Samsung Galaxy S20 FE: Unboxing and Hands-on
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With no further ado, let's get to unbox the Galaxy S20 FE...
What's in the box:
- Galaxy S20 FE
- 15W Power Adapter with standard USB port
- Standard USB to USB-C cable
- SIM tool
- User manual
There is no case included with the Fan Edition, which is a bit of a shame. Many phones these days come with a free case and we have come to appreciate that as it's important to keep that brand new phone in a mint condition and not risk breaking it.
You also don't get any headphones in the box. The Galaxy S20 FE does not have a headphone jack and it instead only relies on the USB-C port for both charging and wired headphones, but you'd need to buy a pair yourself. We guess that comes with the lower price as the flagship S20 series do come with a set of AKG-tuned headphones that sound quite decent.
Another compromise is the 15W charger included and not the newer and more powerful 25W power adapter that Samsung includes with its flagship series of phones.
Galaxy S20 FE Hands-on and First Impressions
The Galaxy S20 FE is about the same size as the Galaxy S20 Plus, so it's definitely a large phone, but it's not quite as thick and extra large as the Galaxy S20 Ultra. There are two main differences between the Fan Edition and the S20 series: the first one is in the screen which is not curved on the S20 FE. We appreciate a flat screen, but with it, you also get much more noticeable bezels around the display.
Under the hood, the S20 FE features a flagship-grade Snapdragon 865 processor (at least in the United States, the rest of the world will have to make do with an Exynos 990 chip instead) and it comes with a reasonable 128GB of on-board storage.
The killer feature, however, is the screen: a 6.5-inch AMOLED display with lush colors and the super buttery 120Hz refresh rate option turned on by default. Our first impressions are that the phone runs incredibly smoothly and without interruption, and we appreciate having the fast refresh rate option a great deal.
On the back, you have a triple camera system that follows the same styling as the Note 20 series. Each of the camera lenses is accentuated by a ring around it that makes the whole camera array look way more appealing than on the S20 series, for example.
You have the following cameras on board:
- 12MP main shooter, f/1.8 aperture, 26mm lens
- 12MP ultra-wide camera, f/2.2 aperture, 13mm lens
- 8MP 3X zoom telephoto lens, f/2.4 aperture, 78mm lens
- 32MP front camera
Since the main camera features a 12MP resolution, you don't have the option to record 8K video (it requires a higher resolution sensor). However, you still do get quite a bit of long-range zoom: the telephoto camera has a native focal distance 3X times that of the main camera, but you can zoom up to 30X digitally.
On the battery front, the S20 FE comes with a 4,500mAh battery cell, on par with the S20 Plus.
Overall, the S20 FE feels snappy, the cameras seem to capture good-looking photos and the phone seems like a great deal for the money. But are there any pitfalls? We have already started testing the battery and we will be telling you a lot more in our in-depth review that's coming soon!
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