Author Archives: Carol Edwards

At this point, Yellowjackets is all we can think about. 

Antler Queens, cannibalism, and that spooky symbol haunt our every waking moment (and some of our sleeping moments, too). It’s gotten to the point where we can’t even think about our other favorite TV shows without wondering, “Hey, what would happen if these characters were stuck in the Yellowjackets’ situation?” After wondering for so long, we decided to do something about it. Here’s how we think 10 iconic TV casts would fare in the spooky northern woods. 

Which member of the New Directions will become Antler Queen? Which Friends friend will be sacrificed? And who among each cast will win the coveted title of Misty Quigley? Venture into the wilderness with us and find out.

Succession

Cutting the Roys off from civilization is a recipe for disaster. Apart from the occasional hunting trip, they have zero survival skills. Can you imagine Greg trying to skin a deer? Or Connor trying to start a fire? Or Shiv and Roman agreeing to share a rifle? It’s just not happening. 

Instead of trying to survive, the Roys spend their time worrying about what’s happening to Waystar/Royco in their absence. “What are the optics of our plane crash?” they wonder over and over again. More pressingly: “Who are we without our company?” When they inevitably run out of business jargon to throw at each other, they’re forced to spend time together as a (shudder) family. That’s when things get boar on the floor-levels of dark. — Belen Edwards, Entertainment Fellow

Antler Queen: Succession has shown time and time again that Logan doesn’t lose. There’s little chance of that pattern breaking because of one pesky plane crash. 

Sacrifice: Sorry Kendall, but you were Logan’s choice for metaphorical “blood sacrifice” in Season 2, which does not bode well for your chances of escaping actual sacrifice.

Misty Quigley: Tom.

GLOW

The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling may not be heading to “motherfucking nationals” like our Yellowjackets. But you know these top-tier performers and athletes make a hell of a team out in the maybe-supernatural-maybe-not wilderness anyway. For starters, we saw them crush a camping trip back in GLOW Season 3. Plus, if anyone knows navigating tense women’s sports moments in 20th century TV situations, it’s them!

With Sheila “The She Wolf” teaching survival skills and Cherry Bang leading combat training, this all-time badass group of ladies (plus Sam and Bash, obvs) does pretty OK while stranded. Early on, they establish a decent strategy for essential resources and talking through communication failures. But once they have their own Doomcoming and the wrestling personas come out, shit goes south. Zoya the Destroya meets human flesh is…a whole vibe. — Alison Foreman, Entertainment Reporter

Antler Queen: Carmen, but she’s actually super nice about it.

Sacrifice: Debbie, but it’s honestly best for everyone involved.

Misty Quigley: Bash, but he doesn’t even know why he’s doing what he’s doing.

Glee

If you thought the New Directions’ arguments over solos were rough, just wait until you force them to fight for survival. At first, Mr. Schuester turns their predicament into an assignment, no doubt resulting in fun performances of “Born to Be Wild” and “Wild Ones.” But it won’t take long before resident diva Rachel Berry snaps. We’ve seen how competitive she can get; we know she’s not above eating a fellow Glee Club member to stay alive. — B.E.

Antler Queen: Brittany.

Sacrifice: Matt. You know, the guy who disappeared after Season 1.

Misty Quigley: Remember when Rachel had a crush on Mr. Schue? Big Misty Quigley vibes.

Ted Lasso

I know what you’re thinking: Ted Lasso? Isn’t that show just Yellowjackets with men anyway? But Ted Lasso is all about finding the light in life while Yellowjackets exposes the dark. How do the soft endearing men of AFC Richmond fare once separated from their sponsorship deals, pro athlete salaries, and the scrutiny of the public eye?

It takes Jamie Tartt less than 90 minutes to undo all his personal growth and make Jackie from Yellowjackets look like a freaking Red Cross volunteer. He eats everything and then gets eaten while the boys struggle to survive and live under the leadership of mommy, I mean, Rebecca. Ted’s sunny platitudes grate more than ever, but we like to think he’ll still hold the team together. He also seems like he has basic Boy Scout training — maybe he’ll coach the team on the basics. — Proma Khosla, Entertainment Reporter

Antler Queen: Danny Rojas

Sacrifice: Isaac McAdoo

Misty Quigley: As of Season 2 this is unequivocally Nate Shelley, but the finale makes it unlikely that he’d be on a plane with Richmond at all. So we’ll go with Jan Maas as someone who is secretly useful and certainly lethal.

