Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G LONG Review - Is the HYPE real? By Chris Panton

Welcome back YouTube. My name is Chris. Today we're going to be reviewing the Samsung Galaxy, s20 Fe, 5g Fe stands for fan edition, and I wanted to give my true honest experience feedback for using this device for the past two weeks, but I want to give you just cut dry raw of my experience. I'm gonna just talk as I come across things and remember things off the top of my head: full disclosure. I did purchase this through T-Mobile, so my experience might be slightly different from yours, so, let's get right into it. First, we're going to start off and go through each little of the phone.

I want to go through this thoroughly. That way you have the most amount of information. Now I'm coming from using the pixel 4, I wanted to try something different, and so here we are today, so I picked this up on T-Mobile with their deal of trading in a device getting 500 off and also getting 200 credit for using insider code. So theory that makes this phone free, and I want to keep that in perspective. When I'm informing you of my experiences on this and whether I recommend this, if you did get that deal, then fantastic, you got an excellent deal for a pretty much a flagship phone now, if you paid full price for this, that's where things get a little tricky, and in my experience and my point of view, so, let's start off with the design of this device.

Now the design I really enjoyed um, it feels great. It looks great. It also helps that Samsung offers this in a myriad of colors, ranging from white to red to black to this nice cloud, mist mint color. I love this color. It does a perfect job on hiding fingerprints.

I can't really talk about the other colors, but at least this one fingerprints are minimal now, the back it has this matte finish, and I think it does a really nice job on something that Samsung cut corners on to save money, and that is going with a plastic back. So that is good for two things: one. This allows for a lighter device. It also keeps the phone from being as fragile as something that's made out of glass, so it's going to be a little more durable. In that sense, too, you don't worry about the back, cracking just the front.

The device, the frame of the phone is actually aluminum, so you are going to be holding metal. It's not like the OnePlus word, where it's plastic, and this shiny paint is just covering it, so you're holding metal. It does give you a nice firm, feel and sturdy feel of the device um you have USB-C at the bottom, no headphone jack, not a big deal most devices nowadays, don't have it anyways the feel, in the hand, is actually quite comfortable. I didn't have really many issues in terms of using the device in that regard. All the buttons are easily accessible, regardless if you're, left-handed or right-handed.

It was actually nice and refreshing to have that power button on the bottom right, where my thumb rests, versus on the pixel, the power button being on top of the volume buttons it took a little getting used to, but I think, if you're coming from another Samsung phone or another android device, that's not going to be an issue at all. There's no Bixby button hooray, but by default Samsung makes the power button a Bixby button. So you can't press and hold it down to open up your power menu. You actually open a Bixby. You have to go into the settings and make that change.

So keep that in mind as well. In terms of overall size of this device, it is on par with any android device that is 6.5 inch display, which I'll get into in just a little, but it is a pretty hefty device. It is 190 grams. So it's not the lightest phone, especially from me, coming from a pixel 4, a very small light device that did take some time getting used to, but overall one-handed usability was difficult. Obviously you can't reach up to the top.

With your thumb and across the screen, depending on the size of your hands, that can also be a challenge for you and so the specs. On this I said at the beginning, this being pretty much a flagship device, and I want to keep that in terms of its own realm, so to speak. Um. I say that because a lot of these mid-range phones nowadays have these top-of-the-line specs companies from Xiaomi, uh, OnePlus, real me, etc. , etc.

All these can put a quick processor huge ram and undercut competition by pricing, their devices very cheap. So this has a snapdragon 865. So not the 865 plus not really a big deal, you're not going to really notice a difference. The 5g model here in the US does have 6 gigs of ram depending on your region. You might have 8 gigs of ram, so just bear that in mind.

So, so far so good. It also does actually have 120 gigs of internal storage at UFS 3.1, so very fast storage, you're going to be able to load things, install apps very quickly on this, so performance top-notch, 100, no issue any flagship device, really you're going to not really notice the difference in performance. If you talk about real use, uh usability, so I'm not really going to get into specs in terms of benchmarks. Those were just splitting hairs at this point, you're not going to really see a difference. You do have dual firing speakers, one up here on the earpiece and one at the bottom.

Let's take a listen. This does have 5g and that is fantastic. First time experiencing 5g here in actually Tennessee pretty much everywhere. I went in terms of the city I got mostly 5g and was getting up to 200 megabits and, depending on the areas, maybe a little faster, maybe a little slower so happy to see that. So, in terms of the front you have a nice 6.5 inch super AMOLED display it is 1080p, so you're not getting any of that. Quad HD resolution, like you, would on another flagship device, so just a note there.

