Samsung has unwrapped its new smartphone, the Galaxy S20 FE in an online event today. This is their latest upper midrange smartphone that aims to bring flagship features at a cheaper price.
Starting off with the display, it has a 6.5 inch 1080p 120Hz OLED panel with a camera cutout at the middle. It is powered by the Snapdragon 865 processor or the Exynos 990 like its S20 series siblings but with less RAM (6GB or 8GB). Internal storage is either 128GB or 256GB with option to expand it with a microSD card slot.
The design is incredibly similar to the Galaxy Note 20. The triple camera cutout at the back and the hole punch display is almost carbon copy of the Note 20.
The Samsung Galaxy S20 FE main camera system is actually pretty decent.. The main camera is a 12MP camera with an f/1.8 aperture with OIS and 1.8μm pixel Size which is great . The ultra wide camera is also a 12MP unit with f/2.2 aperture. The telephoto camera is only a 8MP unit with a f/2.4 aperture. The telephoto camera allows you to have 3x optical zoom and upto 30x digital zoom. The selfie camera is the odd 32MP camera with a f/2.2 aperture that we have seen before on Samsung phones. These cameras mean they can’t do longer optical zooms or shoot in 8K as their more expensive siblings.
The S20 FE has a huge 4,500mAh battery which can be charged quickly with a 25W charger. It also has an in-display fingerprint reader, NFC, stereo speakers, IP68 water resistance and wireless charging.
This is an interesting launch
This is a very weird announcement from Samsung since we are used to two main launches from the company. The S20 came at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Note 20 unveiling was at the middle of it. Both models had phones over $1000 and I believe Samsung did this launch to show that they can bring great phones at a cheaper price.
This is a very compelling phone from Samsung and it shows from the pricing. Samsung is charging $699 for it which makes it a deal compared to their expensive phones. It will be available starting on October 2nd and we are yet to get confirmation about its availability in the Kenyan market.
