Galaxy S20 FE LTE With Snapdragon 865 Is A Confusing Rumor

Last year's Galaxy S20 wasn't exactly the heavy hitter that Samsung had hoped, at least not compared to how much interest and sales the Galaxy S21 this year garnered. It was even eclipsed by its own "Fan Edition", the Galaxy S20 FE that was announced just a month after the Galaxy Note 20 series. Its success may have encouraged Samsung to launch yet another Galaxy S20 FE, one that doesn't have 5G capability but runs on the same 5G-capable Snapdragon 865 as the 5G model.

Samsung started the tradition of putting out a Fan Edition in 2017 to "rebrand" the disastrous 2016 Galaxy Note 7. Since then, however, it has launched "FE" variants of some flagship Galaxy S and Galaxy Note models to offer what is pretty much a watered-down and more affordable version of those phones. It isn't a consistent thing though, as there hasn't been a Galaxy Note 20 FE yet even while rumors of a Galaxy S21 FE are already starting to go around the Internet.

Last year's Galaxy S20 FE came in two flavors, one with 5G like the main Galaxy S20 series and one with 4G LTE only. That wasn't the only difference between the two, though. Although both processors also powered the Galaxy S20 series, the Galaxy S20 FE 5G used a Snapdragon 865 while the Galaxy S20 LTE only had the Samsung Exynos 990.

SamMobile now reports that there is actually a new Galaxy S20 FE LTE model on the way and this one runs on a Snapdragon 865, albeit without 5G. Given complaints about the performance gap between 2020's two top-of-the-line mobile processors, some owners of the Exynos-powered Galaxy S20 FE LTE might feel a bit cheated.

Of course, that still presumes Samsung will launch this unannounced phone in the same markets where its variant is also found. Regardless, it's still quite curiuous that Samsung would launch yet another nearly-identical Galaxy S20 FE model months after the first launch, perhaps indicating how much they want to milk the Galaxy S20 brand even today.