OLED screen, top processor, good battery life and everything from 540 Euro: The good Samsung’s inexpensive S 20 models.

Android smartphones Samsung Galaxy S 20 FE and S 20 FE 5G in the test Display & camera Power Conclusion and test table Article in c’t 1 / 2021 read A good six months after the Top smartphones of the Galaxy S series 20 Samsung has the S 20 FE published. In terms of size, rather an S 20 +, the price is a little below the more compact S 20 (without a plus). The most noticeable differences are a simpler back made of matt plastic instead of glass and the availability of bright housing colors such as dark blue, red or orange. The screen does not have any curvature at the edges, as is otherwise common on most Galaxy S models. The “FE” stands for “Fan Edition”, but in principle it is the successor to the Galaxy S 10 Lite from last fall. Its concept was similar: a large screen without any curvature, a plastic back and a little cheaper.

In addition, Samsung deviates from its usual processor configuration in the FE. Most Galaxy S models are usually available in the US with the top-of-the-line SoC from Qualcomm and in Europe and many other regions with an Exynos SoC developed in-house. At the S 20 FE, Samsung takes a different approach: The 5G version contains the Snapdragon 865; the normal 4G (LTE) version gets the Exynos 990. It doesn’t have a very good reputation: Compared to the Snapdragon 865 it is considered to be slower and more power-hungry, which leads to poorer battery life and more frequent throttling under continuous load. So it makes sense to compare the two models and to put the differences in numbers, because apart from the SoC, the two FEs are absolutely identical.

Display & camera The hardware of the FE is opposite the S 20 slimmed down in some places. So the display has no QHD + resolution (1440 p) , but class-standard FullHD + (1080 p), but the Anyway, the difference can only be seen with eagle eyes. The frame rate of 101 Fortunately, Hertz kept Samsung; Scrolling and other animations look extremely fluid. The plastic back is on the one hand less noble than the glass back of the more expensive S 20, on the other hand, the matt plastic looks more robust and the device is more secure in the hand.

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