No competition for the Poco X2: Samsung Galaxy A21S launched with a punch hole display and quad camera but mediocre Exynos 850 performance disappoints

Samsung recently announced the Galaxy A21S midrange smartphone. At £179, it is touted as the successor to the Galaxy A20S, a Snapdragon 450 device that struggled to wow. The Galaxy A21S features an Infinity-O punch hole display and quad camera setup.

It will ship on Android 10, running Samsung's One UI on top. The smartphone's generous 5000 mAh battery will likely provide considerable battery life, with 15W fast charging sweetening the deal.

However, Samsung's choice of SoC is questionable here. The Exynos 850, which debuts with the Galaxy A21s delivered abysmal single-core performance in a recent leaked Geekbench listing.

Single-threaded performance was less than half that of the Poco X2, a similarly-priced device sporting the Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G. Multi-threaded performance was also 50 percent lower.

While the A21S' 6.5 in AMOLED display should provide a decent in-hand experience, the sluggish chipset makes this phone a hard pass for anyone looking to run titles like PUBG and Call of Duty Mobile at higher settings.