So when you look at the device on the front side, actually you can see the front-facing camera. It's not nice good. Looking like you would expect on other devices. There's a silver gray ring around the front, it's probably to differentiate the flagship from a lower end device most other devices. If not all, I think, is the first time I've seen it on a phone that it's not black, it doesn't blend in sticks out when you have the screen off, but when you're actually using the device, it's not too terrible terribly noticeable, but it is noticeable nonetheless, so just a heads-up there, you might have already seen this from other reviews, but again just something else that Samsung has done to make this phone look a little cheaper than their other flagships.

Also, when you unlock the phone, these the pinhole punch, is actually bigger and then, as soon as you unlock the device that hole is much smaller itself. The front glass is gorilla, glass 3. So it's not a nice up-to-date version of gorilla glass. It's another cost-saving measure, but if you use a tempered glass screen protector, which I did in this video, you can check that out and Mr shields screen protectors for the galaxy a51 fit on this. Just fine and that's what I've been using and haven't had any sort of issues you can check out that video on the installation and how it looks and everything else.

In my experience with that now, this also includes 120 hertz, which means super buttery, smooth response in terms of the overall UI. It's interesting because apps, like chrome, twitter, Reddit and a couple others I noticed. While I was scrolling, it would jump it would jitter it wouldn't scroll as smooth as you would expect, as 120 hertz. I don't know if it's, because the apps aren't optimized or maybe the phone and those apps don't work quite well with one UI 2.5. I don't know it just seemed weird outside the actual one UI system operating system from Samsung through all the settings scrolling swiping, you name it buttery, smooth, no issues whatsoever.

It looks great feels great, and it's very responsive. Now there has been a lot of reports on DA. I experienced it a little myself in terms of the screen being very sensitive. Now I submitted a bug report. Samsung has stated that they have noticed that there are some issues and upon initial touching of the screen, they are working on a bug fix for that I'll hold my breath.

So this has an optical fingerprint scanner. So that means a couple of things the fingerprint is built into the display. It uses a camera to basically capture the image of your fingerprint and compare it to what was scanned. When you enrolled your fingerprint, it works fine, it's fast, it's reliable, have no issues whatsoever, it works when you are on the always on display, and it unlocks no issues. The issue that I have, maybe because I haven't used in screen fingerprint scanner since the OnePlus 7 pro, but when you wake up in the morning, and it's dark in your room, what do you expect when you turn on your device? The screen to be very dim and dark right? Well with this device? If you don't just tap it, to have the always on display, enabled you turn on the screen and guess what the screen brightness is completely full max brightness without blue tint, even on, even though you have turned on blue tint to be active until you turn it off or have it on a schedule whatever it is.

You waking up the screen to unlock the device, with your fingerprint will disable that blue tint and blind you till you wake up, and it's very annoying. It is also very inconvenient because it could also wake up your partner, your spouse, whoever it might be next to you in the morning or at night, and wake them up, because the screen brightness, even though it's a plus, is extremely bright. Um brightness on this, like I just mentioned, is great. I can read it outdoors in Sunday light and have no issues whatsoever. I do have a complaint that the screen doesn't get dim enough.

Furthermore, I do like to use my devices at night. Furthermore, I do have blue filter turned on, so that way, it's easier on my eyes. Furthermore, I do want to help my eyes in terms of falling asleep. That's why my glasses have blue filter built into them, but also I have the screen. Brightness turned all the way down, and it's not dim enough compared to my pixel 4 that I can have it all the way down and if I have no issues with it whatsoever with the blue filter and yeah.

The face unlock because there is no sort of sensors for facing unlocking um is just using the front camera to compare the image of your face. So it's not going to be the most secure, plus it's not going to work at nighttime. So keep that in mind as well, something I did notice while using this device for the past two weeks is while scrolling, even though it is 120 hertz, it seems like the screen still slightly lags beta between responsiveness when I'm moving my finger um. So I don't know if it's just the pulling rate of touch input or something like that, but it is still definitely buttery smooth. I don't think anyone will ever really notice.

I'm just really nitpicking at this point. Also, with the display in my initial unboxing, I did cover just briefly the screen modes, so the vivid and natural modes, so I prefer natural because the vivid over saturated a lot of the colors, especially reds, they were very harsh, and they didn't look very natural to me. Unfortunately, if you choose natural, you don't have a way to choose the white balance of the screen anymore. You don't have the option to choose between a warm or cooler tone, which is kind of really unfortunate. I wanted to be able to have a natural color palette for the display, but also have a warmer hue for white balance.