Emily in Paris

When Savoir agreed to attend the Gilbert Group’s North American conference, chief marketing officer Sylvie did not expect it would end in more than a year of actual hell. What’s worse, she never anticipated this being the work event that would bring out the American’s entire social circle.

Unfortunately, even between Mindy, Camille, Gabriel, Julien, Luc, Emily, and Sylvie, the Emily in Paris crew has only a case of Champère, a few dozen packs of cigarettes, and not a brain between them. Everyone dies except for Luc, who is actually happier in the woods than he ever was in Paris. — A.F.

Antler Queen: Sylvie and she looks fabulous.

Sacrifice: Emily, immediately and with no questions asked.

Misty Quigley: Camille, who attacks the plane’s tracker with the same gusto she used to put Gabriel’s cast iron skillet in that toilet.

Community

Community features a group of lovable, flawed weirdos who would thrive away from the society that misunderstands them. Jeff is our Jackie, who quickly learns that his chosen weapon of toxic masculinity can’t feed a group of survivors, not even himself. Annie and Britta save the day with their combined book and street smarts, even if Britta scares off multiple deer by loudly lecturing everyone on the moral decrepitude of hunting before realizing that it’s the only way she’s going to survive. Abed’s imagination is a lifesaver on most days, but he has to be sedated during the shroom trip. — P.K.

Antler Queen: Shirley

Sacrifice: Pierce might be useful, but the others kill him to shut him up and make it look like an accident, dining comfortably on his limbs and wondering why cannibalism is so easy.

Misty Quigley: Cases could be made for Annie, Abed, or Britta — but look outside the study group and you’ll find the perfect candidate: Dean Pelton.

The Office

Michael Scott attempted to survive in the wilderness once before — with pretty rough results. But what happens when you throw the rest of the Dunder Mifflin staff in the mix? Absolute, unbridled chaos.

Prankster Jim tries to convince Dwight that the woods are haunted, but the scheme goes awry when everyone believes him. There’s a time and a place for pranks, Jim, and this is not it. As mass hysteria looms, Michael adopts his Michael Scarn persona in an attempt to look cool. Things aren’t all bad though: Oscar, Pam, and Darryl manage to hunt a deer. Their fatal mistake? Putting Kevin in charge of cooking the deer stew. You know he drops it. — B.E.

Antler Queen: Occasional cult follower and leader Creed dons the fateful antlers.

Sacrifice: Andy. 

Misty Quigley: Who else could be Dunder Mifflin’s Misty but survivalist and resident weirdo Dwight K. Schrute?

Girls

Predictably, the main characters of Lena Dunham’s Girls have an absolutely garbage time in the woods. The only one who has a fun time is Jessa, who immediately suggests séances and shrooms.

Elsewhere, Marnie’s stress reaches new, potentially lethal heights, and Shoshanna, absolutely done with everyone’s nonsense, takes charge. And where’s Hannah during all this? Let’s be honest, she doesn’t last a day. If the wilderness doesn’t take her out first, the other girls certainly will — but not before she chops off Adam’s leg and attempts to care for him like Misty does to Coach Ben. — B.E.

Antler Queen: Shoshanna.

Sacrifice: Hannah.

Misty Quigley: Also Hannah.

Friends

Nineteen months after “The One with the Plane Crash,”  Monica tries to sleep aboard a rescue jet bound for Manhattan. A flight attendant passes, offering pretzels or peanuts, soda or water. Monica is reminded of Joey, how he would cry out in hunger, even as he slept. His sobs tortured Monica in the wilderness; almost as much as the dirt and lack of coffee. But here, holding her breath and waiting to land, she longs to hear them.

“You OK, Mon?” Ross asks from across the aisle. Monica turns to reassure her older brother, when she is suddenly transported back to “The One with the Midnight Snack.” She remembers emerging from the shelter. Outlined in the glow of the campfire, there was the gang, or at least what had become of the gang, hunched over Rachel…or at least what was left of Rachel. 

Those strappy suede sandals, bloody and beautiful, are still out there on the forest floor, Monica thinks. The horror of the revelation appears in her eyes.

