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It’s one thing to be able to sit back, look at the landscape of the smartphone world, and say that one phone is better than the other. But it’s something else entirely when you have actual evidence of that being the case, and it seems that there’s a new king atop the Amazon Best Seller list for best cell phones.
We expected the Google Pixel 6 to take the world by storm with its updated camera setup, unique design, and stock Android. But the biggest reason why the Pixel 6 is so appealing is thanks to the sub-$600 price tag. With the Pixel 6, you’re getting about 90% of the same experience as you would get with the Pixel 6 Pro, while spending a few hundred dollars less.
The Pixel 6’s retail price is also why many of us were left scratching our heads after Samsung debuted the Galaxy S21 FE with a higher price tag than the Pixel 6. Of course, there are plenty of carrier deals to knock off a few bucks, but comparing these two phones directly still gives Google a clear advantage when removing any of those outside factors.
Something else that you’ll notice when going through the list of Amazon Best Sellers is that the Galaxy S21 FE is all the way down in the 29th position, wedged right between the Galaxy S9 (renewed) and the TCL 20 SE. Both of those phones are priced under $200, and the Galaxy S21 FE is definitely rising through the ranks. However, it seems that there may be a surprising reason for that, which has nothing to do with how well the phone is performing.
It would appear as Samsung is trying to “game” the system a bit when it comes to the Amazon listing for its latest device. If you take one look at the Galaxy S21 FE listing, there’s something strange going on. The phone was just released earlier this month but already has almost 8,000 reviews, culminating in a 4.5-star score. How could this be possible? Did Samsung already sell enough of these to warrant 8,000 reviews? Not exactly.
When you head over to the Amazon listing for the Galaxy S21 FE, you’ll see that all four colors are available, along with being able to pick one up with a free $100 Amazon gift card. But if you look at the grayed-out boxes next to the listings, you’ll see that Samsung essentially just added the S21 FE as an additional SKU for the Galaxy S20 FE.
It’s not like this is anything new, as we see other phone and accessory makers make similar moves when releasing new products. Instead of starting fresh with a new Amazon listing, the new product just “piggybacks” off of the device it’s replacing. It’s a bit misleading because if you didn’t know how the process works and what these companies are doing, it would look like the Galaxy S21 FE actually garnered almost 8,000 reviews despite not being available for more than a couple of weeks.
In the grand scheme of things, this doesn’t matter all that much, but it just goes to show us a few things. For one, Samsung is trying to pull all the stops to try and get more users on the S21 FE train. But it also shows that Google’s Pixel 6 has become just as popular as we expected it to, despite the problems that folks ran into when it came to pre-ordering, along with the continued software woes that have left many frustrated.
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