Samsung Galaxy S21 FE might be impossible to buy for some

If you were looking forward to the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE - and you haven't been put off by months of delays - another reason you might not be able to buy the phone has emerged.

According to Korean website DDaily, the upcoming mid-range Galaxy S21 cousin will go on sale from mid-January in Europe… and Europe only. That’s right, not the US, and not Samsung’s home continent of Asia.

What’s weirder is that DDaily says the mobile will be unveiled during annual tech event CES 2022 - which is due to happen in Las Vegas, in the US. So it’ll be unveiled in a city where it won’t actually go on sale.

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A limited release of the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE is something that makes total sense in the midst of the global chipset shortage, and it’s something we’ve seen OnePlus do with its Nord phones and Google do with the Pixel 5a.

But this could be saddening news for people who’ve been holding out hope to buy the phone - it was first expected in August 2021, and some people may have been waiting wait five months for absolutely nothing.

Analysis: Maybe just buy the Galaxy S21 at Black Friday

The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra (Image credit: Aakash Jhaveri)

It’s worth emphasizing that the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE’s limited release hasn’t been officially confirmed, though the actual existence and eventual release of the device hasn’t either. But, perhaps, you should just forget about the device.

The Samsung Galaxy S20 FE wasn’t much cheaper than the Galaxy S20, and judging by that and the limited spec differences, we’d say you should just buy the Galaxy S21.

‘But won’t that cost more money,’ I hear you ask. Well, not really, not if you wait for the Black Friday phone sales, which could cut off some of the asking price of the nine-month old smartphone.

During the Black Friday deals you could pick up the Galaxy S21 for cheaper than the S21 FE will be, or in a bundle that gets you some accessories, and maybe you’ll be able to pick up the S21 Plus or S21 Ultra for a reduced price instead.

There’s no need to wait an extra two months for a phone that may never show up, especially not when the S21’s price has dwindled in nine months anyway.