Samsung Galaxy S20 has officially launched and available on the market for quite some time. It’s indeed a nice device with a lot of great features.
Compared to previous Galaxy S iterations, what makes S20 stand-out and different from its siblings is the new rear camera arrangement. In the past, all Samsung Galaxy S phones have centered-camera position, where as with S20, Samsung changed that. The rear camera is positioned towards the left side (if you see it from behind).
Now if you are reading this, likely you are interested with Samsung Galaxy S20 but for whatever reasons, you haven’t got one in your hands or you have got one but a little bit pessimistic whether you are holding the original or fake one.
Why I’m compiling this? So that people won’t get trapped buying a fake Galaxy S20 and paying the real price for it.
If your main intention to go and buy the fake Galaxy S20 and pay it for the fake price, then it’s totally fine. You are getting what you are paying. However, there are out there, casual non-geek people (you may be one of them) who may get deceived by other people / organization, where these people intend to buy a real Galaxy S20, willing to pay for the real Galaxy S20 price, but they are getting fake Galaxy S20.
Don’t just leverage on Benchmark-ing application, such as AnTuTu or 3DMark or Geekbench, because based on my own experience in the past, these apps can be cloned and tweaked to show fake device to show like a real one. Use these methods instead, to ensure you are getting the real Samsung Galaxy S20.
Article continues below.
Popular on JILAXZONE today:
How to check if the Samsung Galaxy S20 / S20+ / S20 Ultra is the real one.
In today’s highly advance technology and interconnected world, it’s not difficult for a small company or even individual to create and market a fake or cloned smartphone. Being a flagship and a popular model, Samsung Galaxy S20, S20+ and S20 Ultra are also one of the targeted smartphone for cloning. And you should not be surprised that there are close-enough replica that’s being sold out there. So these are the most obvious and easiest way to spot the differences whether the S20 is a real deal or a fake one.
1) Rear cameras. Samsung Galaxy S20 and S20+ have 3 rear cameras, while S20 Ultra has 4 rear cameras. Go to Camera app, cover all the rear camera holes with your fingers, and while you switching between photo mode (zoom, wide, ultra wide and telephoto), uncover the rear camera one by one, ensuring all of the cameras are working and not just dummy. If one of them is not working as expected, then you know that’s not the real one.
2) Front-facing camera. Now go to the front, do similar thing. Cover the punch hole front camera. Then go to Camera app, switch to front camera, then uncover the camera to see if it is working. If it’s not, then you know that’s not the real one.
3) Fingerprint sensor. All Galaxy S20 variants use the ultrasonic in-display finger print scanner. So as part of the setup, register with one finger. Once setup is done, locked the phone and turn back on. Now try to unlock the phone but using different fingers (not the one you are registering). If you never register that other fingers but still manage to unlock the device, then you know, it’s not the real one.
4) 120 Hz Display. All Galaxy S20 variants come with 120 Hz refresh rate. Ensure you have the settings. Go to Settings > Display, tap on the Motion Smoothness. The real one should have the “High refresh rate (120 Hz)” option. Choose that one. Then using browser on the S20, go to TestUfo (link: https://www.testufo.com/refreshrate) to test the refresh rate. Ensure you are getting 120 Hz, otherwise you know that it’s not the real one.
5) Bixby. Bixby is the standard voice-assistant that comes with Galaxy S20. Ensure it’s there and working. Press and hold the Side button (Power button) for a few second to activate Bixby. Once activated, ensure it’s Bixby and not Google Assistant – Bixby has ‘B’ logo on it (refer to video below for more details).
6) Wireless Powershare. Make sure it has wireless charging and reverse wireless charging capability. Samsung called the latter as Wireless Powershare. First test the wireless charging, put the S20 to any of wireless charger, if it’s the real one, it should start charging. Second, to test the Wireless Powershare, ensure you have at least more than 30% battery left on the S20, then using any other items with wireless charging capability (Eg: phone or earbuds), put the other item at the back of Galaxy S20. If it has reverse wireless charging capability, it should start charging your other item (refer to video below for more details).
7) Android version. All Samsung Galaxy S20 variants comes pre-packaged with Android 10. So ensure you see Android 10 or above (in case you buy it after it gets updated to latest version of Android). To check Android 10, go to Settings > About Phone > Software Information. If you see Android version as 10 (or above), don’t stop there. Do a few taps on Android version to bring you the real Android version it has. If it’s really Android 10, it should show you the “Android 10 logo”.
I guess that’s it. While there are other things to check (such as 5G and WiFi 6 connectivity, camera quality, etc) but those listed and mentioned above are what I think the most obvious one (and easy one) that both casual non-geek users are able to spot it right away and difficult for the replicator to replicate it – since obviously they don’t have the technology and capability yet to do so (but they are catching up soon).
Things like box, camera quality, AnTutu and Geekbench results are not so obvious one and easy for the replicator to replicate them (Eg: AnTuTu or Geekbench, like I mentioned earlier, they can easily manipulate the results).
In case points above are not enough, have a look at the video from MJTech below for more review on the S20 Fake and how close it can get to the real one.
Tips to buy and make sure getting the real Samsung Galaxy S20 / S20+ or S20 Ultra
If you are buying a brand new one, it’s highly recommended to buy from official trusted store (Eg: Samsung store, telco shops – if you are re-contracting or big-name electronic stores). You shouldn’t have issue or problem.
But what if you are buying brand new or buying second hand on some other markets, shops, or buying online, make sure the phone has those capabilities I mentioned above. Also if you are buying online, ask the seller to meet you in person.
Of course if the price is way below the market price, then you should raise flag and don’t rushing to buy before doing all the checking mentioned above.
Do you have anything you want me to cover on my next article? Write them down on the comment section down below.
Alternatively, find more interesting topics on JILAXZONE:
JILAXZONE – Jon’s Interesting Life & Amazing eXperience ZONE.
Hi, thanks for reading my curated article. Since you are here and if you find this article is good and helping you in anyway, help me to spread the words by sharing this article to your family, friends, acquaintances so the benefits do not just stop at you, they will also get the same goodness and benefit from it.
Or if you wish, you can also buy me a coffee:
Thank you!
Live to Share. Share to Live. This blog is my life-long term project, for me to share my experiences and knowledge to the world which hopefully can be fruitful to those who read them and in the end hoping to become my life-long (passive) income.
My apologies. If you see ads appearing on this site and getting annoyed or disturb by them. As much as I want to share everything for free, unfortunately the domain and hosting used to host all these articles are not free. That’s the reason I need the ads running to offset the cost. While I won’t force you to see the ads, but it will be great and helpful if you are willing to turn off the ad-blocker while seeing this site.