Samsung Galaxy S21 surprise downgrade just confirmed

Samsung Galaxy S21 surprise downgrade merely confirmed

(Image credit: Future)

The Samsung Galaxy S21 sports a cool new design and several welcome upgrades, but in that location'southward a ton of trade-offs for its $200 cheaper cost. From a missing charger and microSD carte slot to a lower-res display, there's a lot of stuff you give up.

And at present you tin can add one more caveat to the list.

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The Samsung greenbacks app doesn't back up magnetic stripe technology (MST) payments on the Galaxy S21 in the U.South., co-ordinate to specs sheets for the phone. It may not seem like a big bargain, but this was actually a feature unique to Samsung Pay, and one that users will miss.

A statement from Samsung given to Android Police confirms this, saying the determination was taken in light of "the rapid adoption of near field communication (NFC) technology by consumers and businesses."

Furthermore, Samsung besides said that information technology had no plans to support MST on any futurity phones, although existing compatible models will continue to support information technology.

This is the latest feature discovered to have disappeared during the transition from the Milky way S20 to the Galaxy S21. While the S21 starts at $799, $200 less than last year'south Galaxy S20, the S21 and S21 Plus have also moved to a lower FHD resolution display, and a smaller 8GB of RAM (down from 12GB).

In add-on, none of the three S21 phones accept a microSD carte slot for boosted storage and none come with a charger in the box. Still, the range-topping Galaxy S21 Ultra does retain QHD resolution and the option for 12GB or 16GB RAM.

Samsung Galaxy S21: changes to Samsung Pay

While NFC and contactless payments are condign increasingly common effectually the world, there remain a lot of small-scale U.S. businesses that will just accept the older-manner credit and debit cards with a magnetic stripe. This was something Samsung Pay, despite beingness a contactless service, could support.

MST allowed Samsung Pay devices to produce a false magnetic stripe signal that would be registered by the card machine. Information technology permit you employ older card readers but like you lot would a new NFC reader, a convenient course of backward compatibility that meant you didn't have to bear both your Samsung Pay device and your payment menu.

Samsung Pay was estimated to have effectually 51 million users back in 2018. That'south nothing compared to Apple tree Pay (441 million in 2018). And since and so Google Pay has undergone a major set of upgrades that have fabricated it a more than genuine rival to Samsung Pay. But while Samsung's app may non accept the largest userbase, starting the phasing out of such a unique characteristic could pose a problem to people still relying on older tech to sell their products and services.

Richard is a Tom's Guide staff writer based in London, covering news, reviews and how-tos for phones, gaming, audio and any else people need communication on. Post-obit on from his MA in Magazine Journalism at the Academy of Sheffield, he'due south also written for WIRED U.1000., The Register and Creative Bloq. When non at work, he'due south likely thinking about how to brew the perfect cup of specialty coffee.