You can't do both, so that was a bummer to see so. Software wise, I feel like Samsung, has dropped the ball. I haven't used a Samsung device. If you watch my unboxing of this device, I mentioned, I haven't used a Samsung phone since the Galaxy S6. The software has done miles of upgrades from touch wiz.

This is now running. One UI 2.5, I just feel like Samsung- has done so much with the software. It looks great, but coming from a pixel experience or even OnePlus, the software is very convoluted. It's overwhelming one UI you had to go through a lot of settings. They have settings galore way too much for me to even cover and for me to even feel comfortable covering, because there are so many I'm not a fan of Bixby.

I prefer Google Assistant, as my assistant in terms of I have. I spent a lot of time going through this phone turning off changing settings, just to get it to way that I like it now on a pixel. It pretty much comes what I'd expect. It's very clean, easy to use this I had to. If you look at it, if I swipe down twice after removing a bunch of quick toggles, I now pretty much are down to maybe three rows.

This sticks the entire screen. I don't want to have to use an entire screen just for a quick toggle, there are tons of wasted space and one UI, and I drive me crazy. The 1ui 3.0 beta for android 11, launched uh recently in the past couple weeks for the galaxy s20 and note 20 series flagships in their own respects, but Samsung did not release it for the Fe edition. Now it concerns me, maybe I'm a little uh conspiracy theorist in that sense, but it concerns me because I feel like Samsung is going to treat this like a mid-range phone to some sense. It can be considered mid-range, but at the sense, if you put flagship specs, if you market it being a great phone cameras, this that, and it's priced at seven hundred dollars- that's not really mid-range price years ago, 700 was a flagship price phone, but because Samsung has such a huge amount of devices ranging from down to 200 all the way up to 2 000 this in their minds can be considered budget in mid-range, and I feel like they're, going to treat it in terms of updates.

Even though they've promised three years of updates of android updates, I wanna I'll believe it. When I see it, um not releasing the one UI 3.0 beta for this right out of the gate is concerning its mid-October. Now, as I'm recording this and there hasn't been an October security patch or any bug fixes for this device whatsoever, there has been talks and there have been apparently releases of the October update in other regions such as Germany, but has not touched the US. Who knows when that's going to happen, and I feel like because they have so many devices in their lineup across so many regions. It's going to take time for timely updates to come to this fan edition, which is something fans I feel like are not going to settle on, and that concerns me a second thing about the software.

This does not support bootloader, unlocking, even if you buy the unlocked variant from Samsung or even Amazon. This does not allow you to unlock the bootloader, at least in the US. I don't know about the European or other regions. I understand it being a carrier model, but if you buy an unlocked device, you should be able to unlock the bootloader regardless of the software. Now rest in peace, Huawei honor those devices you can't unlock the bootloader officially I was expecting to at least be able to flash, maybe a different region firmware on it to unlock it on flash the uh the unlocked firmware onto this to have that option, but nope it is a big.

No. So just know if you go into this wanting to be able to unlock the device in terms of the bootloader root, flash kernels this and that I would run away and not look back on getting the s20 fan edition again, if you're like me, if you're watching this, if you have a curiosity on this device like I did, then you'll be disappointed. Just like I was. I just want to give it to you straight in that regard, so that that's unfortunate, I did install a Franco, kernel's nap time app and give the proper permissions through ADB for additional power saving on this, and I'll get into that in a little. When I get into the battery, I have run into a lot of weird bugs the device has rebooted on itself, with no idea why it's only happened once I have come across where, when I swipe up the entire screen becomes the app and I can swipe between all the apps.

Instead of the apps being small and pages like this and cards, then it becomes the entire screen, and it looks like you can't interact with the phone, but you actually can, it's still in the recent menu, but it just looks completely different until you can actually swipe left back out or tap in the normal area, where an app isn't so just little weird bugs that Samsung has yet to actually fix hoping that there is a fix, submitted, bug reports who know a bug. I was never able to get Google Pay to work. I have just like every other android device gone through the setup process, adding my debit card, and I have security such as my fingerprint face unlock, and it airs out every single terminal. Furthermore, I've tried it on multiple different retailers. Never worked on my pixel 4, I'm even rooted on that device, so I don't know what's going on there, I do have a completely different launcher theme setup on this to make it more look like a pixel device.

