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14-day lock
Offer holds when description matches.
48-hr processing
Two business days from arrival to confirmed offer.
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Prepaid USPS label in your inbox.
BBB 4.69
Ten years. Same Phoenix team.
SELL YOUR GALAXY S21 FE
A Galaxy S21 FE pays from $6 up to $45, and the whole ladder in between is in the table below. That is a small number and we would rather put it plainly than pad it out. If the phone is dead or broken beyond testing we will recycle it for free instead, and at this end of the market that is often the honest answer.
A quick note on the word. Your carrier calls this a trade-in, and that offer only exists while you are standing there buying a new phone from them. A Buyback has no such window. We will buy this one today, next month or next spring, with nothing attached to it. The deadline is on the phone rather than on the offer, because an FE left in a drawer is worth less every quarter it sits there, and nothing on our side slows that down.
Start with the date, because on this phone it is genuinely confusing.
The Galaxy S21 FE has a 2021 name and a 2022 birthday. Samsung announced it on January 4, 2022 and put it on sale that same month, nearly a full year after the Galaxy S21, S21+ and S21 Ultra had already been out. It launched two months before the Galaxy S22. So people who bought one remember it as a newer phone than its name suggests, list it as such, and are then surprised by the quote, while other people assume it is a 2021 model and undersell it.
Neither guess matters to us, because the price comes off the model number, not the year. Settings, About phone, Model number. SM-G990U and SM-G990U1 are the FE, and both quote the same here. It is the only Galaxy S21 with a 6.4-inch screen, sitting between the 6.2-inch S21 and the 6.7-inch S21+, and it weighs 177 grams.
Now for the fault that moves more Galaxy S21 FE grades than any other, and the reason the other three Galaxy S21 pages send people here.
Burn-in. Every Galaxy S ever made has an OLED screen, and OLED wears out where the same shape sits in the same place for years. On a phone that has been switched on since early 2022, that is a live risk rather than a theoretical one. Burn-in makes a phone Faulty, so it is worth ten minutes before you pick a grade.
Here is the check, and do it properly rather than glancing at the home screen. Turn the brightness all the way up. Turn the lights off or draw the curtains. Open a plain white image so it fills the whole screen, and look across the glass at an angle rather than straight on, hunting for a ghost of the clock, the icons along the top or the navigation bar across the bottom. Then, and this is the part most people skip, open a solid blue image and do it again. The blue pixels in an OLED wear out fastest, so a ghost that hides on a white screen often shows up clearly on a blue one.
Three things that look like burn-in and are not, so nobody talks themselves into a lower grade for free. A single dead or stuck pixel is not burn-in. A green or blue cast that only appears when you tilt the phone and look from the side is normal for OLED and always was. And the clock hovering on a black screen while the phone is asleep is the Always On Display doing its job, not a mark in the panel; switch it off in Settings, Lock screen, Always On Display if you want it out of the way while you look.
If you do find a ghost, the phone is Faulty and it is still a payment. It is a long way down the table though, which is why the ten minutes are worth spending. Say Faulty at the quote step and the number holds when we open the box.
The other two Faulty rules are short. Any crack or chip, screen, back or lens cover, no matter how well the phone works. And anything that has stopped working, which on a Samsung is a principle rather than a list, so a dead speaker and a dead camera get the same answer. There is no battery rule at all. No percentage, no health screen, nothing to go looking for. If you have come from one of our iPhone pages, leave that rule behind. And if you are not sure whether you have the FE or the Galaxy S21, the model number settles it in ten seconds.
Unlocked pays the most here at both sizes and every grade. Sell my Galaxy S21 FE and where to sell a Galaxy S21 FE both turn up plenty of sites, and on a phone worth this little the risk is not a low quote but a quote that shrinks after the phone is already in the mail. We check by hand within 48 hours, we tell you what we found, and you can take the phone back for free if you would rather. That is what makes somewhere the best place to sell a used Galaxy S21 FE rather than the loudest.
LIVE PRICES
The used resale value of a Galaxy S21 FE runs from $6 for a cracked 128GB to $45 for a sealed 256GB. Nearly everything we see arrives somewhere in between.
