The Samsung Galaxy S20 FE is the fourth smartphone from the S20 series that we see this year. We also got two new Note 20s and a wide variety of Galaxy A's that are hard to count. To choose the best Samsung smartphone for yourself this year in terms of value for money, you need to have professional Excel knowledge and accountancy training.
If you focus only on the flagship S and Note lines, then the choice will be a little easier. They each have a powerful processor, stylish designs, good cameras, high refresh rate screens, and high build quality. But the Galaxy S20 FE has a big difference from all the others - it's price. The smartphone retails for $ 700 and has enough flagship features to be Samsung's best value-for-money smartphone this year.
It also proves that if Samsung wants to make a cheaper, but equally high-quality device, it can easily do it. Development of the S20 FE began immediately after the presentation of the first three devices in the lineup in March this year. Then it became clear to everyone that the pandemic would deal a serious blow to the global economy, and something had to be done about it.
Despite the fact that the Galaxy S20 FE appeared almost spontaneously, it does not look unfinished. On the contrary, it seems that serious and long work has been done on this smartphone. The company was faced with the task of making a cheaper, but at the same time the same high-quality phone. How did she deal with it? Find out in this Samsung Galaxy S20 FE review.
Design
The Galaxy S20 FE has a 6.5-inch, fully flat, 1080p OLED screen. Its slender bezels are slightly more visible than the other S20s, but are still subtle.
1080p resolution is not enough for a flagship today, especially with such a screen size. However, this does not bother him. The S20 FE has a high refresh rate of 120Hz, which makes scrolling smoother and looks better overall. It's nice to see this on a $ 700 phone, especially since 120HZ isn't even on the more expensive Galaxy Note 20.
Samsung focuses on color and brightness. To an unprepared user, this may seem too "cloying", but you can always choose the natural mode of the display.
What users may really not like is the plastic back cover. More precisely, it is a plastic / glass mixture that Samsung calls Glasstic. The lid looks quite attractive and seems solid. Fans of different lid colors will definitely be satisfied - there are as many as six of them: dark blue, lavender, mint, red, white and orange. Samsung calls them "cloudy" colors. The rest of the world calls it "matte."
Unlike the rest of the S20 phones, the FE has a sharper shape. But still, upon closer examination, it becomes clear that he has not gone far from his older brothers in terms of design. The build is really high quality, and the only thing that deserves censure here is the chrome ring around the front camera. It constantly gives off glare in the light, and this is terribly enraging. Samsung has already added the same ring to some Galaxy A devices, but why it's here is completely incomprehensible.
The Galaxy S20 FE supports fast and wireless charging. The only charger included is not powerful enough for fast charging. Pleases the battery capacity - 4500 mAh. With normal use, the phone can easily survive up to two days. In total, it gives out about six hours of screen time, which should be enough for a day, even if you use it very actively.
Cameras
To make the Galaxy S20 FE cheaper, the company had to make some compromises. Cameras are one of them. But in fact, these "reductions in cost" are not at all upsetting. Instead of one of the proprietary "ultra space buy 100500-megapixel" lenses, there are three standard 12MP sensors: main, ultra-wide and telephoto.
Photos come out great on all three in normal lighting. Night mode is also present, and even if the Galaxy S20 FE is not on par with the Pixel or iPhone 11 Pro in this regard, it gets very close. The quality of the video also raises no complaints. FE doesn’t know how to record clips in 8K, but for whom would it be a big loss at all? Most of us don't even have anything to look at.
Overall, the cameras on the Galaxy S20 FE are up to par, although they don't stand out from the rest. However, they still have three flaws that Samsung has stubbornly refuses to fix from phone to phone. They are not so serious as to spoil the experience and even more so make you refuse to buy this phone. But they are, and you have a right to know about them.
First, the biggest complaint is that Samsung has some kind of unhealthy fetish about brightness. Perhaps for most people this will not be a problem at all, but with slightly stronger lighting, the cameras just make the image "jerky-eyed". This effect can be smoothed out a bit by delving into the Pro mode settings or editing an already finished photo. But why on a $ 700 phone do users need to use crutches like this?
