The Samsung Galaxy S20 FE might not officially be able to get Android 14, but it can get the latest stable update thanks to LineageOS 21.
Despite the popularity of the first “Fan Edition” Galaxy S series device, the LineageOS project has never officially offered builds for the S20 FE or S20 FE 5G – until now. Sure, you could flash unofficial builds of the clean, Pixel-like ROM, but this can be fraught with annoyances and a lack of support.
From today you can now install the latest Android 14-based LineageOS 21 nightly builds on the Galaxy S20 FE and S20 FE 5G. Given that Samsung ceased offering major One UI updates with Android 13 (One UI 5.1) and monthly patches ceased in March 2024, this could give you a little more runway for this impressive handset.
LineageOS 21 brings a whole host of upgrades and updates, including a new device setup flow, improved calculator app, changes to the default camera and gallery apps, lots of UI tuning, plus performance and stability improvements with the Android 14 platform upgrade. You can check out all of the new content in our video below:
Samsung has two specific variants of the device. One has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 chip while a global version has the Exynos 990. The latter is 4G-only and has lacked support from lots of custom ROM projects given the annoyances of developing for this lesser-powered chip.
Confusingly, the Lineage builds for this device list the 4G-only version as packing the Snapdragon chip. This is likely an error but proceed with caution if you want to flash LineageOS 21 on an S20 FE with the Exynos 990 chip. You may encounter lots of issues if you do attempt to flash.
Although this is admittedly a confusing aspect, LineageOS 21 support for a device such as the Galaxy S20 FE is another great move, especially as it’s a capable handset that should provide more than enough for someone wanting basic core functions on their phone for a little while longer.
To get started, you can find installation guides and appropriate builds directly from the LineageOS project here.
More on LineageOS:
- LineageOS 21 brings Android 14 to Fairphone 5
- LineageOS shutting down Android 11-based builds
- LineageOS 21 debuts with Android 14, redesigned apps, more
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