Some Galaxy S21 FE users report a refresh rate bug causing laggy performance

The Galaxy S21 FE, the successor of the quite popular Galaxy S20 FE, was released not long ago, bringing a stripped-down version of last year's flagship S21 and packing its chipset. Now, 9to5Google reports that some users have been having issues with the S21 FE's refresh rate, and it seems the display is struggling with it from time to time.

Some users have noticed refresh rate issues on the Galaxy S21 FE

The $699 phone comes with a generous 6.4-inch display that features a 120Hz refresh rate for smooth scrolling. Despite that, it doesn't come with LTPO tech that allows it to adjust the refresh rate to the content you're viewing, unlike Samsung's flagship models. This basically means that the Galaxy S21 FE's display can refresh either at 120Hz or at 60Hz, with no smooth transition in between those refresh rates.

However, strangely as it sounds, the software seems to occasionally want to go for a slower refresh rate than 60Hz, which leads to laggy performance on the phone. Affected users describe the bug as causing a "huge lag and stutters" in animations on the phone and across the UI. A support forum has now accumulated several reports on the issue.

It looks like the issue is mainly affecting the Exynos-powered Galaxy S21 FE. A possible fix for the issue (from SamMobile) could be turning the screen off and back on. In terms of where the issue is coming from, it looks highly likely it is a software bug, but the possibility (although slim) of it being a hardware problem is not ruled out yet.

Have you experienced this issue on your Galaxy S21 FE? Tell us in the comments!