Samsung S20 Fe Camera Glass Replacement
TechRadar Verdict
While the Samsung Galaxy S20 Fan Edition perhaps isn't the best case of a 'lite' phone nosotros've seen, it's nonetheless a great choice for plenty of people who were interested in the standard Galaxy S20 but plant that handset a little besides expensive. The S20 FE has three of the S20's winning traits: a fast screen refresh rate, great photography potential, and a powerful processor. It'southward just a shame that the design feels a little cheap, and the toll isn't as low every bit we might have hoped.
Pros
- +
Can take keen pictures
- +
Powerful processor
- +
Vibrant color options
Cons
- -
Non very 'lite' in price
- -
Cheap-feeling design
- -
Battery life feels lacking
Two-minute review
The Samsung Galaxy S20 Fan Edition technically isn't the 'Milky way S20 Lite' that many were expecting, but that distinction is in name merely, because this mid-range Galaxy telephone is essentially a more than affordable spin on the Galaxy S20 from early on 2020.
So while you could consider this a Samsung Milky way S20 Fan Edition review, information technology'south likewise a review of the S20 Lite, if you'd rather telephone call it that. This is a slightly older mobile at present, and information technology's been replaced in the company's line-up by the Samsung Galaxy S21 Iron, but information technology still might be worth considering if you find information technology reduced or second-hand.
If the Milky way S20 tempted you, just its starting cost of $999 / £899 / AU$1,499 (for a 5G model) put you lot off, then the Milky way S20 Fan Edition (or FE for short) may be for y'all. Information technology has many of the flagship's top features, including a super-smooth 120Hz screen, useful photography tricks and a capable processor, only at a lower starting cost.
Well, we say the price is lower, but maybe not enough and so – with a launch price of $699 / £699 / AU$1,149 (for the 5G model) - though oftentimes reduced now - the Samsung Galaxy S20 Iron is certainly more affordable than the base-model S20, but it's still pricier than many other phones with similar features and specs.
Buy this if yous're committed to the Samsung line and want something more than than a Milky way A-series phone – but know that you could get a similarly spec'd telephone from a Chinese brand for a lot less.
In fact, the Galaxy S22 starts at only $799 / £769 / AU$1,249, so for a relatively small price increment, you could become a much amend phone. Galaxy S20 Fe deals are your friend in this regard, then, and thankfully they're plentiful now, with the phone often selling for about 50% less than it did at launch.
The Samsung Milky way S20 FE comes in a wide variety of middle-communicable colors, from a pale mint to vivid red and more than besides, and at that place'south much more than diversity than the typically limited selection of other smartphones. The design could be divisive though, as the screen doesn't curve at the edges, and the back of the handset is plastic, making the phone experience relatively cheap in the hand.
Another event is that the battery life feels lacking. With medium or heavy use the phone wouldn't necessarily last a full day, and if nosotros took a lot of photos or indulged in lengthy gaming sessions nosotros'd have to accuse it in the evening. This is likely due in big part to a couple of power-hungry top-tier features, including the 120Hz screen and 5G connectivity, so if you don't make much utilize of those you'll stand up a better chance of your phone making it through a full twenty-four hours.
The Samsung Galaxy S20 Atomic number 26's positives outweigh the negatives though. Lots of the Samsung Milky way S20's photographic camera features are dorsum here, like Single Take, which captures photos and video using all three rear cameras and picks out the best, and an improved Night Way that uses the large main camera sensor. Samsung'southward excellent scene optimization is hither as well, helping y'all to go some great-looking snaps.
The high screen refresh rate and top-end processor are a couple of overnice premium flourishes, and show Samsung hasn't cut besides many corners in order to go on the price of the phone down.
If you're reading this introduction and finding the messages somewhat mixed, then you lot're getting an accurate reflection of our experience with the phone – in that location are things we really liked, and things nosotros really didn't. The Samsung Milky way S20 Atomic number 26 is proficient just not great, and while it's probably not the best implementation of a 'Galaxy S20 Lite' we could accept seen, it'south still one worth considering.