Secondly, Samsung will not be able to stop with its 30x magnification. Why continue to sell lenses that have a maximum zoom that looks like a painting painted with soap on glass? Zooming up to 10x works great with little to no loss in quality. But everything above is just pitch hell.
And finally, thirdly, Samson, as usual, smoothes and brightens faces too much when taking selfies. Send this picture to your granny and she will surely ask if you are sick. Even if you turn off all filters and settings, you still won't get a regular photo without processing. How, why and why, only Samson knows.
As mentioned above, these three problems are by no means a reason to not buy the Galaxy S20 FE. But they still cause some disappointment, because they are not a lack of hardware, but the result of Samsung's deliberate software decision. A decision taken for completely incomprehensible reasons.
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Performance and software
Today everyone measures their phones by the numbers in the processor name, so let's not break the tradition. Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 with 5G support, for some logical reasons, is not a necessity here (especially 5G). It would be great to save on the processor, and the phone would not become noticeably slower from this.
But what we have is that we have - the Galaxy S20 FE is a fast enough smartphone, and there is no reason to complain about its performance. During use, the device showed no signs of slowdowns, delays or long downloads. Yes, perhaps it was worth loading him to the fullest to see what he is capable of, but is it necessary? It is unlikely that any of you will carry out super-complex computing operations on the phone. Therefore, it was more reasonable to test it under normal conditions, and he coped with them with a bang.
The price reduction affected the amount of RAM - here it is only 6 GB, not 12. In normal use, this does not affect in any way, but it can negatively affect multitasking and work in Samsung DeX mode. Also, the Galaxy S20 FE doesn't have a choice of internal storage. The phone is sold in one version with 128 GB of internal memory. However, there is a slot for microSD.
The proprietary shell of Samsung One UI works here in the same way as on all other smartphones of the company - great. Additional functions are integrated organically, the design is quite stylish, the operating speed does not disappoint. The only thing that is a little punchy is that Samsung makes very small "Close" buttons on its advertisements or offers to sign up for partner services.
In all reviews on Samsung phones, it is customary to find fault with Bixby, so let's not break the tradition - it's still a useless piece of ... code. Especially since the Galaxy S20 FE (like other Samsung phones) comes pre-installed with Google Assistant - a normal voice assistant. Plus, with some little tambourine dances, a long press on the power button can be reassigned from Bixby to Assistant.
Outcomes
Samsung Galaxy S20 FE entered the market at a very opportune moment. We have already been presented with the new Google Pixel 5 at the same price, which is even slightly worse than the FE. This phone is even likely to outperform some of the new iPhones, and at least one of them will cost about the same.
It seems that smartphone manufacturers are slowly starting to realize that people do not want to spend a thousand dollars on mobile phones, but still want to get new devices and not buy old ones at a discount. Samsung, as usual, was one of the first companies to figure this out. The Galaxy A series and a whole fan of S20 devices in one year are another confirmation of this. The S20 FE was created not only to reduce the cost of flagships in this difficult time for the economy. It also aims to fill Samsung's void in the mid-range segment.
And while the Galaxy S20 FE can truly be called a “cobbled together from what it was,” that doesn't mean it's bad. The high performance, good 120Hz screen, decent battery, decent cameras, and solid build make this phone a real go-to. Samsung wanted to bring flagship quality to the world at a better price, and it did.
All Samsung phones tend to be heavily discounted and this seems like no exception. Perhaps you just have to wait a little with the purchase. But even if you decide to buy the Galaxy S20 FE now, you will be satisfied. And if you find a regular S20 or S20 Plus for the same price, you'll be even happier.
pros
- Acceptable price
- Refresh rate 120 Hz
- Good cameras
Minuses:
- Samsung's photo processing software is too intrusive
- The fingerprint scanner is not very fast
