This is Samsung’s cheaper version of the S20

Nov 30, 2020 13:20 GMT  ·  By

Samsung is the company building some of the most premium smartphones on the market, and while the South Koreans have recently discovered the miracle of foldable phones, they obviously don’t want to neglect the other sides of the market either.

Because as they learned more or less the hard way, while high-end models are great for spearheading the mobile push worldwide, mid-range devices are actually the ones bringing home the bacon and guaranteeing market share worldwide.

Galaxy S20 is right now one of Samsung’s flagship products and is often considered by many one of the best alternatives to the iPhone. In other words, if iOS and Apple’s walled garden isn’t necessarily your cup of tea, Samsung is ready to welcome you into their ecosystem.

But since it’s by definition a high-end product, it’s pretty clear the S20 doesn’t come cheap, and in many regards, this makes sense. A $999 price tag is somewhat to be expected for an iPhone rival, especially since Apple’s products are available at about the same price point too.

On the other hand, Apple too noticed that expanding its device portfolio is the only way to grow market share, so the Cupertino-based tech giant launched more affordable versions of its top iPhones, all in an attempt to bring signature features at a lower price level, which in turns means bigger market share and increased revenue, not only for the devices itself but also for the services it provides access too.

Samsung knows this is the right approach, and this is the reason the company has been pushing for premium mid-range models. But now that the game in this market is getting fiercer, the South Korean are answering with a cheaper version of the Galaxy S20.

Called Samsung Galaxy S20 FE, with FE standing for Fan Edition, this new model is considered by many a lite version of the original Galaxy S20 that launched in the spring and which more or less disappointed due to poor sales caused mostly by the pandemic.

The S20 FE is obviously based in many ways on the original S20, only that it comes with a series of changes that allowed Samsung to cut the price.

Samsung Galaxy S20 FE

One of them is the design, which comes with what Samsung calls “Glasstic.” The same approach has been used by the company on the standard Galaxy Note20, and let me tell you from the very beginning that this doesn’t feel like glass and plastic, but more like pure plastic. Maybe it’s indeed plastic and glass, but it certainly doesn’t feel like so.

The S20 FE no longer boasts curved edges, which for many is quite a shortcoming, albeit for me is quite a positive thing. I’ve always been a big fan of phones with straight edges simply because it’s easier to hold them in hand, and the S20 FE, with the help of a small bezel, meets this requirement quite easily.

On the other hand, the curved edges on back are something you typically see on cheaper smartphones from other brands, and I don’t know who told Samsung going for this approach is a good idea, but it certainly isn’t.

For someone how tried all sorts of phones in the last few years, the back of the S20 FE reminds more of a cheap smartphone rather than of the Galaxy S20 that screams premium through all its ports.

Other than that, the Galaxy S20 FE look is clearly inspired by the S20 FE, and you get the same camera bump, which I absolutely hate, and the USB-C port without a headphone jack, which I absolutely love.

The questionable design choices for the Galaxy S20 FE, however, shouldn’t be of much concern, especially because most of us keep our phones locked in a case anyway. So most of the time, the only thing we see is the display and nothing more, so you won’t be bothered too much about the shortcomings I talked about earlier. But this doesn’t mean they don’t exist though.

The display of the Galaxy S20 FE is pure Samsung sorcery. The South Korean company makes some of the best displays in the entire world, and despite trying to bring the premium concept to a lower price tag, the Galaxy S20 FE is the living proof of what I just said.

The S20 FE comes with a 2400x1080 pixels resolution, down from 3200x1440 pixels on the main S20, but that shouldn’t be such a big problem because the quality is top-notch anyway. And the best of all is that the S20 FE comes with a 120Hz refresh rate, which is one of the biggest upgrades on the S20.

The more noticeable difference, however, is the screen size. The S20 FE comes with a 6.5-inch screen, so it’s bigger than the smallest 6.2-inch Galaxy S20 but smaller than the biggest 6.9-inch Galaxy S20 Ultra.

If you think you’ve heard of a similar approach elsewhere, it’s because you really did. Apple too launched a cheaper version of the iPhone 11 Pro (and now iPhone 12 Pro), and it’s simply called iPhone 11 (and now iPhone 12), and its screen size is bigger than the standard Pro but smaller than the Pro Max.

Samsung Galaxy S20 FE

So in some ways, the Galaxy S20 FE becomes a rival to the iPhone 11 and iPhone 12, as it embraces a similar approach in terms of screen size.

The S20 FE comes with a small cutout at the top of the screen that serves as the home of the front-facing camera, and this isn’t at all intrusive. This is a feature also available on the more expensive Galaxy Note20 and Galaxy Note20 Ultra, and I can’t help but applaud Samsung for the amazing work it does when it comes to embedding front-facing parts into the screen.

This is something that helps not only the company itself and its customers but the rest of the industry too, as eventually, we’re all winning a bigger screen estate on our smartphones.