I am using action launcher using the pro variant which added additional features such as swiping down on the home screen, double tapping on the home screen to turn off the display having the one, the Google one shelf, basically um, all this sort of features the Google Assistant bar at the bottom, all those things action launcher, definitely recommend checking out in the app store. You can easily search that, so I was able to make my device look and feel close to a pixel device, as I can to be something I'm more familiar with. For my widget up top, I am using over drop, which is a nice beautiful, UI, uh app, and I suggest you check that out as well, but the overall experience for the software I've been ill impressed, so to speak. So big thing for me when I get a flagship device or when I think I'm getting a flagship device, is the cameras, and I'm sure that's with you as well. So the cameras on this are good um.

I say good in relative terms to coming from a pixel, so pixel has been pretty much the spoiler for many android users. They are the top of the line in terms of what you strive for both front-facing portrait, photography, night photography, macrophotography camera in general, so Google Pixel coming to this. I like the idea of having multiple cameras, a wide angle, a super wide angle and a telephoto lens. Now all that is great on paper 12 megapixel with 1.8 aperture, which sounds great another 12 megapixel 2.2 aperture for the ultra ride, and then you also have an 8 megapixel, 2.4 aperture telephoto. So the telephoto, I'm not really a big deal not of interest for, but the ultra-wide and just the standard sensor.

I was excited about because f 1.8 sounds great optical image. Stabilization sounds great. I don't see why there's an issue front camera 32, megapixels, f, 2.2. What is there not to love about it? Well, I feel like again here's something else that Samsung has differentiated this device from the s20 note 20. If they make this device too good compared to those devices, no one's going to buy their top of the line flagship devices they're going to see.

Why do I need to pay 2 000 when I can get the same cameras on this, and I feel like they've skimped out on the cameras in terms of even the software, but also the hardware? I just felt like the camera performance in the output, and I'll have all the pictures from my trip here recently. They look good, but after you zoom in, or you start really like taking notice to a lot of the details in the photo it kind of falls apart and that even is in terms of the front-facing camera front-facing camera, regardless of the lighting that I was in, could not, for the life of me, have any sort of detail in the images. At first glance, it looks great, but as soon as you slightly zoom in look on the details of your face, it looks very smudged um, like water paint, and it just is really weird perfect lighting with all different types of lighting conditions and the front facing camera compared to the pixel at least uh, especially the portrait mode um, which Samsung calls like live effect uh. It did not cut around my head accurately for the portrait effect, the both um and was just very underwhelming um to the output of what the camera took, the rear camera, depending on the situation. What you're going for it might be perfectly adequate for you if you're coming from an older Samsung device, if you're coming from another android device, and you're able to get in on this deal from T-Mobile, for example like trading in s7 getting 500 for it.

I think you have just gone a huge upgrade for this with this phone, if you're coming from another flagship device within the past year, say another Samsung device pixel in my case, I just don't think the camera has done a good enough value for you um to make that jump. If, if camera is what you're, if is what you're going for it does offer 4k 60 frames a second video recording, which is great, it does offer pro mode video and photo mode. So you don't see pro video mode that often in devices. So it was nice to see that if you're coming from a pixel pixel, don't have great video recording capabilities. But this would do you just fine now, because you do have the other lenses you're going to have a lot wider of array of flexibility on how and what you can shoot photos of.

But in my experience using the ultra-wide camera once again disappointed. I shot a photo of this rock formation along the side of the road rocks. There's some water on it with greenery and everything was very distorted on the outer sides of the image. The road actually looks like it's curved, not flat. It just looks like everything was kind of zooming in and like conforming around this sphere kind of like a fish eye almost, and it was really weird- never experienced that in a lot of other devices like OnePlus, they usually have uh a curvature correction in the ultra-wide mode, but nothing like that here so again, that's just some weird photography stuff going on again, I don't know if Samsung is going to put out a fix, no idea, I can't rely on.

I can't wait on fixes that potentially may or may not occur on a device and especially trading in a phone putting money down. I have a certain amount of time to make a decision on what I want to do, and I have decided spoil alert that I'm actually returning the device in terms of battery life. Now we're talking about 5g on this device, we're talking about 120, hertz, 4500 William hour battery by the way inside this it does support wireless charging. Reverse wireless charging fast charging up to 25 watts through USB, so there's a lot going on in here for battery now battery life, I've been pleased um, I have had 5g turned on at all times. I am allowing for 120 hertz to work.