“Mon, you have to understand,” Ross begins, knowing what she’s thinking but with his go-to excuse at the ready. “We…We….We were making steak!” The studio audience laughs. Monica screams. Fade to black. — A.F.

Antler Queen: Phoebe Buffay.

Sacrifice: Rachel Greene.

Misty Quigley: Gunther.

Bridgerton

Suffice to say that a society as polished as Georgian England would not only balk but downright combust in a Yellowjackets survival situation. This is the group most likely to starve within weeks because they can’t get by without maids and butlers. Once survival mode is on, it’s savagery all the way. The men might be trained with knives and guns, but it’s the women who show no mercy when it comes to killing and eating.

The old world’s alliances come newly alive in the wilderness, where friends and beaus team up Hunger Games-style because it’s everyone for themselves. Daphne and the Duke go on a killing spree and eat everyone they can before turning on each other (in between bouts of absolutely animalistic tree sex). All the mother figures turn out to be pros with hunting knives, and they aren’t afraid to get messy. Colin falls in love with poison ivy. — P.K.

Antler Queen: Eloise Bridgerton.

Sacrifice: Philippa and Prudence Featherington.

Misty Quigley: Penelope Featherington.

Planets, the eight celestial bodies orbiting our sun, are spherical. Exoplanets, the many other celestial bodies orbiting many other suns, are also spherical.

At least that’s what scientists thought until the European Space Agency (ESA) got a better look at the “rugby ball shaped” WASP-103b. Discovered in 2014 amid the constellation of Hercules, this news-making gas giant is twice the size of Jupiter and slightly less than 1.5 times its mass.

Astronomers measured WASP-103b and other exoplanets extensively during the ESA’s “Cheops” mission (CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite), which launched in late 2019 and began observations in spring 2020. The agency published its findings, which rely on data previously obtained by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, on Tuesday. 

“Cheops measures exoplanet transits – the dip in light caused when a planet passes in front of its star from our point of view,” explains an official writeup for the ESA. 

“Ordinarily, studying the shape of the light curve will reveal details about the planet such as its size. The high precision of Cheops together with its pointing flexibility, which enables the satellite to return to a target and to observe multiple transits, has allowed astronomers to detect the minute signal of the [deformation] of WASP-103b.”

Researchers previously suspected WASP-103b had a high potential for deformation, given the exoplanet’s proximity to its sun. Its orbit around host star WASP-103 completes an entire revolution in less than one Earth day. This makes its tides especially strong, effectively reshaping WASP-103b’s mass. The bizarre oval exoplanet can theoretically tell us more about worlds like it and how they’re formed.

“The resistance of a material to being deformed depends on its composition,” says lead author of the research Susana Barros, also via the ESA. “For example, here on Earth we have tides due to the moon and the sun but we can only see tides in the oceans. The rocky part doesn’t move that much. By measuring how much the planet is deformed we can tell how much of it is rocky, gaseous, or water.”

The composition of WASP-103b is of particular interest for two primary reasons. First, the exoplanet appears to be unusually bloated, which could tell us more about gas giants and their behavior.

“In principle we would expect a planet with 1.5 times the mass of the Jupiter to be roughly the same size, so WASP-103b must be very inflated due to heating from its star and maybe other mechanisms,” Barros explains. For reference, WASP-103b is approximately 20 times as hot as Jupiter.

Tweet may have been deleted

Second, strong tides impact “orbital decay.” That’s the gradual decrease of distance between stellar bodies. Based on stellar physics, WASP-103b should theoretically be inching ever-closer to the larger WASP-103, eventually colliding with and becoming engulfed by its host star. But the ESA has detected WASP-103b doing the opposite, slowly moving further away from WASP-103.

Scientists posit a number of explanations for the baffling behavior, including the underwhelming reality that the data may simply be wrong. (We’re investigating space here; it’s new territory!) More data is needed. So the James Webb Space Telescope, which launched Christmas Day and uses powerful infrared technology, is on its way to assist. Cheops will continue to gather data as new observations and theories are made.

Research co-author Jacques Laskar concludes, “This study is an excellent example of the very diverse questions that exoplanet scientists are able to tackle with Cheops, illustrating the importance of [its] flexible follow-up mission.”