Samsung Galaxy S20 Fe cost and availability
- Started at $699 / £699 / AU$1,149
- Cost cuts since launch
- Went on sale in late 2020
Samsung Milky way S20 FE specs
Weight: 190g
Dimensions: 159.viii ten 74.5 x viii.4mm
Display size: 6.v-inch
Resolution: 1080 x 2400
Chipset: Snapdragon 865
RAM: 6/8GB
Storage: 128/256GB
Rear camera: 12MP + 8MP + 12MP
Front camera: 32MP
Pre-installed software: Android 10
Bombardment: 4,500mAh
Charging: 25W wired, 15W wireless
The Samsung Galaxy S20 Fan Edition was announced on September 23, 2020, and became bachelor to buy on October two. That release engagement was roughly six months subsequently the Milky way S20'south launch, and a few more months passed before the Samsung Milky way S21 launched in January 2021.
The Samsung Galaxy S20 FE price started at $699 / £699 / AU$one,149 – that'southward for a 5G model though, and in some countries there's a 4G model available too (check out our all-time Samsung Galaxy S20 Atomic number 26 deals to observe out more).
This started at £599 in the Uk and AU$999 in Australia, but unless y'all live in a place that's probable not going to run across 5G for years, or you lot really don't think you'll need the super-fast download speeds it offers, we wouldn't recommend buying this version as you're non getting the future-proofing the 5G model offers.
Since the S20 Fe is a little one-time, though, you'll probable see it for a much lower price than that now. In fact at the time of writing you can get it for $411 / £339 on Amazon, and the price might driblet further during Amazon Prime Day or other sales events. Though equally this phone is getting on a bit, information technology might not be the all-time selection for you lot either.
As mentioned, the Galaxy S20 started at $999 / £899 / AU$ane,499, so a fair amount more than, although we'd argue that both phones are pretty expensive for their specs. For context, the Milky way S21 and Galaxy S22 both launched at $799 / £769 / AU$1,249.
Given that in the UK you lot tin buy a 120Hz-screen phone for less than £200 (the Poco X3 NFC), and that in many markets in that location are more affordable Snapdragon 865 phones, the Samsung Milky way S20 Atomic number 26 certainly isn't the cheapest way to get any of its specs. Merely if you're a Samsung devotee this might be a better buy than a Galaxy A telephone – those have lower price tags again, and it shows.
Samsung Galaxy S20 Iron pattern
- No curved-edge screen
- 'Glasstic' back
- Broad variety of colors
At a glance the Samsung Galaxy S20 Fan Edition looks similar to the Milky way S20 – it has a similar rectangular rear camera block, and a forepart-facing snapper in the same position equally on the S20, but when you await closer the differences begin to announced.
Firstly, the Samsung Galaxy S20 Iron is bigger than the S20, with dimensions of 159.8 x 74.5 x 8.4mm (that's eight.1 x 5.4 x 0.5mm more than than the S20). Secondly, the edges of the screen don't curve at all, and then the phone doesn't feel as comfortable in the manus – although given how that design characteristic can exist quite divisive, some may not heed that they're missing out.
The back of the phone is slightly rounded, and this makes up for the lack of the curved screen edges in terms of handfeel to some extent, although we'd still prefer to take the latter. Instead, in that location'due south a sparse but noticeable bezel around the screen; this design feature tends to show up in lower-end handsets, and as such it makes the Galaxy S20 FE look a piddling inexpensive, and there's ane other pattern choice which adds to the slightly 'budget' feel.
