Samsung Galaxy A20e

What is it?

By Samsung’s standards, the A20e is a compact smartphone, with a 5.8-inch display that’s notably smaller than the 6-inch panels that it sticks on most of its devices. The screen is a low HD+ resolution (1,560 x 720p), quite far from the Quad HD+ screens on the Samsung Galaxy S10s and the like.

The trio of specs that power the phone are Samsung’s-own Exynos 7884 chipset, a 3,000mAh battery and 3GB of Ram. There aren’t tons of cameras on the phone, but for most people there’s enough. It has a dual rear lens (13Mp wide-angle and 5Mp ultra-wide-angle) and a solo 8Mp front lens.

What’s it like to use?

You’ll be getting a responsive LCD display on the A20e, but what you won’t get is a high-resolution viewing experience. Its brightness is only satisfactory during the day, so you’ll just about be able to read your Facebook notifications while out in the sun. In darker environments, it’s clear that it's a low-resolution screen.

Overall, the phone is easy to use and we had no trouble understanding the menus and settings. The only gripe is that the camera app isn’t convenient. Samsung’s typically intuitive menu is reduced and the characters on screen are quite small, making them difficult to read and follow.

You’ll be able to unlock the phone using a fingerprint sensor or face scanner, both of which worked well in our tests with good accuracy.

How long does the battery last?

First, the A20e charges quickly – within one and half hours, you’ll be out of the door at 100% capacity. It turned out to be pretty average in the consumption tests. It gave us 26 and a half hours of varied use at maximum brightness, including watching videos and taking photos.

If you have only 15 minutes to get it charged from flat in the morning, you’ll get 17%. That’s about enough for five hours of using the phone before you’ll need to find a charging socket.

How good are the cameras?

You may be able to get some good photos on this phone, but videos are really poor. Its rear cameras have trouble with contrast during the day though colours look good. In darker lighting, pictures come out too grainy. Front camera photos have a variety of weaknesses, depending on the lighting, but the main issue is that images look pale.

The lack of electronic or optical image stabilisation lands you with shaky videos recorded on both sides of the phone. Its rear cameras have a little trouble with autofocus and while the front lens takes balanced videos, the shakiness ruins its hard work.

Is there anything I should watch out for?

The 32GB of advertised storage on this phone materialises as 20.7GB of usable storage once all the mandatory pre-installed apps and software has settled into the device. If you use a micro-SD card its storage can be expanded by up to 512GB.

Is there anything else I should know?

As well as key features such as near-field communication (NFC) for making contactless payments with your phone, the handset also has dual Sim functionality, allowing you to use more than one Sim card in the phone at once – an ideal feature for those who enjoy travelling.

Should I buy it?

The A20e’s battery life is undoubtedly its best feature, but even that only produced average results in out tests. Unfortunately, due to the age of this phone and the brand’s update policies, we suspect it will stop receiving important security updates in less than a year, so we can’t recommend that you buy. Find out more in our guide to mobile phone security.