Both columns are unlocked and both come off the live price feed.
| Comparison row | 128GB | 256GB |
|---|---|---|
Brand New | $40 | $45 |
Flawless | $40 | $45 |
Good | $30 | $35 |
Average | $27 | $32 |
Fair | $18 | $21 |
Faulty | $6 | $7 |
HOW IT WORKS
Choose 128GB or 256GB, your carrier and your grade. Do the white screen and blue screen burn-in check first, in a dark room at full brightness, because that is the one fault that costs the most on this phone. The number you accept is held for 14 days.
A prepaid USPS label comes by email. Sign your Google account out first, then factory reset the phone, in that order, or it will lock itself and come back to you unpaid. Send the phone by itself. The cable and the case are worth keeping and worth nothing to us.
Somebody here checks the FE by hand within 48 hours of it landing. If it is what you described, payment leaves the same day by gift card, PayPal, bank transfer or check. If it is not, we write and say what we found, and you either take the new figure or have the phone posted back at our expense.
SPEC SHEET
| Samsung's name for it | Galaxy S21 FE 5G |
|---|---|
| What FE stands for | Fan Edition |
| Announced | January 4, 2022. It carries a 2021 name but it is a 2022 phone, released almost a year after the rest of the Galaxy S21 family. |
| US model numbers | SM-G990U on carrier phones, SM-G990U1 unlocked. Both quote the same here. |
| Display | 6.4-inch flat Dynamic AMOLED 2X, 2340 by 1080, 120Hz. The only Galaxy S21 at 6.4 inches. |
| Front glass | Corning Gorilla Glass Victus |
| Back | Plastic, like the standard Galaxy S21 and unlike the S21+ and Ultra |
| Frame | Aluminum |
| Rear cameras | 12MP wide, 12MP ultra wide, 8MP 3x telephoto |
| Front camera | 32MP |
| Chip in US phones | Snapdragon 888 |
| Memory | 6GB or 8GB RAM |
| Storage we buy | 128GB and 256GB. No microSD slot. |
| Battery | 4500mAh, 25W wired and 15W wireless |
| Battery rule | There is not one. Samsung grading here uses no percentage and no health screen. |
| S Pen | Not supported |
| Water and dust | IP68 |
| Weight | 177 grams |
| Colors | Graphite, White, Lavender and Olive. All four are worth the same. |
GALAXY S21 FE BUYBACK QUESTIONS
Storage, carrier and condition decide it. A 256GB unlocked in Good condition is $35, in Average $32 and in Fair $21. A cracked 128GB is $6. The quote box at the top of the page gives you the exact number.
A 2022 one, despite the name. Samsung announced it on January 4, 2022 and sold it that month, roughly eleven months behind the Galaxy S21, S21+ and S21 Ultra and about two months ahead of the Galaxy S22. It is the newest phone in the Galaxy S21 family by a wide margin.
It does not earn a higher price for that, and it does not deserve a lower one for the 21 in its name either. We price on the model, not the year, so what matters is that Settings, About phone, Model number reads SM-G990U or SM-G990U1.
Brightness all the way up, lights off, and open a plain white image so it fills the screen edge to edge. Look across the glass at an angle rather than straight at it, and hunt for a faint version of the clock, the icons along the top or the navigation bar along the bottom.
Then do it again with a solid blue image. This is the step that catches what white misses, because the blue subpixels in an OLED panel wear out faster than the red and green ones, so uneven wear shows up on a blue field first.
If you find a ghost, the grade is Faulty. At 256GB that is $7 rather than $35 in Good. It is still a payment and the shipping is still free.
Three things people mistake for it. A single dead or stuck pixel is not burn-in and does not put you in Faulty by itself. A green or blue tint that only appears when you look at the screen from an angle is how OLED has always behaved and it is not a fault.
And the clock and notification icons floating on a black screen while the phone is asleep are the Always On Display working normally. If it is confusing the issue, turn it off under Settings, Lock screen, Always On Display and then look again.
Screen size is the quickest tell. The FE is 6.4 inches and 177 grams. The Galaxy S21 is 6.2 inches and 169 grams, and the Galaxy S21+ is 6.7 inches and 200 grams. Both the FE and the standard S21 have plastic backs, so you cannot separate those two by feel.
