Samsung Galaxy S20 FE Review: Perhaps The Most Value-For-Money Phone From Samsung

Left to right: Galaxy S20 FE, Galaxy S20, Galaxy S20+, Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G Credit: Samsung

The original Galaxy S20 series phones were great, but now Samsung has come out with the Galaxy S20 Fan Edition, which takes the best parts of the S20, adds some more great features and puts it into an affordable package.

Let’s start off with the screen. It’s a 6.5-inch OLED display, which is notably larger than what you get from the standard S20 at 6.2-inch. Thankfully, Samsung has kept the 120Hz refresh rate on this phone, which means you get a super smooth experience when scrolling through pages and viewing content.

When using the 120Hz refresh rate, you’ll only be able to use the screen in 1080p, but it’s the same deal as with the original S20 phones. It’s also a flat display with no curved edges, so there’s more usable screen space.

You also get 5G support with this phone, which is great. The phone is powered by the Snapdragon 865 chip and 6GB of RAM, which means everything runs smoothly, from switching between apps to playing games and watching videos.

Despite all the good though, Samsung has had to find places to cut costs on in order to provide this phone at the price they’re asking for it.

One such area is the back of the phone. Yes, it’s plastic. But even so, it feels great in the hand, and it doesn’t feel cheap.

Another is the cameras. Instead of the high megapixel lenses that came with the original S20 series, the S20 FE is using two 12MP lenses for the wide and ultrawide along with an 8MP telephoto lens instead.

Night mode

In the daytime, the cameras perform as you’d expect, and Night mode works fine too, even though it’s definitely not as powerful as other phones like the Google Pixel phones.

You also lose the ability to shoot videos in 8K, although the S20 FE still has 4K video recording. Honestly, I think this isn’t that big a deal, as most people will likely stick to 4K video recording anyway.

Another point of contention is that there’s only 128GB of storage on this phone. It is, however, expandable with a MicroSD card up to 1TB, so no worries about running out of space. It’s just a little annoying that you have to purchase a MicroSD card for it.

Do also take note that there’s no protective case or earbuds in the box, so if you want those, you’ll have to purchase them separately too.

Back to the good points. The phone supports 25W fast charge, although you’ll have to purchase the 25W charger separately since the one in the box is only 15W. There’s also wireless charging, which is always a nice addition. There’s also reverse wireless charging which means you can charge your Samsung earbuds and watch with this phone if you have them.

The phone also has a 4,500mAh battery, which is definitely bigger than the original 4,000mAh battery found in the S20. This results in better battery life, with a full charge lasting me 1.5 days on moderate usage.

There’s also IP68 dust and water resistance, so no worries about getting caught in the rain with the S20 FE.

Credit: Samsung

Honestly, it’s quite ridiculous how much Samsung has packed into this phone for the price they’re asking. It’s definitely a good phone, and the tradeoffs are quite minimal. No 8K video? Slightly less RAM compared to the base S20? No glass back? Those are all quite minor quibbles that most people won’t really complain about.

For more information or to support us, get the Samsung S20 FE (RRP S$1,098) on Amazon here.