New Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 4G surfaces on Geekbench with Snapdragon 865
When Samsung announced the Galaxy S20 FE last year it gave people a choice – a Snapdragon 865 chipset with the S20 FE 5G model, even in countries that normally get Exynos in their S-series, or an Exynos 990 with the 4G model (which was cheaper). Now it looks like things are about to become a bit blurred.
The NBTC certified an SM-G780G / DS, labeled as Galaxy S20 FE, and certified only for 4G operation. There’s even a support page for it on Samsung.com (multiple support pages, in fact). That exact model number can be seen in Geekbench with the motherboard listed as “kona”.
This is the code name of the Snapdragon 865 chipset. Judging by the information collected by the benchmark, the phone has 6 GB of RAM. Which is to be expected of an S20 FE, the original two models came with 6 GB as standard and had an 8 GB option.
Samsung Galaxy S20 FE (4G but with Snapdragon 865): Geekbench result • Support page
Still, this will be a budget version of the device as Samsung will be able to skip pricey 5G components like the antennas. The S865 also uses an external modem, X55 in 5G phones, which may be swapped out for a 4G-only modem.
The timing of this is interesting – the Galaxy S20 FE 5G arrived in India earlier today, but the country is yet to launch its first commercial 5G network. This 4G-only model with the Snapdragon 865 may have been a more alluring proposition. As it stands, the 5G model costs INR 56,000 (with an early bird deal at INR 48,000).
According to Thailand’s NBTC, the SM-G780G is a 4G only phone, no 5G
Besides cutting down the price, this new 4G model would extend the software support a bit. Samsung has committed to three major OS updates for its higher end devices and this new model will launch Android 11, unlike the original S20 FE duo, which arrived with Android 10.
Looking back at the support pages for a second, there are appear in multiple countries: Austria, the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary, Greece, Russia, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay and so on and so on.
This gives us hope that this more affordable model will be available just about anywhere.