That makes the model number the reliable answer here rather than a backup. SM-G990U or SM-G990U1 is the FE. SM-G991U is the S21, SM-G996U is the S21+ and SM-G998U is the Ultra. We grade and pay on the phone that arrives, not the one on the quote, so it is worth looking.
Yes. It grades Faulty and it still pays: $6 at 128GB and $7 at 256GB, shipping covered both ways.
Any crack or chip does it on its own, front, back or on a lens cover, and it makes no difference that the phone still works. Take the screen protector off before you judge it, because a shattered protector over a perfectly good screen is common and so is a hairline crack hiding under an intact one.
It does, and the grade is Faulty. There is no list of parts that count on a Samsung, because every part counts. If any of it has stopped doing its job the phone is Faulty, so a fingerprint reader that never recognizes you, a mic nobody can hear, a speaker that crackles and a charging port that only holds at one angle all end up in the same row. That is $7 at 256GB against $32 in Average.
Samsung Members will test the phone for you if you would rather not guess. Discover tab, then Diagnostics, and work through the list.
No. There is no battery percentage anywhere in Samsung grading and no screen we ask you to go and read. A four year old battery that needs a top-up in the afternoon is expected and costs you nothing.
The exception is a battery that has actually failed. If the phone shuts down while the meter still shows charge, refuses to charge at all, or the back has begun to lift away from the frame, that is a broken part and the phone is Faulty on the same grounds as any other broken part.
No, and it is the only flat no here. With no power the phone cannot be tested, so any number would be invented, and your photos, messages and saved passwords cannot be erased from it before it leaves you.
Put it on a wall charger with a cable you trust for half an hour before you give up, because that brings back more phones than anything else. If it stays dark, take the free label anyway. We will wipe it to Department of Defense standards and recycle it for nothing, or post it back for nothing, whichever you say. On a phone in this price band, free recycling is frequently the sensible choice.
Not until it is settled. A phone with a carrier installment plan or a lease running against it is under a financial obligation, and we do not purchase those. Clear the balance, let the carrier show it as owned, and it quotes like every other FE on this page.
No. Three separate checks can stop the sale, and any one of them stops it at every grade.
The Google account lock, which you may see written as FRP, catches the most people. Remove your Google account from the phone first, then factory reset it. In that order. Reset first and the phone demands your password from whoever switches it on next, which means it travels to us and back for nothing. Our erase your device page has the steps.
Knox comes next. Rooting the phone or flashing custom firmware trips a counter that can never be reset, and a tripped counter means no purchase. Then the IMEI, which fails on anything reported lost or stolen, blacklisted or carrier blocked. Dial *#06# to read yours before you accept a quote.
Yes, and unlocked wins at both sizes and every grade on this model. Good at 256GB is $35 unlocked. On AT&T it is $25, on T-Mobile $25, on Verizon $19 and on the smaller networks $18.
That is a big slice of a small total, so if the FE is paid off it is worth asking your carrier to release it before you sell. If you would rather be done with it, choose your real network in the quote box and we pay what was shown.
No. The phone on its own is all we need. Samsung had stopped putting a wall charger in the box by the time this one shipped, so almost nobody has one and it changes nothing. Take the case and the screen protector off before you pack it, since the protector only hides things from both of us.
No. Graphite, White, Lavender and Olive were the four Samsung sold and all four pay identically. Storage, carrier and condition are the only inputs to the price.
A trade-in is credit with conditions attached. Samsung applies it to a new Galaxy, a carrier spreads it over two or three years of bills and stops if you leave. Either way you are buying something to collect it.
A Buyback is us buying the Galaxy S21 FE and nothing else. Cash, no contract, no new line, and the price locked for 14 days once you accept. It goes out the same day the phone clears inspection. A gift card lands about 3 percent higher because the brands add a bonus, PayPal is instant and takes 2.99 percent, a bank transfer takes 2 to 4 days and a check 3 to 5. Only a sealed Brand New phone is limited, and that one is PayPal only.
Pick 128GB or 256GB, your carrier and your grade. About a minute, and the number is held for 14 days. Do the white and blue screen check first.
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