Massive Wi-Fi throttling on Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G purchased from Amazon India (September 2021 unit)

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Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G for Rs. 36999 (33999 including HDFC Offer)


TL;DR from this thread

Amazon India sale is delivering units manufactured in India in September 2021 in this sale. This batch seems to have a lot of units that have a very unreliable Wi-Fi. It would connect fine and would stay fine for a while but after a while, it slows down considerably. Turning it off and on again would fix the issue temporarily. Resetting the phone does not fix it. If you have such a unit, you should instantly apply for a replacement or refund. XDA has a thread that has 2-3 other folks who got a unit with the same problem. There is also supposedly a Telegram group but I am not a member. There is also discussions on the official Samsung Community. One such thread.

Important stuff: For replacement, do not apply for it through the order page. It would force you to deal with a tech visit from an outsourced company which delays the process. In my case, the tech guy did not bother visiting me. Called me up on the phone and asked me to reset the phone and go through the entire process again and see if that fixed the issue and ping him later so that he can process a replacement. He ended up closing my complaint without confirming me first. Amazon chat support initiated another tech visit which added another two-day delay. Phone support told me that they cannot help me because of this active request in their system and I should contact them once it is over, and I am not satisfied with the resolution. So, use the phone support option. This seems to be a safe and the fastest way to get a replacement and maybe even a refund if replacement units are also affected by this problem.

One member of the forum has confirmed that the unit he got from an earlier stock does not suffer from this issue. XDA and a few other outlets do confirm that there have been a few isolated cases of this issue affecting the entire S20 series. It is just too hard to tell if this is a hardware based issue or a firmware based one.

I ended up applying for a refund. If you are not sure how to test out wi-fi stability, install an app like WiFiMan which continuously monitor wi-fi connection speed. Or just download a very large file (10GB File) and see if it stays at similar speed levels consistently. On my S10 Lite, it is stable while on Fe, it keeps on changing while placed at the same place at same distance from the wireless router. Upload connection speeds actually drop down to 6mbps regularly. In my opinion, this should not happen when power savings are disabled, screen is on, and the app accessing Wi-Fi modem is in foreground.
 
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Keep updating this thread with future advancements. Interested in this phone. My brother needs to buy a sub 40k smartphone urgently next week as his current one is near it's end.
He's looking at OnePlus 9R and this. According to reviews, 9R has subpar camera and this has subpar display and performance.
 
Well wi-fi is a major issue. Amazon is not offering direct replacement. Have to deal with a technician visit on 4th who would decide if replacement is warranted. If this is hardware issue, replacement might fix the problem. If this is a software issue, won't recommend this phone.


Source


This is s20fe5g. S10lite is stable 866 for both values at same location connected to same network.

would have to wait for the phone to get discharged coz i noticed the problem when it got warm due to charging and speeds were down to 5-10mbps at that time. right now wifi connection quality fluctuations but speed tests work out fine.
 
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i haven't even tried mobile internet or voice calls yet. i did put in my sim but unstable wifi is a major problem so sim is back in old phone. but the good thing is that vowifi was available instantly so that's nice. i guess there is some advantage in buying a year old model 🤣

i guess i should put back the sim in s20fe and use it extensively through today and tomorrow. would get better idea about voice calls and mobile internet. and it would be easier to eat up the battery and recharge the phone which should replicate the situation from earlier today when wifi became rather useless with 10% of available speeds.

and might as well take some shots in the local market and outside. i am not exactly a good candidate for sample phone shots. but it should be better than nothing i suppose considering we do not have another owner of this phone here on the forum.

but i did compare the two phones in low light condition looking at the same object and s20fe was significantly better than s10lite. it really gives me the pixel 2 vibes even though the phone is pretty similar in size to s10lite.

i mean it is hard to explain but the ui of various apps is very different on the two phones. s20fe has ui elements slightly bigger which makes them easier to use. but it also means that you see lesser data on the screen compared to s10lite despite having very little difference in display size. i am going to bet that this is going to be slightly annoying on twitter because more scrolling would be needed to access the same amount of data in the timeline. but in a lot of ways, apps just feel better on s20fe.
 
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S20 FE 5G

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S10 Lite

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Am I missing something here? Is S20FE 720p? 🤔
 
Gsmarena says that both of them have the same resolution. In fact, S20 FE has a higher pixel density. lol Is there a setting you need to check? Maybe you have selected larger text or something in the settings?
 
Lol screen zoom was messed up. Now it's all better. Everything is tiny on s20 FE now.
 
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