The Galaxy S20 FE'due south back is fabricated of Samsung's 'Glasstic', plastic that's designed to look and experience more like premium glass. The trick doesn't work, yet – Glasstic is very clearly plastic in touch and experience, and it's a questionable design choice for a telephone that costs this much – we've seen Motorola phones for a fraction of the price which feel more premium in the paw. Samsung has used Glasstic before in the Galaxy Note 20, and we didn't like it there, so it's a shame the company saw fit to bring information technology back.
One possible upside is that the plastic back should withstand a little more punishment than glass, and in combination with the IP68 rating (dustproof and submergible at ii meters for up to xxx minutes) it means the FE is a pretty hardy device.
The phone comes in a wide choice of colors: Cloud Lavender (pink), Cloud Orange (pale orange), Cloud Ruddy (red), Cloud Mint (blueish-green), Cloud White (white) and Deject Navy (dark blueish). That's a lot more options than you get with most phones, and this diversity is great for people who find the limited choices for many phones too bland.
At the pinnacle-left of the phone's rear is the camera bump, which doesn't stick out much, and so you tin lay the phone down almost-apartment on surfaces. On the right edge of the phone is the book rocker, and below that is the power push, which feels at the right height to be easily accessible no affair how large or modest your easily.
At that place's a USB-C port hither, but no iii.5mm headphone jack – this isn't totally surprising, as the other S20 phones also lacked the port, merely given that some of Samsung's more affordable phones exercise have it, yous could be forgiven for having expected to run into it here.
Samsung Galaxy S20 FE display
- 6.5-inch display
- FHD+ resolution
- 120Hz refresh rate
The Samsung Galaxy S20 Fan Edition screen has a FHD+, or 2400 x 1080, resolution. That's pretty standard for a smartphone, but given that the S20 phones had WQHD 3200 ten 1440 resolutions, this represents one of the notable downgrades for the S20'southward 'lite' model.
The 120Hz refresh rate is here though, which the display updates 120 times per second, so twice as fast every bit the 60Hz 'standard' of many other smartphones (including the Annotation 20). A higher refresh rate makes motion look smoother, whether y'all're playing games or swiping through menus, although depending on what you're doing you won't necessarily discover the difference. It'due south worth pointing out that 120Hz is the maximum setting, and you can drop down to 60Hz in the settings if you desire to save on bombardment life.
Information technology's also worth noting that the Galaxy S20 phones just permit you enable either 120Hz or WQHD+ at the same time, not both simultaneously – and so if you desire to use 120Hz you take to downgrade the screen resolution to FHD+. And then if you prioritize a fast refresh rate over resolution, you lot can effectively savour the same screen functioning on the S20 SE as on its premium siblings.
The Samsung Galaxy S20 Iron has a 6.5-inch screen, bigger than the six.2-inch display on the Galaxy S20, but smaller than the 6.7-inch and vi.nine-inch screens on the S20 Plus and S20 Ultra. This brandish is broken up by a 'punch-hole' cutting-out in the top-center – it's pretty small, and and so doesn't steal much screen space.
In general, as we've come to expect from Samsung, the S20 Atomic number 26'southward screen looks good, with bold colors and high contrast ratios. Max effulgence is okay, although the screen doesn't excel in direct sunlight, especially given that the automated brightness sometimes felt a little dimmer than it should.
Samsung Galaxy S20 Iron cameras
- 12MP main + 12MP ultra-wide + 8MP telephoto
- 32MP selfie photographic camera with ultra-wide lens
- Loads of useful camera modes
The Samsung Galaxy S20 Fan Edition has iii rear cameras, with 12MP f/1.8 chief, 12MP f/two.two ultra-broad and 8MP f/2.4 telephoto snappers. While on paper those specs might seem inferior to those of the Galaxy S20 phones, due to the lack of a high-res sensor on the telephoto snapper, nosotros didn't really find the FE's camera chops demonstrably worse – in fact, we found that the pictures nosotros took looked pretty slap-up.
