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Samsung sent us the 5G variant of the S20 FE for this review, which means we can finally judge whether or not non-UK Samsung owners have been getting the better end of the deal until now. Review summary: The tester praises the phone’s fast screen refresh rate, excellent camera set and powerful processor. He is less impressed by the build quality and battery life. The biggest surprise is that this is a fantastic phone, arguably easier to recommend than any other Samsung mobile this year. Especially if you’re in the UK and want a Samsung Galaxy phone with the Snapdragon 865.
While I often struggled to make it through do with the S20 and S20 Plus, doing so with the S20 FE is easy and I can easily achieve more than six hours of screen on time – often more than an hour more. Are the pictures better than the Pixel 4a? For me, no. But that’s subjective and you certainly do get crispier details and brighter colours here. The Pixel 4a still pips it for dynamic range, natural bokeh and, importantly, night mode.The end of 2020 might (finally) be upon us but Samsung’s never-ending launch strategy continues at pace. The Samsung Galaxy S20 FE is, however, a bit different from the 11 Samsung smartphones we’ve reviewed previously. The FE retains an OLED panel with a small cutout at the top for the front camera, however it tops out at FHD+ rather than WQHD+ like on the Galaxy S20. As you couldn’t combine 120hz and the higher-res anyway, this change seems fine to me. User Available Memory : User memory is less than the total memory due to storage of the operating system and software used to operate the device features. Actual user memory will vary depending on the operator and may change after software upgrades are performed.
It comes in a number of nice colours too, including a very on-trend navy blue and a striking red. These are far more interesting hues than you can find the S20 in, and Samsung said they all be available from various networks without the usual exclusivity. In our battery rundown test, the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE lasted for 20hrs 39mins before battery levels dropped to zero, which is 11% longer when compared against the Galaxy S20’s FHD+ score and a whopping 30% longer than the Note 20 Ultra. Samsung Galaxy S20 FE review: Cameras The S20 FE has now been replaced by the newer Samsung Galaxy S21, offering up to date specs. Especially, the introduction of the new Exynos 2100 processor. Since the Galaxy S20 FE’s main sensor is identical to the one found on the normal Galaxy S20, image quality in most situations remains practically unchanged. This means that the S20 FE shares its sibling’s shortcomings, most notably with occasionally artificial-looking colours and drab night shots compared to the same images taken on the iPhone 11 RPI/CPI Price Increase - Each year, your Pay Monthly airtime tariff will be adjusted according to Three's Fixed Annual Price Change (Three), the Retail Price Index (O2) or Consumer Price Index (EE, Vodafone) rate of inflation.Choose from a range of networks and inclusive monthly plans to get started with your new Galaxy phone straight away. Flipping between focal lengths is easy and the S20 FE takes good snaps at both ultra wide and 3x zoom. Neither of these are of the same quality as the main sensor and the results can be soft, especially when zooming, but they offer a nice bit of versatility. It’s also good to see Samsung not cramming in another sensor for the sake of it, some other brands offering cheaper Android phones should take note… This doesn’t mean much when it comes to real-world performance, though. I’ve been using a Note 20 Ultra (with an Exynos 990) as my daily driver for the last month or so and I haven’t noticed any performance issues. Both phones are blisteringly fast to boot-up, whizz across the user interface without any stuttering (even at 120Hz) and neither grinds to a halt when running CPU-heavy applications such as Adobe Lightroom and Xbox Game Pass.
Out-of-the-box the S20 comes with Android 10 and the latest version of One UI. Samsung’s interface has improved immeasurably over the past few years and while it’s very much different from Google’s own vision of Android, I still like how it looks and works. Samsung has also indicated you’ll get three years of system updates, starting with Android 11, which is always good news.So, how did the two phones fare? As it turns out, single-core performance is largely similar between the two chipsets, but the multi-core result highlights a serious advantage for the Snapdragon 865. With a final score of 3,167, compared with the Exynos 990’s 2,779, the S20 FE 5G is roughly 18% faster with regards to multi-core processing. zoom: This isn’t a zoom king, but it’ll get the job done You should buy it if… You want a Snapdragon 865 version of the S20 The Samsung Galaxy S20 FE has a 4500mAh battery, matching the Galaxy S20 Plus and outperforming all the other S20 models in my tests. This is almost certainly down to the Snapdragon 865 chip, which seems to be far more efficient than its Exynos counterpart.
The ‘FE’ moniker here stands for ‘Fan Edition’ and it’s very much a cheaper, mid-year update for the brand’s flagship Galaxy S20 – with a bit of the Note 20’s DNA thrown in for good measure. It looks like it will continue to be sold alongside the Samsung Galaxy S21 in many regions. With this Samsung Galaxy S20 FE smartphone, you’ll never be without games, films or music. The All-Day Intelligent battery means it’ll keep you company from the second you wake up to when you go to bed. And if you fancy watching a film or playing a game in between, everything will look amazing on its 6.5-inch Super AMOLED Infinity-O screen. Sounds complicated, but that just means it’s got a razor-sharp display that’s bursting with colour and stretches all the way to the edge. And its triple lens rear camera will have you snapping amazing pics left, right and centre, especially since it has a 3x optical zoom for fantastic close-ups. Many have complained about the decreased performance and battery skills of the Exynos version vs the Qualcomm so it’s great to see Samsung deciding to give a wider launch to the arguably superior model.One of the true highlights of the Galaxy S20 FE is that the UK 5G version comes with the Snapdragon 865 platform, rather than the usual Exynos chipset you’ll find in the high-end Note 20 series and Galaxy S20. The big question, however, is whether the arrival of the S20 FE softens the appeal of the regular Galaxy S20. With the option to pay less with minimal sacrifice when it comes to important features, why would you pay more? If you have an old device you're looking to get rid of when you switch to the FE, you can get some good money for it by recycling it. While there are a number of recycling services out there, SellMyMobile seems to be one of the best. John Lewis plc, registered office: 171 Victoria Street, London SW1E 5NN. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (Register no. 724309) for the purpose of introducing the credit provided by Creation Consumer Finance Ltd, registered office: Wellington Buildings, 2-4 Wellington Street, Belfast BT1 6HT.
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