to the Pixel 6 and the Galaxy S21 FE, and there are no obvious reasons why it shouldn't, then Samsung's mid-range hero is bound to beat the Pixel 6 in real-world tests. Of course, we'll have to perform some benchmarks and make sure, so stay tuned.
Galaxy S21 FE has 3x optical zoom
The Galaxy S21 FE has a 12MP wide camera, a 12MP ultra-wide camera, and an 8MP telephoto shooter. The system can do 3x optical zoom, and the Camera app has a Zoom Lock feature that helps users stabilize the image when capturing distant objects.
The Google Pixel 6 has a 50MP wide camera and a 12MP ultrawide shooter. So, even though Google's camera AI is not to be ignored, there's no way around the fact that the phone lacks a telephoto lens, and there's no optical zoom of any kind. If optical zoom is on your list of priorities for a new phone, then the Galaxy S21 FE is the sensible choice.
Galaxy S21 FE has a bonkers selfie camera
The Pixel 6's 8MP selfie camera can't hold a candle to the Galaxy S21 FE's 32MP selfie sensor in the sheer number of pixels. More importantly, the Galaxy S21 FE's selfie sensor delivers vastly superior video recording capabilities, which can come in handy when using features like Dual Recording Mode or otherwise.
To put it in numbers, the Pixel 6 can record 1080p selfie videos at 30 frames per second, whereas the Galaxy S21 FE can record 4K selfie videos at 60fps. So, a word of advice for selfie enthusiasts: you'll be giving up on a lot should you choose the Pixel 6.
One UI 4 vs the Pixel Experience
Android purists will prefer the unaltered software experience developed by Google, and they'll always gravitate towards Google hardware because of this. But many of us prefer One UI — and in this case, One UI 4.0 — for all its extra features.
Without One UI, there's no SmartThings, Samsung Dex, Samsung Pay, or Samsung Health, and there are no Bixby Routines that help you automate tasks.
One UI 4 builds on top of Android 12 with quite a few meaningful additions, and we think that the Galaxy S21 FE is a better phone than the Pixel 6 because of One UI (and not only). Of course, opinions may vary, but Samsung fans know the deal.
These were our five reasons why we believe that the Galaxy S21 FE from Samsung is superior to the Pixel 6 by Google, but if you have a different list, feel free to share it in the comment section below.
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