Samsung discounts Galaxy S21 FE by 57% for India's Fab Grab Fest, S23 gets a good deal too

05 May 2023

Samsung India kicked off this summer’s “Fab Grab Fest” on May 1 with some early access deals, now the shopping fest is in full swing. The company has TVs and appliances on offer and, of course, many smartphones, tablets and accessories, which are the things that we’re interested in.

The discounts range quite a bit with older devices getting the better deals. The Samsung Galaxy S21 FE is 57% off its MSRP, for example. Something to note is that with many of these deals you can get instant cashback from your bank.

The older Galaxy S20 FE 5G is available for ₹5,000 less. It has the older but well respected Snapdragon 865 (vs. SD 888 on the S21 FE) and it has a microSD slot. Note that it launched with Android 10, so we’d recommend the S21 FE just for the longer software support.

Now, you could get the current flagships of the Galaxy S23 series, but even the base unit costs double what you would pay for the Fan Edition phone. The discounts on these are on the small side (to be fair, they are just a few months old), but the bank cashback goes a long way towards softening the blow.

Like the S21 FE, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3 is also among the highlight deals. It’s a foldable phone for ₹43,000, which is just over half the price of a Z Flip4. There’s no discount for the newer flip, but it does come with the option to get a Galaxy Watch4 Classic for just ₹3,000.

Now, the new model is better hands down, but it’s certainly not twice as good. It has a faster chipset (Snapdragon 8 Gen vs. 888) and better battery life (92h vs. 69h endurance), plus faster charging. Still, with the Z Flip5 just a few months away, it’s probably best to get the older Z Flip3 or wait for the new one.

Moving on to much more affordable phones, the Galaxy F23 offers a roomy 6.6” LCD (FHD+, 20:9) with 120Hz refresh rate, a 5,000mAh battery and 5G connectivity, courtesy of the Snapdragon 750G.

Then there are the Galaxy M14 and F14. They are nearly identical, but the F14 is cheaper, so go with that unless you want the extra 2 gigs of RAM. It's also worth comparing these two with the F23.

We’ll wrap up the smartphone offers with a sub-₹10,000 offer, the Galaxy F04. It launched a few months ago and is an a full-Android phone (v12 with One UI) rather than a Go Edition model. The HD+ display and Helio P35 are nothing to write home about, but that is to be expected at this price. The 5,000mAh battery, expandable storage and 3.5mm jack are a plus, though.

The Galaxy Watch4 will be receive OS updates for 4 years, so it will stay “fresh” until mid-2025. The Watch5 is a relatively minor upgrade and it costs over ₹30,000.

If you’re in the market for TWS buds, check out our reviews of Samsung’s Galaxy Buds2 and Buds2 Pro. Both are heavily discounted, though note that for the Pro most of the savings come from the cashback offer.

A good tablet can be used for both work and play. The Galaxy Tab S7 FE and Tab S6 Lite are just ₹2,000 apart, but the FE has the better screen – 12.4” 243ppi vs. 10.4 224ppi, both LCD. Also, a bigger battery (10,090mAh vs. 7,040mAh) and a better chipset to boot.

If you need more computing power, the Galaxy Tab S8 brings the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 (vs. 778G on the FE) and it has an 11” 120Hz LCD with an even higher pixel density of 274ppi. The battery is smaller at 8,000mAh and the price is higher. Note that both the Tab S8 and Tab S7 FE have DeX support, the Tab S6 Lite does not. Also, with both of those you can pick up a Book Cover Keyboard at a heavy discount.

Finally, on the cheap tablet front there is the Galaxy Tab A8 10.5. It’s a couple of years old, but the Unisoc T618 can handle light gaming and the 10.5” 1,920 x 1,200px LCD is good both for reading documents and streaming video (for the latter use case there are also quad speakers on board). The 7,040mAh battery is as big as on the Tab S6 Lite.

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