The beautiful and terrible majesty of our natural world was on full display Saturday.

A massive undersea volcano near the Pacific nation of Tonga erupted with such force that it prompted near-immediate tsunami warnings for Hawaii, Alaska, and the entire West Coast of the United States, all of which are situated more than 3,000 miles away (the latter two are more than 5,000 miles away). The National Weather Service canceled Hawaii’s warning several hours later but let the ones for Alaska and the West Coast stand.

Much more immediately concerning is the situation in Tonga, a Polynesian country situated about 1,500 miles to the north of New Zealand. The incident effectively knocked the nation offline, with an AP report suggesting it was because the cable from Fiji that supplies its internet was damaged. But dramatic footage captured by satellites and people on the ground points to severe impacts.

Tweet may have been deleted

Tweet may have been deleted

Tweet may have been deleted

Some of the footage that’s out there is difficult to source given the communications breakdown that occurred when the volcano erupted. But the Tonga Geological Service’s Facebook page is sharing a steady stream of warnings and public notices discussing ongoing threats to public safety.

Tweet may have been deleted

Tweet may have been deleted

Satellite views of the incident, meanwhile, paint a clear picture of the eruption’s intensity. The blast was clearly visible from space, with multiple views from an assortment of satellites showing a massive plume of smoke and ash suddenly emerging from a cloud-covered Pacific Ocean.

The volcano, which is called Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, is situated just under 20 miles off the coast of Tonga. The Jan. 15 eruption is actually the third in recent weeks, following a smaller blast on Jan. 13 and a more extended one that started on Dec. 20 and lasted for most of a week. During the first of those three eruptions, the volcanic island also grew larger.

Tweet may have been deleted

Tweet may have been deleted

Impacts in the U.S. have been less severe so far, but the existence of any impacts spanning so much distance speaks to the intensity of the explosion. Surging waves prompted evacuations and minor flooding in parts of California. The breadth of the tsunami warning alone is unusual for this type of event.

“We don’t issue an advisory for this length of coastline as we’ve done — I’m not sure when the last time was — but it really isn’t an everyday experience,” Dave Snider, tsunami warning coordinator for the National Tsunami Warning Center, told the AP.

DirecTV subscribers who like their news and opinion as far to the right as it can get will have to look elsewhere soon.

The major satellite TV provider will drop One America News Network when its contract expires in April, Bloomberg reported Friday. OANN had been available to DirecTV subscribers since 2017 and it rose to prominence in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, as the network continued to push conspiracy theories about the election even as Fox News stepped back from that particular ledge.

DirecTV didn’t give specific reasoning for the decision, but in a statement given to Bloomberg, it said the move was tied to a “routine internal review.”

However, one doesn’t need to look far to understand why a satellite provider with millions of subscribers would shy away from carrying OANN. Competitors like Comcast and Dish have never carried it and YouTube demonetized and suspended OANN’s channel in 2021 for pushing misinformation. To call OANN “controversial” would be an understatement; the network’s support of Donald Trump’s repeatedly debunked allegations of election fraud has already prompted legal action.

Most interestingly, though, Reuters reported in 2021 that OANN got as much as 90 percent of its revenue from contracts with AT&T, which is a majority owner of DirecTV following a corporate spin-off a year ago. John Oliver even sounded off on AT&T for funding the network on his show, which itself is bankrolled by AT&T. Per the Reuters story, OANN’s accountant testified under oath that the network would have practically no value without the DirecTV deal.

In other words, the far-right news network could face serious financial troubles in the near future if it can’t find an equally bountiful source of funds. We don’t wish them luck on that venture.

Mark Zuckerberg can change his company’s name all he wants, but that won’t stop the government from looking into its business practices.

The latest round of government probes into the company now known as Meta actually centers on Oculus, its VR hardware and software subsidiary, per Bloomberg. The FTC along with the state governments of New York, North Carolina, and Tennessee have spoken to VR developers about alleged antitrust violations.

Put simply, there are concerns that Oculus is kneecapping third party VR app developers and undercutting competing VR hardware. The latter is easy enough to explain; the Quest 2 headset is a steal at just $299 without any requirement for a powerful PC. Other high-end headsets like the Valve Index cost hundreds more and are basically paperweights without a sufficiently beefy gaming PC.

