Samsung had an uphill fight to release the Galaxy S21 FE — that's "Fan Edition," for those not in the know. We thought it was canceled, then it was delayed, and that’s ignoring how hard it would be in the first place for Samsung to follow up on the much-loved Galaxy S20 FE. Now it’s here, promising the same kind of formula: A year-late Galaxy S21 with a few cut corners. The question is, did Samsung cut the right ones?

This new model commands a $100 premium over last year’s on the eve of the S22 series's launch, putting it right up against last year's Galaxy S21 — arguably one of the best phones of 2021. After months of delays, this is still a great phone, but the value proposition might not be the same as it would have been last fall.

Dumped into your hand, the weight is the first thing you’ll notice about the S21 FE. For the size, it’s a pretty light phone and noticeably more airy than the S20 FE. The frame is still metal (not glossy this time), and the back is still Samsung’s “glasstic” in a matte finish. It’s a little bit thinner and a little bit shorter, but manages to squeeze in a screen that’s almost the same size. Even the battery capacity remains unchanged, so I’m not sure what sort of voodoo Samsung resorted to when trimming off the weight.

The new camera hump on the back follows the styling of last year’s S21 series, but instead of being an extension of the metal frame, it’s plastic, which could explain part of the weight loss. Grabbing the phone hard and twisting, it also creaks a little more than the S20 FE did, so I’d expect a few more metal parts inside were swapped for lighter materials.

It’s a big phone, but not quite “Ultra” big. It’s about the same size as the Pixel 5a, slightly smaller than the Pixel 6, and shorter than the OnePlus 9. Less comparatively, I’d say it’s a comfortable size, right around the middle of where the big-phone-loving market has settled. And it manages to squeeze in a pretty big screen, too, at 6.4”. It’s “just” 1080p, but it seems sharper than it is (probably because of a higher “fill factor” on Samsung’s recent panels, which means more area on the screen is actually illuminated).

It’s a smooth screen, too, at 120Hz. Many other “budget flagship”-type phones use 90Hz displays with older tech to cut costs, but Samsung apparently didn’t need to. I didn’t notice any issues with uniformity or crushed blacks. It also gets quite bright, though the weather hasn’t obliged with a bright and sunny day to see how it handles itself outdoors just yet. Like the S21, It’s also flat across the entire viewing area, which some people will appreciate.

Ahead of our more detailed review, this seems like an excellent screen — honestly, a little too good for a phone that costs this much.

Not-actually-OCD folks will also appreciate the bezels, which are uniform and very slim on three sides, but about twice as thick at the bottom. The hole-punch cutout for the front-facing camera is also a bit larger and loses the chrome accent ring Samsung had on the 2020 model (which I kind of liked, but others may have found distracting).

In a word, the S21’s physical hardware is “good,” and that extends inside the phone when it comes to specs as well. So far, I haven’t noticed any stuttering or jank, and even though it’s last year’s part, the Snapdragon 888 is still plenty fast enough. On the other hand, I used the lower-end 128GB version of the phone, which has 6 GB of RAM instead of 8, and I’ve already noticed that apps further back in the multitasking carousel have to start back up again when selected.

Like the S21 series before it, the S21 FE doesn’t have MST for Samsung Pay either, just NFC, so you won’t be able to use it for contactless payments at card-only terminals. Camera specs will also sound familiar, sharing some numbers with the S21 and S20FE, but the sensor configuration looks like it might vary a little. We’ll see what photos look in our full review. Haptics are almost identical to the S21 series and a night-and-day difference compared to the S20 FE, which were disappointingly weak.

Surprisingly, the S21 FE is dual-SIM — or, at least, the version I was sent is. We asked Samsung if all models will have that functionality, and it sounds like they will. There’s no microSD for storage expansion, though. Samsung gave that up with the S21 series, and even though the FE version ostensibly targets a slightly lower-end market, it’s missing here too.

The S21 FE ships with One UI 4.0 and Android 12 out of the box, seemingly beating even my Z Fold3 to the update. Not much has substantially changed outside some new widgets, updates to some of Samsung’s built-in apps you won’t use, and a handful of small UI tweaks you might not even notice coming from OneUI 3.x, though many of the deeper changes to Android itself like the new privacy indicators and tools are present. That snazzy wallpaper-based dynamic theming system Google developed isn’t here, though.

Android 12 may have been a big update for Pixels, but it seems like a pretty small update for Samsung. If you’re upgrading from an older Samsung device, though, everything will seem fresh and new.

I’ve been using the phone for the last few days ahead of its formal launch, and while it’s too early to come to any firm judgments, my initial impressions are positive (if you can’t tell). But I haven't decided yet if the S21 FE is the same sort of nearly incredible deal that we got with the S20 FE. At $700, it’s within promo distance of the $800 base model Galaxy S21, which has a slightly nicer build, a few spec improvements, and, to my mind, a more pocketable size.

For our final judgment, keep an eye out for a full review in the coming days.