Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G : Transformation of S21!

 

Samsung recently announced the “Galaxy S20 FE 5G” variant and we was actually excited about this phone because a Samsung flagship with a snapdragon chipset, that’s pretty rear and that is something we all been wanting for so long.

Anyways, so this the “Galaxy S20 FE 5G” and you know what, the specs in this pricing, I felt this is not just a “Fan Edition (FE)” smartphone anymore. I felt this is a phone that’s actually killing Samsung’s 2021 flagship that is Samsung S21. So, to give any idea what I am talking about, I am gonna divide this article into four sections:

What’s Better in S20 FE 5G?

First Up, the S20 FE 5G comes with the 25W Fast Charger in the Box. Now as you guys know the S21 phones only have the USB-C cable. So this is the big point for the S20 FE right there. In fact, I’m going to give it 25 Points if you know what I mean.

The S20 FE also has a bigger battery when compared to the S21, the S20 FE 5G comes with a bigger 4500 mAh battery compared to 4000 mAh on the Samsung Galaxy S21 now the battery performance of both these phones is not a big difference in my testing especially because the S20 FE 5G also has a Larger Display but yes overall the bigger battery in S20 FE should last a bit longer in some situations.

Another thing in the S20 that you don’t find in the S21 is the micro SD Slot. I mean both these phones have the same 128GB base variant but a micro SD slot is definitely a good thing to have and yeah the S21 does not have that while the S20 FE has it.

How are the S20 FE 5G and S21 similar?

Now moving on the similarities between both these phones there’s actually quite a few of them. The reason why I feel the S20 FE 5G competes against Samsung’s 2021 Flagship.

First up on the Design Front both these phones have Plastic Backs with the aluminum frames they both have a design that’s IP68 rated for water and dust protection and both these phones have support for Wireless Charging, Reverse Wireless Charging and Stereo Speakers.

Both these phones are also fairly comparable on the display front. So, they both have 120 Hz Amoled Display with FHD+ resolution and both these displays are actually quite nice but there is a bit of difference.

So, the S20 FE 5G lets you set the display to either 120 Hz or 60 Hz while the S21’s Amoled is more adaptive. So the adaptive mode can basically tune the refresh rate depending on what’s on the screen.

Apart from this difference both these displays look crisp and nice but when I compared them closely the S21’s Display is a little better its marginally brighter and it also has better viewing angles. If you ask me it’s not a big deal the S20 FE 5G display actually looks great.

But yeah these differences are something you should know, Now another area where I thing both of these Samsung’s flagships are fairly comparable is on the camera front. See specs wise both these phones have similar main camera and Ultrawide angle camera.

The S21 does have a 64-megapixel telephoto lens but strangely its supports 3x hybrid zoom while the S20 FE 5G is 8-megapixel telephoto lens supports 3x optical zoom anyway I have taken a lot of photos from both of these phones to get a better idea, there are few teeny tiny differences here and there.

But overall, when I first looked at photos, I thought they don’t really look that different do they. I mean they both are premium Samsung’s phones. So, they both have the rich color science they both have 12MP sensors so details are kind of similar.

Now sometimes I noticed the S21 amping up the contrast a little and in low light some S21 photos are slightly sharper. But it’s not a big difference if you really ask me.

The Processor

So, chipsets are always a big deal when it comes to Samsung phones because they kind of make them or break them and that’s the big difference between these two phones.

So, the Galaxy S21 comes with the latest Exynos 2100 chipset which is the newer chipset it’s based on 5nm architecture, has the latest arm cores. The S20 FE 5G on the other hand comes with last year’s flagship Snapdragon 865 chipset which is also fairly very powerful.

Now when you look at the benchmark scores of both phones the Exynos 2100 does well quite obviously but it’s not a big difference by any mean. I mean checkout the antutu scores of both these phones. Yes, the exynos 2100 scores are higher, but the snapdragon 865 is fairly comparable.

Now same with geekbench scores as you can see here. See again these are just numbers when it comes to world performance the S21 might have more raw processing power but in my basic tests I found the performance on both these phones pretty comparable.

I also did a throttling test with the CPU throttling app and the snapdragon chipset actually did better there has more light green and orange in the graph indicating throttling. In fact, as you can see in the end results it says CPU throttle to 65% of its max performance in the S21 while the S20 FE 5G CPU throttle to only 85% of its max performance. So that it’s a very big difference and the S20 FE 5G is clearly better.

Now do note that I started the test with both phones on 100% battery. So you know what even though the S21 has the newer chipset the S20 FE 5G with the snapdragon 865 actually holds its own pretty well.

What’s Better in Galaxy S21?

So lastly what’s actually better in the galaxy S21. Now first up it has a more lightweight and compact design. Here are the dimensions and the weight of these phones and clearly the S21 is just a nice small phone I definitely like that.

Now it’s not like the S20 FE 5G is Bulky or anything I mean it’s a fairly handy phone it’s not heavy but yeah the S21 is more compact I’ll give it that. Also the S21 has better screen protection it has Latest Gorilla Glass Victus while the S20 FE 5G has Gorilla Glass 5.

Now another area where I found the S21 to be better is on the selfie’s front. Number wise the S20 FE has the upper hand with a 32MP sensor but in my testing the selfies from the S21 just look better skin tones, sharpness and details.