Needless to say, the camera department has also received some changes on the Galaxy S20 FE, but this shouldn’t be such a big surprise, especially because this is the part where Samsung is typically investing lots of money. However, while side by side there are some differences between the Galaxy S20 FE and the Galaxy S20 in terms of camera, not the same thing can be said in the real life where only a trained eye would be able to spot the downgrade. But for the average Joe who just wants to take some pics of their baby running after a dog, the S20 FE is up to the task.

These are the camera specs on the Galaxy S20 FE:

12MP Ultra Wide Camera

  • Pixel size: 1.12μm
  • FOV: 123˚
  • F.No (aperture): F2.2

12MP Wide-angle Camera

  • Super Speed Dual Pixel AF, OIS
  • Pixel size: 1.8μm
  • FOV: 79˚
  • F.No (aperture): F1.8
  • 1/1.76" image sensor size

8MP Telephoto Camera

  • Pixel size: 0.1μm
  • FOV: 32˚
  • F.No (aperture): F2.4
  • Space Zoom
  • Hybrid Optic Zoom 3x
  • Super Resolution Zoom up to 30x
  • OIS (Optical Image Stabilization)

If you translate all these numbers in real-life performance, you get a pretty good camera that’s as close as it gets to the one of the S20. But as I said when I reviewed the Galaxy Note20, I noticed the camera more or less tries to soften photos, which means that you might occasionally lose some details and the images are less sharp than how they are supposed to be.

The feature I enjoyed the most on the Galaxy S20 FE, and Samsung smartphones in general, is the night mode, which is absolutely fan-tas-tic. There are times when the camera manages to take a really decent photo in a room that’s so dark eyes really can’t see anything, so another round of applauds for Samsung here as they certainly deserve them for all the efforts to improve night mode.

Samsung Galaxy S20 FE

Now let’s move to a section where Samsung deserves less praise: the processor.

The Galaxy S20 FE is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor, while the 4G version of the same device is equipped with the Exynos 990 chip.

I said it before and I’m going to say it again: offering different chips based on the market isn’t the right approach in the long term before customers would end up frustrating for getting lower performance than a similar device purchased in a different country.

It’s not a secret the Qualcomm chip outperforms the Exynos, and this has caused heavy criticism from customers across the world who just want the same performance as everybody else. It’s not anyone’s fault they’re not living in a market where the Qualcomm chip is available, and eventually, this approach could backfire and customers might end up moving to a different brand.

Leaving the questionable processor choice, the Galaxy S20 FE is otherwise a device ready to handle all the tasks you throw at it. The 6GB of RAM with 128GB of internal storage is more than enough on the Galaxy S20 FE, and everything is blazing fast most of the time.

To be honest, the only letdown in the hardware department is for some the lack of a headphone jack, but I think the days when we should miss this old-school port are long gone and we should just embrace the new trend that pushes us to wireless headphones and earbuds. If anything, the decision to not offer a headphone jack is somehow harder to understand given Samsung mid-range devices that get close to the S20 FE in terms of price do come with this feature, but let’s not forget the purpose here was to make this model as similar as possible in terms of look, feel, and capabilities with the main S20.

The Fan Edition Galaxy S20 comes with a 4,500 mAh battery, and while this seems more than enough to get you through the day, well… it’s not.

I’m not necessarily a hardcore user, as in I’m not playing games on my smartphone, but nonetheless, I still spend hours on it every day. And when this smartphone also comes with a 120Hz display, 5G support, a new-gen camera system that requires a lot of processing power, it’s pretty clear the battery has a lot to deal with.

Unsurprisingly, the best in terms of charging on the Galaxy S20 FE is 25W, but this is still enough to get you up to 100 percent in a little more than one hour.

Samsung Galaxy S20 FE

THE BOTTOM LINE

In some ways, the Galaxy S20 FE is just the right device landing at the right time. But what I think Samsung got wrong on this model is the name.

It’s not a secret the Galaxy S20 didn’t sell exactly as anticipated due to the pandemic that forced people to stay indoors for way too long, so Samsung hoped the FE would at some level manage to resolve the whole thing by bringing premium features at a lower price point.

This did happen, but not to the degree Samsung actually prayed for, and I think it’s not because the FE isn’t worth the money, but due to marketing.

First of all, Samsung itself hasn’t really made a big deal about the S20 FE, and while the company does promote the device through its typical channels, the focus lately has obviously been the Galaxy Note20. And second of all, the Fan Edition moniker might not necessarily be the best choice here. Am I supposed to be a Samsung fan to get it? Is this a smartphone built for gaming? That’s what some people might be asking themselves when checking out the Galaxy S20 FE.

Why not Galaxy S20 Lite? Only Samsung can answer this question, but right now, it’s pretty clear the company is very committed to further expanding the FE lineup in the long term with more models.

Photo Gallery (20 Images)

Samsung Galaxy S20 FE
Samsung Galaxy S20 FESamsung Galaxy S20 FE
+17more