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Samsung Brings Down Price With Galaxy S20 'Fan Edition'

The 'fan edition' is what you'd normally think of as an S20 Lite, and it's designed to compete on price with the base iPhone 11 or iPhone 12.

Sascha Segan
 & Sascha Segan Former Lead Analyst, Mobile

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Long ago, I had a meeting with Samsung where an executive told me, "if we could make a different model of phone for every person, we would." Samsung appears to be reaching in that direction with the Galaxy S20 Fan Edition, a "light" version of the S20 series that slots in between the A71 and the small Galaxy S20.

The S20 FE has a 6.5-inch, 120Hz, 2,400-by-1,080 screen and a very large 4,500mah battery. It has a 32MP front camera, along with three rear cameras: a f/2.2 12MP ultrawide, f/1.8 12MP main and f/2.4 8MP 3x telephoto. It runs a Snapdragon 865 processor, with 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage and a MicroSD card slot. It supports wireless charging and wireless reverse charging. It's waterproof. The phone will come in unlocked and carrier-sold sub-6GHz 5G models for $699, and a millimeter-wave model for Verizon, for $749.

Phone camera A real 3x zoom camera is a good reason to step up from the Galaxy A71.

It's a noticeable upgrade from the Samsung Galaxy A71. You get a faster processor, the 120Hz screen for smooth scrolling, wireless charging, IP68 water resistance and a real 3x zoom camera. On the other hand, the phone will be bigger and bulkier than the more expensive S20, which some people like to buy because it fits easily in one hand.

Preparing to Fight the iPhone 12

Let me recap Samsung's rather intense lineup. At T-Mobile, for example, it has:

That's a lot of phones, but there are two gaps in that lineup: there's nothing between $250 and $504, and nothing between $600 and $999. The first gap is where the iPhone SE rules; the second one is where the iPhone 11 dominates the US market.

According to stats from research firm M Science, the S20 lineup didn't do anywhere near the unit numbers that the S10 did at launch. Some of that was the pandemic, to be sure. But an internal Samsung poll also revealed that plenty of potential users just thought the $1,000-and-up S20 line was too expensive. And the A-series doesn't have the "flagship" cachet that the S-series does.

Enter the S20 "fan edition," which could have been named the S20 Lite, but Samsung apparently didn't want to devalue the product by actually calling it low-cost. It offers a bump up from the A-series at a price that matches the iPhone 11, and thus probably the base iPhone 12.

Galaxy S20 Family From left: the Galaxy S20 FE, the S20, the S20+ and the S20 Ultra.

It's Going to Be a Busy October

The S20 Fan Edition goes on pre-orders today; if you pre-order, you'll get a $70 accessories credit at the Samsung store. It hits shelves Oct. 2.

October is going to be a busy month for phones in this price range. I'm expecting the OnePlus 8T to hit at either $599 or $699, along with the base iPhone 12 at $699 or $749. If Samsung wants to continue to win, it has to have something at this price point.

Yet the FE's success will be clouded by how confusing Samsung and carrier price promotions tend to be around Samsung's flagship phones. Samsung's phones are often two-for-one, or zero dollars down, or promoted with heavy trade-in values which hide the cost of the phones.

While it's obvious looking at the list prices where the FE fits, it looks like carriers are going to do their usual confusing deals with this phone. AT&T will offer the S20 FE for free on a 30-month payment plan as long as you trade in another phone worth at least $60 and are on one of the carrier's latest unlimited plans, for instance. That makes the S20 FE "cheaper" than the A71, which AT&T offers for $300 on a 30-month payment plan.

That's a great deal, but it comes with caveats, we have no idea how long it will last, and we don't yet have pricing details from the other carriers.

We'll have a review of the S20 FE soon.

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About Our Expert

Sascha Segan

Sascha Segan

Former Lead Analyst, Mobile

My Experience

I'm that 5G guy. I've actually been here for every "G." I reviewed well over a thousand products during 18 years working full-time at PCMag.com, including every generation of the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S. I also wrote a weekly newsletter, Fully Mobilized, where I obsessed about phones and networks.

My Areas of Expertise

  • US and Canadian mobile networks
  • Mobile phones released in the US
  • iPads, Android tablets, and ebook readers
  • Mobile hotspots
  • Big data features such as Fastest Mobile Networks and Best Work-From-Home Cities

The Technology I Use

Being cross-platform is critical for someone in my position. In the US, the mobile world is split pretty cleanly between iOS and Android. So I think it's really important to have Apple, Android and Windows devices all in my daily orbit.

I use a Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 for work and a 2021 Apple MacBook Pro for personal use. My current phone is a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, although I'm probably going to move to an Android foldable. Most of my writing is either in Microsoft OneNote or a free notepad app called Notepad++. Number crunching, which I do often for those big data stories, is via Microsoft Excel, DataGrip for MySQL, and Tableau.

In terms of apps and cloud services, I use both Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive heavily, although I also have iCloud because of the three Macs and three iPads in our house. I subscribe to way too many streaming services. 

My primary tablet is a 12.9-inch, 2020-model Apple iPad Pro. When I want to read a book, I've got a 2018-model flat-front Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. My home smart speakers run Google Home, and I watch a TCL Roku TV. And Verizon Fios keeps me connected at home.

My first computer was an Atari 800 and my first cell phone was a Qualcomm Thin Phone. I still have very fond feelings about both of them.

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