Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G full review – PCMag

The Samsung Galaxy S20 FE is all you need, and nothing else. Samsung has reduced its flagship S20 series to a more palatable price of $ 699.99, and the result is a value-conscious flagship to properly tackle the next iPhone 12 line. With fast performance, solid cameras and often With substantial discounts at major wireless service providers, the S20 FE 5G becomes our default Android phone recommendation for 2020, as well as our Editors’ Choice.

So many options, so much time

Samsung currently has a ton of phones, but the two you need to keep in mind are the Galaxy S20 FE 5G and the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra ($ 1,299). Both of these models offer flagship and super-headlight performance; the S20 FE will satisfy most people, while the Note 20 Ultra adds an even better display, an S Pen stylus, and the best phone camera we’ve tested.

They are also a strategy reset from Samsung earlier this year. While we’ve recommended the $ 1,199 Galaxy S20 + as an editor’s choice for several months, the $ 999-plus S20 lineup is overrated for our struggling pandemic economy. The FE gives you more value for less money.

Matte back finish repels fingerprints

Refined design

At 6.29 by 2.93 by 0.33 inches (HWD) and 6.67 ounces, the S20 FE is almost exactly the same size as the S20 +. This means it’s not a small phone, but is on par with most of the flagships on the market.

The phone is available in six colors: lavender, mint, navy blue, orange, red or white. Overall, there is a humble feel to it. With its flat front and matte metal surfaces, the S20 FE doesn’t try to scream a luxury item the way curved glass phones do. It’s also a bit more usable, and you don’t have the problem of accidental touching that people often have with curved screen phones. Plus, the matte back does a much better job of repelling fingerprints and scratches than the S20’s glass back.

The S20 FE has a 6.5 inch 2400 x 1080, 120Hz display which should always be kept in 120Hz mode for smooth scrolling. There really is no downside; the frame rate makes scrolling a lot smoother, and I tested the battery life in 120Hz mode and it’s excellent. As this is one of Samsung’s recent AMOLED displays, the colors are gorgeous and the screen is bright. While the S20 series is capable of achieving a higher resolution of 2560 x 1440, it can only do so at 60Hz, and I found the smooth scrolling to be worth the difference compared to the higher resolution.

From left to right: Galaxy S20 FE 5G, Galaxy Note 20, Galaxy S20 +, Galaxy Note 20 Ultra

All the performance you need

The S20 FE has the same Snapdragon 865 processor as the S20 line, with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, plus a microSD card slot.

Its score of 12,705 on the PCMark Work 2.0 benchmark is on par with the S20 series, and its Geekbench scores of 862 single-core, 3,069 multi-core are slightly lower than the S20 series, but not enough to count. GFXBench’s graphics benchmark scores are also on par with other S20 phones, running at 45 fps for the Car Chase on-screen benchmark.

The battery life is excellent. The FE has a big 4,500mAh battery and, combined with the 1080p display, I have 13 hours and 31 minutes of video playback at 75% brightness. The battery life will be shorter if you scroll a lot, as it pumps up the screen at 120Hz, but it will still remain strong. The phone has 22W fast charging, wireless charging, and reverse wireless charging, which takes around 90 minutes to reach full charge.

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The software here is the Samsung version of Android 10, with all the Samsung additions that come with the S20 series. Most notably, this includes great integration with TVs and Windows PCs: Link to Windows allows you to send SMS, get your notifications and mirror your phone screen to Windows PC, and DeX allows you to broadcast a desktop-like mode to multiple windows. to a television for presentations or other work.

Samsung promises the FE will get upgrades from Android to Android 13; we expect Android 11 to arrive early next year, if past performance is any guide.

Samsung’s Android skin is packed with features, but people tend to like it a little less than its competition. Google’s Pixel phones are the gold standard, but this year they’re falling behind on the processor and camera. Motorola’s skin tends to be relatively sleek, and I really like the OnePlus UI, which has attractive fonts and feels super fast, although these skins lack a link to Windows, which is a very useful feature.

Galaxy S20 FE (left) has a lower design than Galaxy S20 + (right)

Call quality and networking

While there is an unlocked version of the Galaxy S20 FE, you should probably buy the phone from your carrier. Unlocked model does not support AT&T Wi-Fi calling or Verizon’s 5G system; it cannot really take full advantage of T-Mobile’s network capabilities.

