As you may be aware, I talked in my last post about the possibility of owning a new iPhone 12.
Also, in a couple of blog posts before that, I talked extensively about the pros & cons of my shortlist of devices: the Pixel 4a; Pixel 5; Samsung Galaxy S20; and, the Sony Xperia 5 II.
I thought by now that I would have made a decision on which device would be My Next Phone, but unfortunately, I haven’t.
With the release of the Galaxy S21 series last month, Samsung has now given me something else to think about.
With my previous purchase of a primary smartphone, I went for the outgoing model: it was 2-3 months prior to the release of the Galaxy S10, so I decided to opt for the Galaxy S9, hoping it would be a bit cheaper.
I ended up going for the bigger S9 Plus, due to the extra camera hardware of a dedicated telephoto lens.
In hindsight, it was a great strategy; however, because the new S10 hadn’t yet been launched, the S9 Plus was still one of the two Samsung flagship S-series phones.
My network/carrier told me they had deals for the smaller S9, but not for the S9 Plus, meaning it was down to me to negotiate a deal. I got one, but if I’d gone for the standard Galaxy S9, it would’ve been even cheaper. Also, I probably would’ve preferred the smaller device size of the Galaxy S9, in contrast to the S9 Plus, which I found to be a bit too big and unwieldy.
Galaxy S20, or S20 FE?
With the release of the Galaxy S21, things are different. I’ve waited until after the release, hoping the price of the S20 would fall even further.
Unfortunately, I missed the Black Friday 2020 deals because I wasn’t ready to make a decision there and then.
If I had have gone for the S20 back then, it would have been an impulse-buy, but I would’ve walked away with my ideal phone and at a great, hard-to-beat price.
Ultimately, I found out that the Black Friday deals were actually a stock clearance to make way for the newer S20 FE, and in 2021 the Galaxy S21 range.
Here in the UK, Black Friday lasted for 2 weeks – and it’ll probably be the same in 2021 as well – meaning that once the Black Friday sales period had ended, stocks of the S20 weren’t replenished.
It was a shock for which I hadn’t prepared. It meant that, although I had hoped to opt for the Galaxy S20, this was no longer going to be possible.
Why would I want the S20 rather than the cheaper S20 FE? Mainly, I preferred the S20 for its smaller body size, in contrast to the S20 FE which has a much bigger 6.5″ screen – and an even bigger body than my unwieldy S9 Plus.
Why I think the S20 FE exists
The S20 FE exists because of a combination of the current economic climate, disappointing sales figures for the Galaxy S20 in 2020, and what people really want from a flagship smartphone at an affordable price.
As Tom’s Guide notes in their article – comparing the S20 FE with the older S20 – “the S20 FE is designed to offer all of the most important features that consumers care about when shopping for the best phone at an affordable price.”
Basically, it’s a cheaper S20 but with a bigger screen, that more accurately fits the economic climate – thanks to millions of people worldwide losing their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to SamMobile, the S20 ‘Fan Edition’ was the result of a global consumer survey, “[…] asking customers what excites them to buy [sic] the Galaxy S20. The answers were: Camera, performance, and display.”
Because the S20 FE specifically targets those three areas of a device, it has resulted in a smartphone that’s loved by both customers and reviewers alike – most notably, MKBHD.
But the mass uptake of the S20 FE, and subsequent ‘vanishing‘ of the Galaxy S20, means I’ve since found it difficult to source a Galaxy S20.
S20 FE – a possibility, but too big and with lots of problems
Unwieldy size aside, I did at least consider the S20 FE, especially because on the 24 month contracts I was looking at, the S20 FE was the same price – if not, even cheaper – than the offers for the Galaxy S20 during ‘Black Friday 2020.’
However, therein lay a dilemma: which S20 FE model to pick. Here in the UK, there’s 2 models of the S20 FE: the cheaper 4G model with an Exynos chip, and the more expensive 5G model with a Snapdragon chipset.
Unfortunately, both weren’t without their problems, and if I had picked the S20 FE, it was a case of picking the lesser of two evils.
From my research – watching YouTube reviews, reading articles and reviews, absorbing the finer details from spec sheets on GSMArena, and perusing comment threads on Reddit and Twitter – I found out that the 4G version, with its Exynos processor, suffered from the same performance issues found on the S20, S20+ and S20 Ultra.
Ironic, given that if we look at the above statement from SamMobile, the Galaxy S20’s ‘performance‘ was one of the things that excited customers.
This wasn’t the case with the faster Snapdragon 865 5G in the Galaxy S20 FE 5G, but that 5G model had its own problems: the much-covered ‘Ghost Touch‘ issues.
Far from being a small scale Halloween-inspired party trick only effecting a few devices, from my research it seemed like it was a widespread issue – as yet unsolved, even with software & firmware updates. It affects mostly games, which means only using the phone to half of its capabilities. Not an ideal situation to be in.
It appears to be a hardware issue, so future software updates can only serve to manage the issue, not fix it.
It’s ironic, then, that the ‘display‘ was also one of the areas customers cared about in the aforementioned Samsung consumer survey, and is also the source of a hardware issue. There’s a theme developing here…
The 5G’s Ghost Touch issue, and the 4G’s poor performance, is a problem. A big one. And it means that I would be trading poor CPU performance for screen hardware issues, or the latter for the former.
Losing 5G isn’t much of an issue, as I can’t receive a 5G signal where I live – only a 4G/LTE signal at the moment.
Conclusion
Still, for me, the apparently-widespread hardware issues of the S20 FE pose a huge problem.
This isn’t something on which I was willing to compromise. Micro SD card slot, maybe; and 3.5mm port, possibly. But not poor hardware design or implementation.
It means that the S20 FE is even less of a good fit than the Pixel 4a or Pixel 5 – and that means, it’s out of the running.
It’s a shame, as it’s cheaper price was certainly enticing. If it sounds too good to be true, it often is, and for me personally, that is unfortunately the case with the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE.
Also, as the S20 FE is the replacement for the S20, that means both the S20 and S20 FE are no longer considerable.
And that’s a great shame, as I’d hoped to pick the Galaxy S20. However, it now means the Sony Xperia 5 II and Pixel 5 are now the only options.
Or, are they? Ahem, Galaxy S21…
– Chris JK.
KPH tech blog 
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