**** The Official Samsung Galaxy S20 Family Thread ****

  • Thread starter Thread starter mrk
  • Start date Start date
I've been using the S20 FE 5G for a couple of days now. When it was first announced, I wasn't at all interested, but I eventually decided it was the best of the available options. Two or three devices ago I had a Note 10+ and always thought it lacked only a high refresh screen, a decent night time camera and I found the ultrasonic fingerprint reader really poor.

The FE fixes all three of those problems and I'm very pleased with it so far. The camera is good, the battery life is good, it has an SD 865 SoC and the screen is flat, which make it (I believe) unique.

The plastic back is fine. Fair enough it doesn't feel as premium as glass, but early smartphones always had plastic backs and it never really bothered me.

I was also worried about the 6gb RAM and so far it hasn't been a problem. The memory utilisation is much lower than it was on my old Note 10+, so there's clearly some app dumping going on, but it's subtle enough that I haven't noticed.

All in all, the FE is a good phone. It performs like a flagship and is priced how a flagship should be priced.
 
Squink said:
I've been using the S20 FE 5G for a couple of days now. When it was first announced, I wasn't at all interested, but I eventually decided it was the best of the available options. Two or three devices ago I had a Note 10+ and always thought it lacked only a high refresh screen, a decent night time camera and I found the ultrasonic fingerprint reader really poor.

The FE fixes all three of those problems and I'm very pleased with it so far. The camera is good, the battery life is good, it has an SD 865 SoC and the screen is flat, which make it (I believe) unique.

The plastic back is fine. Fair enough it doesn't feel as premium as glass, but early smartphones always had plastic backs and it never really bothered me.

I was also worried about the 6gb RAM and so far it hasn't been a problem. The memory utilisation is much lower than it was on my old Note 10+, so there's clearly some app dumping going on, but it's subtle enough that I haven't noticed.

All in all, the FE is a good phone. It performs like a flagship and is priced how a flagship should be priced.
Click to expand...

It does bother me a bit that some EU regions get the 8GB version and the UK once again is stuck with the low tier one, but other than that, sounds perfect. I also had those issues with the Note 10+.

I imagine importing the 8GB one shouldn't be too much of an issue though.
 
Squink said:
I've been using the S20 FE 5G for a couple of days now. When it was first announced, I wasn't at all interested, but I eventually decided it was the best of the available options. Two or three devices ago I had a Note 10+ and always thought it lacked only a high refresh screen, a decent night time camera and I found the ultrasonic fingerprint reader really poor.

The FE fixes all three of those problems and I'm very pleased with it so far. The camera is good, the battery life is good, it has an SD 865 SoC and the screen is flat, which make it (I believe) unique.

The plastic back is fine. Fair enough it doesn't feel as premium as glass, but early smartphones always had plastic backs and it never really bothered me.

I was also worried about the 6gb RAM and so far it hasn't been a problem. The memory utilisation is much lower than it was on my old Note 10+, so there's clearly some app dumping going on, but it's subtle enough that I haven't noticed.

All in all, the FE is a good phone. It performs like a flagship and is priced how a flagship should be priced.
Click to expand...
Yep I agree with pretty much all of that. I too had a Note 10+ for about a week and ended up going with the 7T Pro. The FE just feels like a much nicer phone to use than the Note 10+. Adding to what you said I didn't like the Note's boxy design and I thought the centre hole punch was a monstrosity. Obviously I'd rather the FE didn't have one as well but at least it's considerably smaller and definitely not as noticeable. I know Samsung have taken a bit of flack for the inexplicable silver ring around the hole punch which boggles the mind. However, in its defence I will say that when watching full screen videos the silver ring actually helps it blend in a bit more, particularly in brighter videos. And it's only when it catches the light in a certain way.
As for the 6gb RAM, I stated earlier I have found it to be more than ample. I definitely prefer it to the 8gb on the 7T Pro so clearly Samsung have better optimisation built in somewhere.
I don't mind the plastic back. It's certainly the most premium plastic back I've ever held and for the money and weight savings I would happily have that as the new 'norm' over glass, not to mention the durability aspect. Besides I've a clear case on it now anyway so the back could be made of anything for all that it matters.
The SD chip is great. Admittedly I'm no power user so I doubt I'd ever see the benefit in performance but the battery life is the best on any Samsung I've owned - and I've owned many.
 
Just got an update for my FE. Changelog highlights camera and touch screen stability enhancements but it doesn't get any more specific than that. Time will tell...
October security patch also.
 
One item to report since yesterday's update, the fingerprint scanner seems to be much improved. It must have been tied in with the screen responsiveness patch.
I have found that my 'second attempts' have decreased considerably.
 
It would be nice if they improved the rather average standby performance of the FE. It's a battery beast for SoT, but standby drain is high.
 
Squink said:
It would be nice if they improved the rather average standby performance of the FE. It's a battery beast for SoT, but standby drain is high.
Click to expand...
Yeah always a downfall with Samsung. However, I have noticed it's considerably less with the SD than Exynos chip, but still not stellar.
I have made some adjustments that have definitely helped. I run a Bixby routine that implements various features at night (midnight to 7am give or take) and my overnight drain has definitely decreased.
I also have 5g turned off all the time which has made a good difference. Of course this doesn't help anyone who actually has 5g but where I live I'll be lucky to see it by the time the S30 series is released so I'm happy to just keep it off.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom