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Since older Galaxy flagships recently received only one UI 3.0, we did not exactly expect Samsung to push the latest 3.1 build of the Galaxy S21 to those phones soon. However, the company decided to give its existing customers a pleasant surprise by letting the rollout start early. Right now, the Galaxy S20 FE is already getting its One UI 3.1 update, leaving behind its more premium siblings from last year.
Many Galaxy S20 FE 5G owners from Europe went to Reddit earlier today to report receiving a 1.7GB update that includes One UI 3.1 and the February security fix. With this build, you can expect Google Discover integration on the home screen, including Google Home device control in quick settings and several new video call effects across different applications. Early fans noted that certain S21 features, such as Director’s View, were not transferred to the budget flagship.
SamMobile can confirm that the update so far in European markets, including the Baltic region, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Nordics, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. If you have a Galaxy S20 FE 5G in one of these countries, you can go to the software update section of the settings app to check for the update notification.
It is noteworthy that only the 5G model of the S20 FE from now on receives one UI 3.1, while we have no news about the 4G-only variant. Since the update is already available for the Tab S7 / S7 + and now touches non-flagship phones, we are hopeful that more Samsung devices will join the list sooner rather than later.
Update pulled
According to a report by SamMobile, Samsung halted the S20 FE’s One UI 3.1 update within days of its release. We do not have an official word on exactly what led to this decision, but a small group of Reddit users faced performance issues, faster battery drains, and unreliable SMS notifications after installing the latest build.
Something similar happened just last month when Samsung had to pull the Galaxy S10’s Android 11 update over issues with heating and camera, which took a few weeks to fix. In the absence of a formal announcement from Samsung, you can also expect a comparable timeline in the case of the S20 FE.