Bloomberg’s report doesn’t get into how Oculus could potentially suffer consequences for its prices, but it’s worth pointing out that competitive pricing by itself is not an antitrust violation. The FTC’s website states that it would be problematic if “below-cost pricing allows a dominant competitor to knock its rivals out of the market and then raise prices to above-market levels for a substantial time,” but also acknowledges that such a phenomenon is unlikely.

As for the app concerns, developers told Bloomberg that Meta had essentially shut down third-party Oculus apps with appealing features and then launched its own takes on those ideas later on. One example given was Yur, a company that made an Oculus fitness tracker that was subsequently disabled from working within Oculus games and made somewhat obsolete by the first-party Oculus Move function.

This probe is seemingly still in its early stages, so it may be a while before anything comes out of it, if anything comes out of it at all. At this point it’s mostly noteworthy as the latest in a long list of government looks into Meta’s operations. Just in the past 12 months, Meta has faced an investigation for racist hiring practices and been the subject of a Senate hearing over knowingly fostering misinformation on Facebook.

So far, that new name hasn’t changed much.

Another work week down! And a long weekend ahead of us to boot. You simply love to see it.

Phew. Take a breath. Make some tea. Lie down. Pet your dog, or maybe get a dog if you don’t have a dog, and don’t have allergies. I don’t know.

Guess what? I collected some good tweets for you. How about that? Maybe kick your weekend off by reading these suckers and having a laugh.

Here they are, the 11 best tweets of the week.

1. Every day, all the time

Tweet may have been deleted

2. The laws of science are very clear on this

Tweet may have been deleted

3. “And this is, uh, the fucking Disney channel”

Tweet may have been deleted

4. Obligatory dril tweet

Tweet may have been deleted

5. Just do some retweets and chill

Tweet may have been deleted

6. Sometimes you just want an immediate problem and not an existential one

Tweet may have been deleted

7. “Joy is off today”

Tweet may have been deleted

8. We’re all such overachievers

Tweet may have been deleted

9. Let’s get the cast iron purists angry

Tweet may have been deleted

10. Fair and true

Tweet may have been deleted

11. And finally, the Big Soup

Tweet may have been deleted

Evidence continues to pile up that Google is hopping on the foldable phone train soon.

A new report from 9to5Google this week said Google’s rumored foldable device, which could launch by the end of 2022, may be called “Pixel Notepad” and come in at a more reasonable price point than the $1,799 Samsung demands for its Galaxy Z Fold 3, released last year. The report didn’t put a specific number on the price, so even if it’s less than $1,799, it may still be prohibitively expensive whenever it comes out.

9to5Google also emphasized that the “Pixel Notepad” name could change prior to the device’s announcement. Apparently, at one point it was referred to internally as “Logbook.” Actual technical specifics about the unconfirmed device are scant, of course, but 9to5Google previously reported that it would run on the new Tensor chips that power the Pixel 6 phones. Aside from that, some art found in a recent Android 12 beta build suggests in almost square 7:8 aspect ratio when fully unfolded.

Whispers of a foldable Pixel have been going around since at least February of last year. At the time, folks were calling it “Pixel Fold” and some thought it could come out by the end of 2021. Obviously, that didn’t happen. Not only is it not in our hands, but we don’t even know what it’s called, what it looks like, or if it truly exists. 

But if Google can make a quality foldable that doesn’t cost three times as much as some people’s rent, that could be a big deal.

Bradley Cooper is the latest Late Show guest to take on Stephen Colbert’s signature Q&A gauntlet, the “Questionert”.

For the right participant, the late night host’s rapid-fire battery of innocent yet piercingly personal questions paints a fuller picture of the answerer than a million bog-standard “So how did you get your start in acting?” press tour questions could ever uncover. Cooper is one such “right participant”; squeezing his eyes shut, the Nightmare Alley star carefully listens to every question and then fires off the first answer that pops into his head.

We learn, for example, that Cooper fears Komodo dragons, loves the classical composer Mahler (even as he admits he’s currently working on a Leonard Bernstein biopic), and — correctly, in this author’s humble opinion — prefers dogs to cats. He’s also got a very specific opinion on his favorite sandwich.

