Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G was rumored for a long while as the Samsung Galaxy S20 Lite and people got hyped up, because the Galaxy S10 Lite was pretty solid. In the meantime Samsung decided to make it a Galaxy S20 Fan Edition, available in two versions: 4G and 5G. We have the 5G model for testing and we’ve unboxed it below. Priced at around $750, the device feels like a hybrid between the Galaxy S20 and Note 20. It does go above and beyond the usual super high midrange phone and we’ve got it all figured out below.
Just to make things clear, the 5G model is the one to get, since it has a Snapdragon 865 processor, not the Exynos 990, with its infamous throttling. Available in hues like Lavender, Mint, White, Red, Orange and the one we have, Navy Blue. The polycarbonate back looks a bit frosted, if I may say so. The flat screen and plastic back make it feel like the Note 20, to be honest. The bezels are definitely thicker, but at least symmetry is still here.
Inside the box we find an USB-C cable, 15W charger, a metal key and manual. There are no headphones and also no case. Since the phone can charge at 25W, a 25W charger wouldn’t have hurt, to be honest. Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G measures 8.4 mm in thickness and weighs 190 grams. It’s comfy to handle and use, especially since it’s grippy and the back doesn’t attract prints or grease. Upfront we find a Super AMOLED 6.5 inch Full HD+ screen with HDR10+ support and 120 Hz refresh rate.
There’s a 20:9 aspect, punch hole selfie camera (32 MP), a fingerprint render embedded, of the optical kind. Inside we find the Snapdragon 865, no longer reserved to Americans on the S20 series, but available worldwide. There’s also 6 or 8 GB of LPDDR5 RAM, UFS 3.1 storage (128 or 256 GB), plus a microSD card slot. We also get a 4500 mAh battery, with 25W wired charging, 15W wireless charging and reverse charging too. You can place another handset, headphones, watch on the back of the phone in order to power it up.
The smartphone runs Android 10 with One UI 2.5 on top, there’s Bixby in the mix, plus features taken from S20 and Note 20. The selfie 32 MP camera combines 4 pixels in 1 and at the back we find a triple shooter with a module designed like the Note 20 one. Here’s the setup:
- 12 MP, Dual Pixel PDAF, OIS, F/1.8
- 12 MP, ultrawide
- 8 MP, telephoto, 3x optical zoom, 30x Space Zoom
There’s also a LED flash, 4K video capture, Single Take, Pro Video, Night, Super Steady and Live Focus Video. On the connectivity side of things, there’s 4G, but also 5G, in both sub 5 GHz and mmWave, plus WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, USB-C and GPS. There’s no audio jack, but we do get stereo speakers. On the perks aspect, there’s Xbox Game Pass with 100+ games, Knox for security and Samsung promised 3 years of updates for Android, so we’ll get up to Android 13 here.
First impressions? Easy to handle, bright screen, powerful CPU, fast fingerprint scanner and it feels more fluid at first touch than Exynos 990 devices. I expect a major price drop in a month or two. You can get the phone here.