The main photographic camera has a large sensor, so it 'sees' light, and therefore colour, better – snaps looked bright and punchy, with everything from blue skies to dark-green plants looking bold. Samsung's constructive AI scene optimization likely has a hand here also, as that tweaks your images depending on what yous're pointing the camera at.
At present and so, colors looked a bit too bold though, as though the scene optimization had gotten overzealous, making images wait rather artificial. You lot can easily switch off this processing feature though.
The S20 FE's ultra-broad camera squeezes in twice as much of the scene you're shooting compared to the main snapper – that'south more than comparable snappers on other devices. Information technology captures shots at 0.5x zoom, compared to 0.6x on most, and then you'll see even more of your vista or grouping of friends in the frame.
Finally, the telephoto camera facilitates 3x optical and 30x digital zoom, and in our testing it proved fairly good at closing the distance without losing detail. Our one result we plant was that zoomed-in shots had duller colors than ones taken with the other snappers – this could be as a consequence of the lower-res sensor, or perhaps the scene optimization isn't as effective for zoom shots. You might only notice this if y'all compare snaps side-by-side though.
A absurd feature here, that you won't detect in many rivals, is that when you lot're at a high zoom level, a small preview will show you the whole scene you're zoomed in to. This means that if you discover yourself then zoomed-in that you lot lose rails of where you lot are in relation to the wider scene, you tin easily re-frame. The screenshot above should illustrate how constructive it is.
A large selling signal for the Samsung Galaxy S20 was Unmarried Accept photography mode, and information technology'due south back here: y'all bespeak your phone camera at a subject, enable the mode, and then record a short 5-to-15-second video, panning around the scene every bit you lot practise and so. The phone then selects the best still frames and video clips from the various sensors and edits them for you. Information technology's a fun mode to use, and can result in some great snaps you might non otherwise get.
There are also returning modes here including Panorama, Night, Alive Focus (Samsung's take on Portrait manner), Live Focus Video, and two Tiresome-Mo modes – the 1 called 'Wearisome Motion' is useful, but 'Super Slow-Mo' takes such a short clip that we establish it difficult to utilize, as we oftentimes missed the action.
The Dark mode here is particularly useful, as information technology utilizes the chief camera's large sensor to accept in lots of low-cal in low-light settings. Information technology'southward pretty like shooting fish in a barrel to use, as you don't have to concur the telephone however for too long, as some nighttime modes require you lot to do, and the resulting pictures are pretty well-lit.
The front-facing camera is a 32MP f/2.0 snapper, but note that if you accept a regular selfie, you're not getting a 32MP picture – that's because this sensor is paired with a wide-angle lens. You'll merely get a high-res flick if you accept a wider shot, while if it's a close-upwards featuring only y'all, the photo will exist automatically cropped.
This is a pretty ingenious solution for letting you capture both solo and group selfies without having multiple forepart-facing snappers, and we wouldn't be surprised to see other companies adopt it.
Selfies look pretty skillful at the default settings, with authentic and appropriate background blur, while if yous use Alive Focus mode for selfies you get a range of controls for groundwork effects and edits, and then we constitute ourselves using this much of the time.
The Milky way S20 Fan Edition records video up to 4K 60fps, from both the front and dorsum cameras, and at that place'southward also a Pro Video, similar to the Pro photo mode that most all smartphone cameras have, which lets you conform diverse settings. Some of the video features, like moving autofocus and other effects, only work when shooting in 1080p 30fps though, and that'south also the max resolution for aspect ratios other than 16:9, so if y'all're trying to do professional person shooting you'll have to consider the trade-offs.
Photographic camera samples
Samsung Milky way S20 Iron specs and operation
- 5G and 4G versions bachelor
- Snapdragon 865 or Exynos 990 chipset
- Not bad for gaming and general utilise
The 5G version of the Samsung Galaxy S20 Fan Edition runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 chipset, while the 4G version uses Samsung'south ain Exynos 990. Both are superlative-cease chipsets (while there is a 865 Plus, it's more a gaming-oriented upgrade), but nosotros've constitute that Snapdragon 8-series processors typically outperform their Exynos counterparts.
