Samsung Galaxy S20 FE smartphone review

10/06/2020 Ethiopia

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The $ 700 Galaxy S20 FE is essentially a flagship smartphone that doesn’t cost $ 1,000.
It runs on the same chip as the $ 1,000+ Android phones and comes with a great 120Hz display for that premium fluid experience.
Its back is plastic rather than glass, it has slightly larger bezels than some ultra-premium phones, and its cameras don’t have as many specs as the Galaxy S20 flagship line from earlier this year.
Otherwise, it’s a flagship phone from start to finish and comes highly recommended for its $ 700 price tag, and even more so if you can find it for sale.
Currently Best Buy, Amazon, and B&H are slashing $ 100 on the Galaxy S20 FE, slashing the price to $ 600.

In 2020, Samsung did its best with expensive and ultra-premium smartphones, such as the Galaxy S20 line in March and the Note 20 series in August.

Those kinds of phones with incredible specs, features, and price tags are exciting and eye-catching, but they’re not a realistic recommendation for many people. They are more like conceptual devices that allow a company to show off, but that no one should buy because they are so expensive. That being said, you can often find good deals for the Galaxy S20 flagship line that can make it worth your while.

However, for buyers who want something a bit more affordable, Samsung now has the Galaxy S20 Fan Edition (FE). The Galaxy S20 FE is a downsized option that hardly feels downsized at all, starting at $ 700. It offers the same core experience as the flagship Galaxy S20 series with its great display, versatile camera, and high-end performance and design.

Samsung Galaxy S20 FE Specifications

Monitor: 6.5 inch 1080p 120Hz Super AMOLED
Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 865
Memory and storage: 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage, expandable with microSD card up to 1 TB
Rear camera: 12 megapixel standard width, 12 megapixel ultra wide angle, 8 megapixel 3x optical zoom and up to 30x digital zoom, OIS
Selfie Camera: 32 megapixels
Drums: 4,500Ah
Waterproof: IP68
5G: yes

Design and display

Top marks for the Galaxy S20 FE here.

At $ 700 you get a good-looking, well-built phone. The Galaxy S20 FE has a plastic back with a matte matte texture that doesn’t look or feel much different than glass. In fact, the plastic should mean that the Galaxy S20 FE is more durable than glass phones and won’t crack as easily, if anything, after a drop.

Glad to find that the curved screen edges of the flagship Galaxy S20 series are absent from the S20 FE; the curved screen edges are for aesthetic purposes only and offer no tangible benefit, actually reducing visibility and usable screen.

The bezels around the display are noticeably thicker than on the ultra-premium flagship S20 and Note 20, but they don’t pose a problem. In fact, they are nice to have – they give my fingers and palms more room to grip and hold the phone without causing accidental touches on the screen.

The 1080p resolution of the S20 FE is quite sharp for a 6.5-inch screen, and the 120Hz refresh rate keeps the phone running smoothly, giving it an ultra-premium vibe.

Performance and battery life

The Galaxy S20 FE comes equipped with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865, which is the best chip for Android phones in 2020. That means the S20 FE is powerful and will stay fast for some time.

The base model comes with 6GB of RAM compared to the 8GB of RAM or more that you get standard on ultra-premium flagships. I tested the base 6GB model, and there is an uncommon lag from time to time when opening apps that I haven’t used recently, reflecting the S20 FE’s lower RAM. Still, it’s not detrimental to the overall experience, and the 8GB RAM models are available if you use a lot of apps.

For those who want hard, cold numbers that dictate the power of the Galaxy S20 FE, our benchmarks with Geekbench 5 show a single-core score of 870 and a multi-core score of 2,955. That’s in line with the scores of the OnePlus 8 Pro, which runs on the same chip, as well as the Galaxy Note 20 that runs on the improved Snapdragon 865 Plus chip.

In terms of battery life, the Galaxy S20 FE will easily last a typical day where I get roughly three hours of screen time on with basic messaging apps, YouTube, scrolling through social media, and checking email. With that type of use, I typically end the day with 40-45% remaining.

Cameras

Samsung smartphone cameras are like the Starbucks of smartphone cameras: well known, found everywhere, and many people like them, but there are better options if you know where to look.

