Samsung for many years has occupied one of the leading positions among smartphone manufacturers. This South Korean company really appreciates the feedback from its consumers, and it is thanks to them that a new smartphone was born. Samsung Galaxy S20 FE (Fan Edition) – it was created directly taking into account the wishes of users. Recently, a sample of this device was received by our editorial office, and today we are ready to tell you about it in detail.
PACKAGING AND DELIVERY
The smartphone is delivered in a white brick-shaped box made of thick cardboard, on the front side of which you can see a large iridescent inscription S20 in the color of the device lying inside. The short name of the model – S20 FE also flaunts below. All five visible sides of the lid are embossed with ornaments of various icons that are used in the camera application.
Opening the box, you will immediately see the smartphone covered with temporary protective packaging films. Below is a compartment covered with cardboard, where they put a cable for charging USB Type-A to USB Type-C and 15W fast charging.
There is another box under the lid with a clip for removing the SIM tray, as well as a quick guide and a warranty card. The protective film is already applied to the smartphone screen right at the factory.
EXTERNAL DATA AND CONNECTORS
The official price of the device in Russia is 49,990 rubles for the 6 / 128GB version and 59,990 for the modification with 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of internal storage. In Russia, the smartphone is presented in six colors – blue, lavender, mint, red, white and orange. Our test sample turned out to be a lavender in the younger version – it definitely looks good in the hands of young girls.
The back of the S20 FE is made of matte plastic, which barely shows fingerprints, but it can be scratched. The edges of the smartphone are made of pinkish aluminum in the style of the smartphone itself. It looks very organic.
The front is covered with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 series protective glass, and there is a small bezel around the display. The smartphone is protected according to the IP68 standard against moisture and dust, so if you suddenly drop it into water, then it must withstand.
The device measures 159.8 x 74.5 x 8.4 mm. Weight – 189 g with 190 declared. A flat Super AMOLED-matrix with a diagonal of 6.5 inches and a Full HD + resolution – 1080 × 2400 pixels – and a density of 407 ppi is used as a screen.
The screen occupies about 85% of the front side of the phone, and its main distinguishing feature from most solutions on the market is the refresh rate of 120 Hz.
At the top in the middle of the screen is the lens of the front camera, which is designed for video calls, selfies and face unlocking.
Face unlock is instant. However, if you wear a medical mask correctly, that is, covering half of your face, including your nose, then the smartphone will not recognize you and will not open. For recognition, you will have to lower the mask below the nose.
Almost at the very bottom under the screen is a fingerprint scanner that reads the fingerprint and unlocks the device very quickly and clearly. Above the display is a barely noticeable earpiece opening, which is also used as a second speaker to reproduce the sound of multimedia content, creating a stereo sound. In addition, the light and proximity sensor is hidden on top.
On the back, in the upper left corner, there is a rectangular module of three lenses with a flash, as well as the Samsung logo in the bottom center. The camera unit is framed in an aluminum frame of the same color as the frame of the smartphone. It sticks out by about 3 mm, which is why the Galaxy S20 FE rests on it when it lies on its back. It is recommended to get a case that will at least level the back surface of the device with the camera unit – this will help to avoid unnecessary scratches.
On a special extended part of the metal frame of the smartphone on the right, there is a power button and a volume rocker, which, it seems, are also made of aluminum. Above, an auxiliary microphone hole and a hybrid slot for nano-SIM and MicroSD with the possibility of expanding memory with cards up to 1 TB were found. You cannot install two SIM cards and MicroSD at the same time.
Below you will find the main microphone hole, the USB Type-C connector for charging and data transfer, and the multimedia speaker hole. Due to the metal material of the frame, there are antenna strips on all four sides for the normal operation of the smartphone’s mobile communication.
BATTERY, IRON & COMMUNICATIONS
The smartphone comes with a 4500 mAh non-removable lithium polymer battery. It supports Samsung’s proprietary 25W fast charging, which is sold separately, and comes with a 15W charger only. It allows you to charge your Galaxy S20 FE 50% in 55 minutes, up to 75% in 1 hour and 19 minutes and fully in 1 hour and 51 minutes.
The smartphone can also be charged using up to 15W wireless charging, and thanks to support for 4.5W reversible wireless charging, the Galaxy S20 FE is able to recharge other devices with this technology.
With active use in 120 Hz screen mode, the device discharges in 1-1.5 days, and if you set the screen refresh rate to 60 in the settings, then you will definitely provide yourself with half a day of charge.
The device runs Android 10 operating system with Samsung’s proprietary One UI 2.5 version. The core is last year’s 8-core Samsung Exynos 990 chipset, built using a 7-nm process technology (2 Exynos M5 cores at 2730 MHz, 2 Cortex-A76 cores at 2500 MHz and 4 Cortex-A55 cores at 2000 MHz), which works in conjunction with graphics accelerator Mali-G77 MP11 and 6 GB of LPDDR5 RAM. The built-in memory in our version of the device was 128 GB of UFS 3.1 standard.
Samsung Galaxy S20 FE is equipped with Bluetooth 5.0, NFC and Wi-Fi 6 modules. Navigation systems: A-GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO and BDS.
USE AND CONVENIENCE
The smartphone is quite light, thanks to the pleasant-to-touch materials it is very pleasant in the hand and does not slip. The rounded edges help a firm grip on the Galaxy S20 FE without cutting your hands. The almost cinematic aspect ratio of the screen allows you to reach with your thumb up to about 75% of its surface.
