A Fan Edition variant of the Galaxy S21 is coming later this year, and bit by bit new information about the device has been showing up online as we move closer to its eventual launch. The processor that will power the Galaxy S21 FE has now been confirmed, and it’s bound to make virtually everyone happy.
The Galaxy S21 FE, which sports model number SM-G990B, has been listed on the Geekbench database, revealing that there is a Snapdragon 888 chipset under the hood. Will there be an Exynos variant? Well, it doesn’t seem likely. The main Galaxy S21 line is 5G-only, and there’s no LTE variant of the Galaxy S21 FE in the works from what we know based on our insider sources and from the lack of any evidence of its existence on the internet.
Is an Exynos 2100 variant on the cards?
There’s also a global chip shortage going on, which might be why Samsung recently replaced the Exynos 990 on the Galaxy S20 FE LTE with the Snapdragon 865 chipset. However, the fact that both Exynos and Snapdragon-powered models of the Galaxy S20 FE LTE exist also suggests we could see Samsung releasing an Exynos 2100 variant of the Galaxy S21 FE later down the line. Nothing can be said for certain at this time, though.
The benchmark does confirm that at least one of our predicted downgrades over the flagship Galaxy S21 lineup will turn out to be true: The S21 FE’s base model will have 6GB of RAM. The benchmark also says the Galaxy S21 FE runs Android 11, but it should be one of the first Galaxy phones to be updated to Android 12 and One UI 4.0. The Galaxy S21 FE will also be guaranteed three major OS updates, which means it will go on to receive Android 14 at some point.