I also work inside a building underground, where service is not actually the best and that kills batteries and pixel 4. That's not really a great comparison, but has terrible battery life. Regardless this I can get through a day and be perfectly fine, 120 hertz and I it is works. I was very surprised I was expecting for me to get about similar battery life to my pixel 4 um and having to charge during the day, but for this I'm able to go throughout the day, let's say charge when I get home and then leave the device unplugged overnight and go through my day and then charge a little later. In the day, I can go easily 14 plus hours, I've gotten consistently over five hours of screen on time.

Several days four and a half hours screen on time- and I was at 50 40 battery life left and to me that is fantastic. Um again, my use case is going to be different from yours. You might have your screen brightness up differently. I have dark mode enabled all the time I used nap time app, just like I mentioned, and so all these things go into affecting your battery life. So just keep that in mind, but overall I think you're going to be pleased with the battery life.

I had no issues whatsoever getting through a solid day of battery use, listening to music, watching some videos, social media texting things like that perfectly fine. Some of you might be interested in haptic feedback. That is something that I was unfortunately disappointed in coming from a pixel. They have one of the best haptic feedback motors for android devices. I enjoyed the feeling of typing of just the system, vibrations that are involved on android and unfortunately, as if you saw my unboxing video, I felt like there was the vibration: wasn't even there even unlocking the device typing, the haptics feel like they're.

Coming from the top part of the phone they're, not very strong, it's a very weak vibration. But yet, even though I have the vibration turned up typing on it, the system feedback isn't strong, but yet vibrations for notifications are quite strong. I think it's because one, depending on how you're resting the phone on the surface that you have is vibrating through the camera and the rest of the body versus when you're holding it, that vibration is not right near where your fingers are, and so I have a feeling that the vibration motor is small and maybe not near towards the bottom, where you're actually holding the device, so it takes away from that premium feel then again you are only paying 700 or, if you're, on the T-Mobile case, got it for free, 200 bucks. I don't know it's just interesting to keep in mind that if you spent that sort of money 700 on a device, I would expect more in terms of more than just fast and fast performance and a smooth display, great looking display. Um I'd prefer something, that's more well-rounded and one being cameras, Pixel 4a, pixel, 3a, pixel, 4a 5g.

All these devices are far cheaper budget even and have one of the best cameras on android for 400 or 350, depending on what type of device you got. I don't know it. It's just infuriating that such a great phone on paper doesn't live up to that paper spec and that's something that a lot of hype, a lot of reviewers, are focusing on that this type of top-end specs flagship phone. Yes, it's great this that that that and then immediately forget about it, don't mention any of the bugs or issues that they come across every phone even from mid-range. Now that uses the mid-range chipset is going to have great performance, and so that's just kind of a given almost unless, if you're talking about a 300 sub 300 phones that uses, maybe MediaTek chipset or a really cheap budget processor, then that's going to be different, but this I don't know um.

Would I recommend it if you did get it for free? Absolutely if you came from an older device that you traded in this is going to be a great upgrade for you if you're coming from another device. Like I mentioned, that was a flagship within the past year. I don't think uh. It's going to be worth upgrading to this. The overall.

The package of this device is quite good. Is it 700 good that I don't know? That's debatable um, but I like the design um. I don't like the software, don't really like the cameras, but if you got a great deal on the Samsung Galaxy, s20 Fe 5g then be happy with it. Use it get used to it, and hopefully Samsung. Do you right with updates fixes, optimizations and software on the cameras? Hopefully they push out the android 11 beta or the even stable, build in a timely manner.

Don't take my word for it experience it for yourself, go to the best, buy T-Mobile carrier store or use it. If you like it, then you can pick it up. If not, you know to walk away, don't say I didn't warn you, but just if you guys have questions comments, concerns leave them down in the comment section below I'll. Do my best to help you out answer them like. I said I'm returning this back to T-Mobile, so I won't have the device.

I won't be able to do any sort of update on this phone with software updates or anything like that, which is unfortunate, but it is what it is. You can always pick this up on Amazon again, Black Friday might be coming around. You might get this on a deal unlocked completely from Amazon I'll leave the links down in the description where you can pick this up on Amazon. They have all the colors that you might want from orange to the white color to this mint red. You have you name it Amazon has it so, yes, you purchased from Amazon will help me get a small kickback as well.

Thank you again. If you watch this to the very end, I appreciate your support and sticking through this whole long video until next time. My name is Chris I'll see you all in the next video take care.

Source : Chris Panton