The display is very bright – even under the sun it should be easy to read.
As with all AMOLED screens, flickering is present at low brightness settings, and nothing can be done about this, since Samsung has not provided DC Dimming in the device to improve the situation, so users with sensitive eyes should not significantly lower the screen brightness.
The matrix supports HDR content output thanks to HDR10 + support. Navigating the smartphone is very enjoyable thanks to the screen refresh rate of 120 Hz.
The S20 FE’s display is great for watching video content, surfing the Internet and reading manga on it is also a pleasure. In addition, a nice bonus is the support for the “always on screen” function with the ability to customize the look of approved dials and their colors, as well as display the calendar and various pictures from the gallery.
The on-screen keyboard on this device turned out to be quite comfortable, and it is easy to type text with both one hand and two. Auto-rotate is triggered in about 1-1.5 seconds when the phone position is changed.
SOUND
The speaker on the bottom edge and the spoken driver above the display are responsible for stereo sound of multimedia content. The device supports Hi-Res Audio with a sampling rate of 384kHz at 32 bits. The sound is clear and loud, more than enough for watching multimedia content like movies, TV series and YouTube videos. There is also Dolby Atmos support for video, music and games.
It should be noted that orchestral compositions sound quite well on the built-in speakers, but music with a priority on low frequencies lacks depth, so here you should already use headphones. Since there is no 3.5 mm jack in the device, you will have to buy headphones with a USB Type-C connector or a 3.5 mm adapter, or use wireless headphones. The most current model from Samsung is Galaxy Buds Live.
CAMERA AND PHOTO TESTS
The rectangular box on the back is equipped with three modules. The main camera has a resolution of 12 Mp (4032 x 3024) for photography and 8.3 Mp (3840×2160) for video. Focal length – 5.40 mm, aperture – f / 1.8. The module is equipped with image stabilization and phase detection autofocus with Dual Pixel technology, thanks to which the lens focuses on the subject more accurately and quickly. The second module is a 12 megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera with a coverage angle of 123 degrees, aperture f / 2.2 and a focal length of 1.74 mm. The last module is an 8-megapixel telephoto lens with f / 2.4 aperture, phase detection autofocus and 3x optical zoom.
The main module does an excellent job in daylight outdoors and demonstrates good performance in terms of image details, and in dim lighting, photos have minimal noise, thanks to the camera’s good noise reduction system.
The module proved to be especially remarkable in the night shooting mode, demonstrating a lot of details with good color rendering and a minimum of noise, so that such images can be immediately published on social networks without processing.
The ultra-wide-angle module shoots a little worse than the main one due to the lack of autofocus and weaker optics, but in general it copes with its task quite well. Thanks to the telephoto lens, the camera has a 3x optical zoom, and the digital one can achieve a 30x magnification. As for video, the main camera is capable of recording videos at a maximum resolution of 4K at 30 and 60 frames per second, as well as in 1080 / 720p at 30 and 60 frames.
The camera uses gyro stabilization to reduce shake when shooting videos, and it performed well in our tests. It is also possible to create HDR-pictures, panoramas, slow-motion and super-slow-motion videos, time-lapse movies. In addition, the camera has a special focus on the “Multi-shot” mode, which is clearly designed for young people who are keen on creating content for TikTok. The function allows you to shoot a video from 3 to 15 seconds, which is then processed by the system and divided into short videos and photos with various effects. In the future, they can be used to edit videos on the same TikTok.
The front camera, as mentioned above, is located at the top in the middle. She meets the animation traditional for these solutions. The camera is equipped with a 32 megapixel module with f / 2.2 aperture. Videos can shoot in 4K and 1080p at 30 and 60 FPS and 720p at only 30 frames per second. The shooting quality is excellent, so you don’t have to worry about selfies and video calls.
GAMES AND SYNTHETIC TESTS
In basic AnTuTu and 3D Mark tests, the phone was identified as the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 4G and SM-G780F. In AnTuTu, it scores 498,025 points and is ranked 20th in the ranking of flagships on Android:
- CPU 149,968
- GPU 186 329
- MEM 89 892
- UX 71 836
In the phone menu, the average temperature of the processor and battery was 42 and 35 degrees Celsius, respectively. In heavy games, after an hour of gameplay, these values already rise to 63 and 40 degrees, respectively.
We were able to test the Galaxy S20 FE in projects such as Genshin Impact, Among Us, Dead Trigger 2, C.A.T.S. and Badland. The last three, by the way, support 120 FPS, so playing them was very comfortable thanks to the smooth picture. In general, there were no performance problems in games, except that the Genshin Impact sagged a little. At the highest settings, the plastic case heated up a little, but this did not cause much discomfort.
RESULTS
The Samsung Galaxy S20 Fan Edition is a great smartphone that combines the features of the flagship series with the most important features for young people. Thanks to excellent cameras, you can always take both great photos and dynamic videos that you will not be ashamed of on social networks, and powerful hardware and an excellent screen will allow you to run all the latest games at their best and without any problems. Of the minuses, I would only mention the absence of the DC Dimming function to reduce the flickering of the AMOLED matrix and the 25-watt charging included.
Author: Sergey Dyakonenko (Madnfs)
A photo: Sergey Dyakonenko (Madnfs) and Alexey Olkin…
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