Sometimes a phone can do pretty much everything right and still be sorta hard to recommend. That’s where I’m at with the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE.

Samsung’s latest (the FE stands for “Fan Edition”) is somewhat of reimagining of last year’s Galaxy S21. On paper and, for the most part, in practice, it’s an impressive offer: A bigger screen and bigger battery to go along with a similar triple-camera array and the same premium Qualcomm Snapdragon processor as the S21 for $100 less. Last year’s flagship S21 launched at $800 and the S21 FE retails at $700.

And all of that is fine! It’s good, even. This is a really nice Android phone that’s a better value than the original S21. But the “Fan Edition” part of the name is apt; unless you’re really devoted to Samsung’s product ecosystem, there are better values out there in the world of mid-range Android phones.

A beefy lad

The first thing you’re likely to notice once you get your hands on the S21 FE is that it’s not exactly small. In fact, it’s actually a little bit bigger than the more expensive S21. Sorry if you have small hands — this phone isn’t for you.

Here’s exactly how the specs shake out on the S21 FE versus its older counterpart:

• 6.4-inch AMOLED screen with 120Hz refresh rate vs. 6.2-inch on S21

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5G processor in both phones

• Rear triple-camera array: 12MP wide and ultrawide lenses, 8MP telephoto vs. 64MP telephoto lens on S21

• 32MP front camera vs.10MP on S21

• 4,500mAh battery vs. 4,000mAh on S21

• Either 6GB or 8GB RAM vs. 8GB only for S21

• 128 or 256GB storage on both phones

In other words, this is a slightly bigger phone than the S21 with an incredibly high refresh rate, a high-end processor, and slightly altered cameras. You’ll have to spend $770 for the model with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage, which makes it only a $30 discount from last year’s 8GB/128GB model. That’s…not a great value, honestly. An extra year (plus the imminent announcement of 2022’s Samsung flagships) would’ve ideally reduced the price just a bit more.

Aside from those differences, the two phones are physically and functionally pretty similar. Like the S21, the S21 FE has a razor-thin bezel around the display with the selfie cam nested in a hole-punch slot at the top center of the screen. All three rear cameras are stacked in a vertical, rectangular bump on the plastic backside of the phone. Power and volume buttons adorn the right side while the bottom features a USB-C port for charging and a SIM slot. And finally, the S21 FE comes in four colors: graphite, lavender, white, and olive.

As I hinted at before, the size of the S21 FE is going to be a turn-off for some people, myself included. I don’t have especially small hands but I still have to two-hand the phone to navigate Instagram and Twitter because the system-level back button is on the bottom right corner of the screen, while many apps put important functions (like Instagram Stories) on the upper left corner. I recently had to replace my iPhone and went with the 2020 SE model simply because it’s smaller than the newer, fancier models.

Tech companies, please give us more phones we can use with one hand.

I also strongly feel that a more budget-friendly take on a flagship should include a 3.5mm headphone jack, but the S21 FE doesn’t have one. People who want cheaper versions of phones may not have expensive Bluetooth headphones and shouldn’t have to buy a USB-C dongle just to use their wired earbuds. There are several ways in which 2020’s Google Pixel 5a is a better value than the S21 FE (and we’ll get to some of them later), but a major one is that Google’s $450 handset has a headphone jack.

Oh, one more thing: Samsung says the S21 FE is capable of fast charging like the other S21 models, but the FE doesn’t come with a charger at all. A USB-C cable is included in the package, but I couldn’t test out the fast charging because I wasn’t going to shell out $50 for an official charging brick from Samsung. Big thumbs down to all of that.

More size doesn’t mean less speed

Samsung may have cut corners to (marginally) downsize the S21 FE’s price, but the good news is that performance didn’t take a hit.

The Snapdragon 888 5G processor from last year’s phones is still here and still provides plenty of juice for all your daily smartphone tasks. I could switch from researching the amusing, extremely southern names of Georgia Bulldogs quarterbacks over the years (shout out to current Bulldogs like Stetson Bennett IV and Jack Vandagriff) to yammering about those names to my friends on Twitter and Discord without a hitch. All the while, I was streaming podcasts from Spotify and occasionally bopping over to YouTube to watch game highlights or other such distractions.