The Galaxy S20 FE has the same network hardware as the small Galaxy S20, technically with the same capabilities: aggregation of seven carriers for 4G; sub-6 GHz 5G on all models and millimeter wave on the Verizon model; and Wi-Fi 6. That said, my device made some strange network choices when I tested it against a Galaxy S20 +, such as choosing slower frequency bands when it could have chosen faster, to recover later or on a different test. It strikes me as the behavior of firmware, not bad hardware, which I think will be fixed with a software update.

Wi-Fi performance was very good in testing. Checked on a 5 GHz network versus a 500 Mbps connection, I maximized the link on an S20 FE and an S20 + near the router; at the edge of the connection area, I had 110Mbps on the FE where I had 55.1Mbps on the S20 +, a very nice difference.

In February, I marked the phones to not include millimeter wave 5G. I reconsidered, because AT&T and T-Mobile have moved away from millimeter waves. There is no AT&T 5G technology that works well at the moment, so it’s a good thing that the S20 FE can take full advantage of AT & T’s 4G network while being technically connected to 5G. (The Snapdragon 765 used in the Google Pixel 5 has issues there.) I have high hopes for a new line of waves called C-Band that AT&T and Verizon will likely use next year, but we probably won’t see. no phones that can use it until next March.

Call quality has not been an issue on Samsung S series phones for quite some time. They all use the highest possible voice codecs in any given situation, and the earpiece and speaker quality of the FE is about the same as the S20 +. If you’re switching from a phone that’s several years old, you might notice an improvement in voice quality thanks to the EVS codec, but most of the high-end phones of recent years are on par here.

As with most newer phones, there is no headphone jack; you must use a USB-C or bluetooth headset. The FE supports Bluetooth 5.0.

Zoom Zoom

The S20 FE has three cameras on the back: a 12-megapixel, f / 1.8 main camera; a 12-megapixel f / 2.2 wide-angle camera and an 8-megapixel f / 2.4 3x telephoto lens. There is a 32-megapixel camera on the front.

This means that the FE effectively has the same image quality as the S20 series in its main and wide-angle modes, and with up to 3x zoom. The FE lacks the spatial zoom feature which combines a high-resolution main camera and optical zoom lens to create crisp images with 5x or 10x zoom, and you can see the S20 + is much sharper at 10x. It’s a slightly nifty and less used zoom level, however, and 3x will be fine most of the time.

At 1x, you can say the Galaxy S20 FE (right) takes more engaging photos than the Galaxy S20 + (left)

At 3x, it’s hard to tell the Galaxy S20 FE (right) and Galaxy S20 + (left) apart

At 10x, the spatial zoom of the Galaxy S20 + (left) clearly exceeds the Galaxy S20 FE (right)

Side by side, I actually prefer shots from the FE to the S20 + in good lighting, with and without zoom up to 3x. Like a lot of people (and unlike photographic snobs), I like my images to look a bit hyper-real, with rich colors, and the SE has richer colors and more shadow detail under a good light than the S20 +. (Since the main cameras are the same, that must be the result software, or just luck.) The S20 + also made a few lighting choices that kinda washed out my test photos, where the FE them. got it right.

The FE doesn’t quite have the low-light zoom performance of the S20 + and Note 20 Ultra, although you’ll only notice it if you have the two side by side. With an f / 2.4 zoom rather than an f / 2 zoom, the S20 FE needs to boost ISO and “film grain” a bit more, making low-light images a bit noisier.

Video modes, on the front and rear cameras, switch to 4K at 60 fps, with HDR10 + recording. It’s not the 8K of the S20 or Note 20 series, but 8K is definitely a niche need right now; you really only want that if you intend to crop in post. That said, if you want the ultimate in mobile video recording, you might want to take a look at the LG Wing with its crazy virtual gimbal mode.

Less is more

The Galaxy S20 FE 5g refines rather than innovates, and it works for everyone. Three S20 models and two Note 20 models paved the way for Samsung to decide what is worth investing in (a Snapdragon 865 chipset and a solid 3x lens) and what is not (a glass back and very high megapixel main cameras). And as of this writing, the S20 FE is a steal from carriers. AT&T, for example, offers S20 FE units for free if you sign up for a 30 month payment plan, unlimited service plan, and trade in a phone like an iPhone 7, Galaxy S8, or Google Pixel 2. Even without these promotions, The S20 FE is the best Android phone you can buy for $ 699, and the right phone for 2020, making it our editor’s pick.

Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G Specifications

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