Samsung's Rumored LTE-Only Galaxy S21 FE May Use An Entirely New Processor

The Samsung Galaxy S21 FE has had a very interesting history. Initially slated for launch in August 2021 alongside the Galaxy Z foldables, the S21 FE didn't hit the market until January 2022. This delay, which primarily occurred due to supply chain issues, led to many interesting developments. For example, the S21 FE burst onto the scene weeks before Samsung launched its even more popular Galaxy S22 lineup. This led to worries about the possibility of lower-priced variants of the Galaxy S22 lineup cannibalizing sales of the S21 FE. 

While we do not have data to show whether that indeed happened, we do know that by the time the Galaxy S21 FE arrived in the market, the competition was already prepared for it. The model faced stiff competition from the likes of the Google Pixel 6 and the iPhone 13 Mini — both of which had similar price tags. Now that it's been six months since the Galaxy S21 FE launched, it seems Samsung is preparing to give the phone a slight mid-life update. According to the folks at Galaxy Club, the Galaxy S21 FE could see the addition of a lower-priced new variant in the next few days. The reduced price, however, may come at the expense of one prominent feature: 5G support. 

According to Galaxy Club, references to the LTE variant of the Galaxy S21 FE appeared on two different European e-commerce portals: ITRelation and Technet. The listings, which are still live at the time of writing, indicate that the spec sheet of the LTE variant of the Galaxy S21 FE sees two major changes over the standard variant. The first change is the use of a lower-tier processor — in this case, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G. The original S21 FE, in contrast, featured the Snapdragon 888 chip or the Exynos 2100, depending on the market you bought it from.

The next major difference is the lack of support for 5G networks. While this might seem like a strange move from Samsung, there is some logic behind offering a 4G-only smartphone in 2022. Several markets in the world — including giant countries like India — are still years away from having 5G networks. In such price-sensitive markets, it makes sense for Samsung to bring down the cost of its phone by removing a feature that many people would rarely use. The rest of the features on this phone remain identical to the hardware we saw launch with the original S21 FE. Given that this toned-down Galaxy S221 FE first appeared via European portals, chances are high that this device may be restricted to some markets in Europe and Asia.