This is admittedly helped by the blazing fast 120Hz refresh rate. Everything just feels so smooth. A couple of other quick things to note about usability: Unlocking the phone via facial recognition and the in-display fingerprint sensor both worked almost flawlessly for me. The fingerprint sensor on the S21 was irksome for our reviewer last year, but not for me this time around.

I sincerely don’t have any complaints about the moment-to-moment process of using the S21 FE. I only wish I could do it for longer without needing to plug in.

Bigger battery, but could be better

Perhaps the most disappointing thing about the S21 FE is its battery life. I can’t directly compare it to an S21 because I don’t have one of those on hand, but the big increase in the spec sheet wasn’t really reflected when I actually used the dang thing.

To be more specific, I got about 12 hours out of a full charge while doing the things I always do on my phone: Streaming podcasts, vomiting my brain’s wastewater out onto my Twitter feed, occasionally watching YouTube videos, reading articles about sports, and chatting with the homies on Discord. This also included a couple of relatively brief (about 45 minutes total) excursions outside into the 5G zone (more on that in a second), which may have put a little more stress on the battery.

I suppose dropping the refresh rate down to 60Hz would save some battery, but why the heck would I do that? The brilliant display is one of the main selling points of this phone. Compromising that just to compensate for a battery that could be better goes against everything I believe.

That’s a tad dramatic, but the point is that there are other Android phones in this price range that can last much, much longer. For instance, Google’s Pixel 6 starts at $600 and can get you through an entire day. You don’t even need to shell out the extra few Benjamins for the Pixel 6 Pro to get a battery that’s easily better than what’s on offer in the S21 FE.

5G still isn’t reliable

As a quick aside, the S21 FE is a 5G-compatible phone and Samsung helpfully provided a 5G-ready SIM card from T-Mobile for testing purposes. As always, the quality of 5G service varies greatly not only depending on which city you’re in, but it’s literally also down to which street you’re on at times. However, T-Mobile is supposed to have the best 5G service around. That was not my experience.

I was able to get some decent download speeds in my Brooklyn neighborhood, topping out at around 300Mbps. That’s fine! The only problem is the network couldn’t sustain that consistently. Trying to watch YouTube videos on the go in 1080p or higher resulted in frequent buffering breaks if I happened to round a corner where the signal wasn’t strong enough.

If, for some reason, 5G is a major selling point of the S21 FE for you, I can’t promise a great experience in that regard.

Capable cameras

I’m not real thrilled about certain aspects of the S21 FE, like the battery life or the price. But Samsung usually doesn’t mess around with its phone cameras, and I’m happy to report that you can still get some really great shots on this slightly downgraded set of lenses.

In particular, I was impressed by the nighttime photography feature. This is standard fare in plenty of phones now, but sometimes post-processing for dark photos makes them look a little too much like they take place in fake daytime instead of capturing the feel of being out in darkness. Nighttime is great. It’s atmospheric. My fellow Michael Mann-heads understand this; Collateral would look like crap if it took place during the day.

Anyway, nighttime shots on the S21 FE look nice.

Of course, portrait mode is here, too, and I’ve got no qualms with how those shots come out on S21 FE. You can adjust blur intensity on the fly to produce just the right bokeh effect for your photos.

The most noteworthy downgrade from the old S21 is that the 64MP telephoto lens was replaced with a measly 8MP one. As a result, highly zoomed in shots don’t look super sharp. You’re allowed to zoom as high as 30x, but I wouldn’t recommend that. Every shot I took like that turned out blurry and ugly.

Just look at what the telephoto lens did to my boy Gengar!

For all the grousing I’ve done about various setbacks with the S21 FE, at least the cameras are still pretty darn good.

For Samsung fans only

On its merits, the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE is a high-performing Android phone that doesn’t cost as much as a flagship, with a solid set of cameras and an excellent display. I’d easily recommend it in a vacuum. Unfortunately for Samsung, we’re not in a vacuum and there are just better values out there for Android lovers.

I just can’t see a compelling reason to go with this phone over either the Pixel 5a or Pixel 6. The former is a massive discount at $450 and has a much better battery, terrific cameras, and the all-important headphone jack. The only downside is the 60Hz refresh rate. If you want a higher refresh rate and don’t care about a headphone jack, the Pixel 6 is only $600 and delivers a 120Hz display to go along with a similarly excellent battery and Google’s great cameras.