The Galaxy S20 FE has a triple-lens camera system, including a standard lens, an ultra-wide lens, and a 3x zoom lens, which is not unusual for a $ 700 phone. In Samsung’s signature form, the S20 FE takes photos that are so sharp and artificially enhanced that they don’t look real. They’re too bright, the contrast is set to overdrive, and Samsung’s HDR has a desire to reveal every detail in shady areas, which can often result in flat-looking photos without much depth to them.

This photo looks good, but there are some things that just don’t seem quite right because it hasn’t been improved. This is a common theme on Samsung phones, even on high-end models. The colors are enhanced and do not look quite right, for example.

This looks beautiful, but where is the depth? Everything appears to be evenly lit with artificial lighting, and it steals character photos. To be clear, I am still happy to have this photo and can play around with editing in the Google Photos or Samsung Gallery apps. I wish Samsung did not intervene so much.

Zoom is one of Samsung’s main attractions. Here is a photo of a cat without zoom.

Here’s the same cat, at the same time, taken with the 3x optical zoom lens. That means digital zooming is not being done, which often leads to degraded quality.

Here’s the same photo at 10x zoom, including both optical and digital zoom. There is a telling loss of clarity and quality due to digital zoom, but it is surprising how much detail the S20 FE has managed to maintain at this zoom level.

Here is the same photo at 20x zoom.

And finally, the S20 FE’s maximum 30x zoom. It’s usable, but it doesn’t look particularly good. Still, the amount of detail the phone has maintained with so much digital zoom is remarkable.

Drawbacks

‘Only’ a 15W charger?

You only get a 15W charger in the box, but the S20 FE supports Samsung’s faster 25W charger, sold separately. It’s a shame it doesn’t come standard with the 25W charger to charge the large 4,500mAh battery; it takes a long time to charge the phone with the included 15W charger.

5G

Unfortunately, 5G is a disaster in the US right now, and it shouldn’t be an active reason to buy the S20 FE.

If Verizon users are looking for the fastest 5G connectivity, they will need to purchase an S20 FE “UW” model that supports Verizon’s ultra-fast high-band 5G mmWave network. Verizon users just need to be aware that Verizon’s fast mmWave 5G network is extremely limited at the time of writing and is unlikely to be a major network that you actually use on a regular basis.

As for AT&T and T-Mobile customers, there is no option to connect to a fast 5G mmWave network. That means AT&T and T-Mobile members only have access to their carrier’s 5G sub-6GHz networks, which have better coverage than Verizon’s mmWave network. That said, the 5G sub-6GHz networks from AT&T and T-Mobile haven’t exactly impressed, as they aren’t much faster or more beneficial than the 4G LTE networks we’ve been using for the past decade.

Reverse wireless charging has never worked for me

Samsung’s wireless PowerShare feature that allows you to place a device on the back of a phone to charge the device is an advanced feature that surprisingly made its way to the more basic Galaxy S20 FE. That said, I can’t remember when Wireless PowerShare actually worked for me, on any Samsung phone.

I tried wirelessly charging the Google Pixel Buds from the back of the Galaxy S20 FE, and the phone just turned PowerShare off and warned me that it was using too much power for PowerShare to work. That’s despite the fact that the S20 FE wasn’t doing anything at all. Oh good.

Should you buy the Galaxy S20 FE?

The Galaxy S20 FE is absolutely a must-buy phone if you are looking for a high-end smartphone that costs less than $ 1,000. In large part, it has the powerful Snapdragon 865 chip, as well as the excellent display, high refresh rate, and overall premium design to thank for its easy recommendation. It would be a great upgrade from an older phone that is falling short on performance and features, even an older premium model with a glass back, like the Galaxy S8.

Aside from my complaints about the camera and problems with wireless PowerShare, the Galaxy S20 FE doesn’t really have many drawbacks. Some may say that a 1080p resolution display isn’t good enough, but frankly it is, especially considering the super-smooth 120Hz refresh rate. And some may prefer glass to plastic, but the phone looks and feels just as good as a glass phone, and it won’t crack like glass after a drop.

Pros: Premium design, triple lens camera system, good display, 120Hz refresh rate, powerful Snapdragon 865 chip, excellent battery life, good price

Cons: The camera improves photos too much, it doesn’t come with a faster charger

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