Nosotros've but tested the 5G phone, and in our benchmarking tests it returned a multi-core score of three,130, slightly more than than the 3,034 achieved by the Galaxy S20 Plus with the same chipset. That's a high score, roughly equal to the results we've seen from the Sony Xperia 1 Ii, Black Shark 3 and OnePlus 8 Pro, and those phones were all great for gaming, multi-tasking and more.
As that score would advise, the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE was smooth and snappy in employ, whether we were scrolling through menus, opening apps, taking loads of pictures in quick succession or playing games.
Gaming in particular felt fast and responsive – we never experienced any lag or glitches, even when playing demanding games like Phone call of Duty: Mobile and PUBG Mobile at meridian settings.
The phone's speakers are pretty good – they're not top-finish, either in terms of sound quality or maximum volume, just they're fit for purpose whether yous're gaming, watching a movie or simply listening to music from the phone.
Samsung Galaxy S20 FE software
- Android 10 at launch, now up to Android 12
- Samsung's OneUI laid over the pinnacle
- Feels quick to navigate
The Samsung Milky way S20 Fan Edition comes with Android 10 built in, though you tin now update it to Android 12. Earlier the Milky way S20 FE'southward launch, Samsung promised that future phones would go at least iii years of Android updates, so you'll definitely become Android 13, and perhaps beyond.
Android 10'south primal features include a organisation-broad Dark Mode, which you tin enable from the Settings menu, Digital Wellbeing tools, and 'Bubbles' that enable y'all to display messages from advice apps over other apps that you lot have open.
The Milky way S20 FE operating system has OneUI laid over the top, which is Samsung'south ain Android 'fork'. As with almost custom UIs, the changes this brings are mainly visual, only OneUI also offers plenty of customization options, more so than many other overlays.
For example, there's a large range of widgets available for the abode screen, downloadable themes, and the selection to alter the font of all the text on the phone.
Navigating the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE menus and home pages felt snappy, thanks both to the processor and refresh rate, and we were never left waiting for apps to load, or for the device to grab upward with our swiping fingers.
Samsung Galaxy S20 FE battery life
- 4,500mAh main battery
- Battery life struggled to attain a day
- 25W wired, 15W wireless and 4.5W contrary charging
The Samsung Milky way S20 Fan Edition's 4,500mAh battery is fairly boilerplate for a smartphone, and nosotros establish it lasted roughly a total day – although that's if y'all don't spend too much time enjoying some of the phone's bells and whistles.
Features like the 120Hz display, 5G connectivity and always-on brandish are all bombardment hogs, and particularly when used together they tin dramatically reduce how long the phone lasts between charges. When these were enabled, on a typical day we'd finish work with around 30% battery or less remaining, and we'd always have to accuse the phone to make it through the evening if we wanted to play a game or watch Netflix.
In that location are a few different power-saving modes that y'all can enable, each of which turns off certain features, and if you buy the Galaxy S20 FE we'd recommend that you experiment with these if you want to max-out your battery life.
We found ourselves using the adaptive power saving option when using the phone, which turns features off or on depending on what you're doing, in order to keep the phone ticking a little flake longer.
The charging speed here is 25W, which isn't the fastest, simply if yous're powering up your telephone overnight you won't mind – it'll become you from empty to 100% in about an hour. There'south likewise 15W wireless charging and 4.5W opposite wireless charging – if you've got a smartwatch or earbuds that power upward wirelessly the latter feature may be useful, as it lets y'all utilize your smartphone as a wireless charging pad.
Should y'all buy the Samsung Galaxy S20 Fan Edition?
Purchase it if...
Don't buy information technology if...
Also consider
First reviewed: October 2020
Source: https://www.techradar.com/au/reviews/samsung-galaxy-s20-fan-edition-review
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