The best case I can make for the S21 FE is if you really care about seamless connectivity between your phone and external Samsung devices like the Galaxy Buds 2. However, you can just download the Galaxy Wearable app from the Play Store, so even that is a minor inconvenience at worst.

If you’re a massive Samsung fan and can’t deal with Android phones from other brands, you’ll find plenty to like about the Galaxy S21 FE. Everyone else should get a Pixel.

---

Welcome to AirFryDay, where — you guessed it — every Friday Mashable covers the latest trends, dispenses advice, and reviews recipes for your air fryer.

---

Let’s get this out of the way: This isn’t really a recipe for an air fryer hot pocket. It’s called that by the recipe creator, but think of it more as a sandwich pocket.

The term hot pocket conjures up images of greasy pepperoni, melty cheese, and a thin, pizza-dough-esque crust. Usually it’s in reference to the brand Hot Pocket, which is owned by Nestle. But this recipe, from Zach Rocheleau on TikTok, delivers a low-cal version of something akin to a Hot Pocket. And that ain’t half bad.

The idea from Rocheleau is simple. Stuff a sandwich with turkey, avocado, cheese, and roasted red peppers, air fry, and enjoy. Here are the basic instructions for making two pockets, which Rocheleau says come in around 300 calories apiece.

Ingredients

• Butter bread — four pieces

• Deli turkey — about four slices

• Avocado — about one-half of an avocado, smashed

• Shredded cheese

• Roasted red peppers

• Egg whites

Directions

1. With a rolling pin or similar tool, roll each piece of bread until it is fully flat and thin.

2. Paint the edges of the bread with egg whites.

3. Put a large pinch of cheese in the center of one piece of bread.

4. Drop two rolled pieces of turkey on top of the cheese.

5. Lay roasted red peppers on top of the turkey until totally covered.

6. Smoosh a large scoop of smashed avocado on top of the ingredients.

7. Brush the top piece of bread with egg whites, then drop it on top of the stacked piece of bread. The egg white side should face down.

8. Pinch the sandwich closed with your fingers then, using a fork, crimp the edges of the bread to create a seal.

9. Brush the outside edges of the sealed pocket with egg whites.

10. Repeat steps 1-9 to make a second pocket.

11. Spray the air fryer basket and pockets with oil or nonstick.

12. Air fry at 400 degrees for about five minutes or until bread is golden brown and toasty.

The details

First things first — here’s how the cooking process looked, overall, for Rocheleau. The TikTok laying out this recipe has racked up some 2.5 million views.

Clearly I understood that this would not be an ooey-gooey hot pocket. Granted, you could likely stuff buttered bread with cheese and pepperoni to achieve that result. But in some ways, this recipe was even better.

It’s so simple! It’s so hard to screw up! It’s tasty! A few things I messed up that didn’t end up mattering:

• I didn’t have a rolling pin but used an empty rice wine bottle.

• I made a huge mess when I brushed my egg whites .

• I cracked the bread open while closing it up, leaving a massive gash.

There’s truly not too much to add to the recipe. It’s not trying to be ground breaking – it’s trying to make lunch easy and healthy.

Here are my ingredients, ready to rock. Pro tip: Squeeze some lime juice into the avocado to keep it from browning if you need to pause for a bit to take pictures.

Here is my bread rolled out. It took barely any pressure to do.

Here are the ingredients all crimped up and with a slightly broken seal that turned out fine. Closing the pocket is relatively delicate work, but the toasting process is forgiving. Rocheleau himself mentioned this will happen and that it is fine.

Here are the hot pockets fully cooked in the air fryer. Easy.

And a cross section.

So, again, not really a Hot Pocket. It’s a little pocket sandwich. And it was good! The turkey and cheese bring the savory while the red peppers and avocado add a bit of freshness.

This recipe takes a good sandwich and contains it, melts cheese, and makes things toasty and crispy. I can see myself using this as a base for lunches in the future. A “hot pocket” or leftover chicken, veggies, and some cheese? Why not.

I definitely recommend this recipe. It’s easy and supremely hard to mess up. After all, what’s not to love about a warm sandwich you can eat on the go?