The Galaxy S20 Fan Edition turned me into a fan of Samsung smartphones

At this point in time, you might be asking yourself — just how many versions of the Galaxy S20 is Samsung releasing this year? The correct answer is six, but if you said “too many”, we wouldn’t argue against that. 

Arriving after the S20, S20 5G, S20+, S20+ 5G and the S20 Ultra 5G is the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE, which is hopefully the last model in the flagship lineup. The FE here stands for Fan Edition, which, according to Samsung, means that it’s a smartphone created and refined from fans' feedback. 

While the allure of its name remains questionable, what’s clear is that this is indeed the Samsung phone that the masses should purchase. 

Essentially, it’s an accessible flagship device, stripped away of all the fancy-schmancy features and keeping things tight with everything that everyone — not just Samsung fans — would actually want in a smartphone.

Long battery life? Check. 120HZ display? Heck yes. An excellent camera system? You bet. An array of colours to choose from? Take your pick from Cloud Navy, Cloud Lavender, Cloud Red and other colours that really didn’t need to have the word “cloud” in it. 

While the $1,098 price point might not seem as attractive as other budget phones (the excellent Pixel 4a is just $499), the S20 FE still maintains a decent spec sheet to warrant that price. 

The processor, for example, is still the same Snapdragon 865 chipset that powers the FE’s more premium siblings (the ones sold overseas at least — we’ve been getting the crummy Exynos), so there’s not even a hint of lag or hiccup when running things. A flagship-level performance, I dare say, with 8GB of RAM fitted in. It's 5G-capable too, but that's something that everyone will only start appreciating a few years down the road when viable networks are up and running. 

The difference in performance can be felt through the efficiency of the battery life, which lasts even longer this time around due to a bigger capacity of 4,500mAh, bigger even than the regular S20. Battery life is impacted if the 120HZ refresh rate is switched on, but I can live with it to enjoy buttery-smooth scrolling. In any case, this phone supports wireless charging and fast charging, so getting through the day is no issue. 

Camera-wise, it holds its own. Granted, Samsung had to cut costs by forgoing the installation of its newer camera sensors, but even with a 12MP main camera, a 12MP ultra-wide and an 8MP telephoto, you can’t really feel the difference in the S20 FE. Photos come out sharp, bright and vivid thanks to Samsung’s image processing and pictures taken in low-light still turn out decent. Just watch out for the over-aggressive smoothing of faces and just don’t bother zooming in anything beyond 4.0x.

Some other compromises made that you won’t really be too miffed about: the plastic body and the 1080p OLED display. As for the former, I actually prefer the feel of its matte polycarbonate backing instead of the glass rear panels seen in flagship phones, so that’s a win, even if does have a small tendency to slip out of pockets due to its lightness. 

As for the latter, it’s perfectly fine — I didn’t miss having a higher-resolution display nor curved glass screens. Bezels on the S20 FE are definitely more visible than they are on other S20 devices, but they're not at all distracting. A small hole-punch camera sits in the centre up top, capable of taking 32MP images. A classier option than any camera cutout notch, really. 

The key takeaway here is that Samsung’s Galaxy S20 FE is not, as they say, for the fans. On the contrary, it’s a phone that is good enough to get everyone else to jump onto the Samsung bandwagon. It’s something that should let newcomers see what Samsung phones are truly capable of when the price points aren’t too scary. Count me in as a fan of the Fan Edition. 

ilyas@asiaone.com