Latest Galaxy S21 FE leaks show the phone is missing one big thing

But it’s got all the trappings of a proper flagship phone.

What you need to know

• The Samsung Galaxy S21 FE has leaked once again, showing off all the colors it’ll launch in.
• Samsung looks to offer multiple variants of the phone, but none appear to include a telephoto camera.
• Rumors have been pointing to a January 4th 2022 launch at CES for some time now.

It seems that every week brings a new Galaxy S21 FE leak, and this week’s is the most detailed yet. CoinBRS managed to get their hands on what appears are official marketing slides, as well as a spec sheet detailing the most important components inside the phone.

While everything looks better than the regular Galaxy S21 at first, the lack of a proper telephoto camera is a bit surprising. Given the impressive Galaxy S21 Black Friday sales that have already started, losing out on the telephoto camera could be a huge bummer for would-be buyers.

According to the leak, Samsung is changing out the 12MP main camera sensor on the Galaxy S21 FE with a 64MP camera sensor and removing the dedicated telephoto camera from the picture. Comparatively, the Galaxy S21 features a main 12MP sensor and a 64MP telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom. The other cameras you’ll notice on the back of the Galaxy S21 FE are purportedly an ultra-wide camera as well as a dedicated depth sensor.

It’s interesting to see Samsung backing down on that telephoto camera but the rest of the spec sheet might help explain why. This latest leak shows that the Galaxy S21 FE will have the same Snapdragon 888 or Exynos 2100 as all the other Galaxy S21 models have. Surprisingly, it looks like Samsung will offer a variant with up to 12GB of RAM; a 50% increase over the base Galaxy S21 model.

Additionally, the 6.4-inch display is a 0.2-inch bump over the regular Galaxy S21, and it’s still got a 120Hz refresh rate to boot. The battery is also seeing a bump in size, up 500mAh from the Galaxy S21, totalling 4,500mAh in size. That’s paired with 15W charging, which is the same speed as the Galaxy Z Flip 3.

As we’ve seen in prior leaks, the Galaxy S21 FE looks to be shipping in White, Black, Olive, and Lavendar options. All Galaxy S21 FE variants will have a plastic back just as the regular Galaxy S21 has.