We’ve known of the existence of a Samsung Galaxy S20 Fan Edition for some time. A spiritual successor to the more sensibly named S10 Lite (surely fans of the S20 will already own S20s and won’t need a cut-down version?), the phone will likely be a cheaper alternative for those who can’t stomach whatever high price Samsung puts on the S21. But now we know that not every region will get quite the same level of performance.
While rumors have previously pointed to the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor that powers the regular S20 doing the heavy lifting here, SamMobile has spotted an entry on Geekbench for a phone with the model code SM-G780F. It’s what appears to be the global version of the S20 Fan Edition that will go on sale outside the United States – and it uses the same Exynos 990 processor that the international version of the S20 got.
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On one level that’s not too surprising – if there was an international version of the S20, why wouldn’t there be one for the Fan Edition? But I reviewed the Galaxy S10 Lite in the UK, and was pleased to note that Samsung was selling a model with Qualcomm chips to the international market. It appears that Samsung is going back to its old ways with the S20 Fan Edition.
And to be clear, that is slightly disappointing. Benchmarks show that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 has a small but sizable performance advantage over the Exynos 990. Indeed, the Geekbench listing gives the S20 Fan Edition a single-core score of 588 points, with 2,448 for the multi-core test. For comparison, S20 devices with Qualcomm chips seem to get between 600 and 900 for single core, and 2,800 to 3,200 for multi-core performance.
It’s important not to overstate this, as the S20 Fan Edition will still be more than fast enough for most people – even in 2021 when new chips will have presumably emerged. The real question is whether the S20 Fan Edition – with whatever cuts Samsung decides to implement – will be worth buying over a pre-owned S20. For that, we’ll just have to wait and see a full feature list and the price Samsung ultimately puts on it.
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