Samsung Galaxy S26 FE hands-on: It won't excite you, but here's why it might be a smart buy
It's time to check out the newest version of the phone that's often the sweet spot for many people looking to buy from Samsung's range.
The Galaxy S26 FE fills the space between the Galaxy A57 and the Galaxy S26 , and it provides a great blend of what makes both those phones desirable.
What it's not, is all that different to the Galaxy S25 FE.
What do you get with the Galaxy S26 FE?
Only a few new features
If you're an expert on the Galaxy S25 FE , you can play a game of spot the difference here. Samsung has updated the processor and the S26 FE comes with the Exynos 2500, which was previously seen in the Galaxy Z Flip 7 , plus the S26 FE comes with Android 17 and One UI 9 installed out of the box.
This is good news, and it's the first phone outside the Galaxy Z Fold 8 range to feature the latest software. It's so clean and slick too, and using the phone for a short while reminded me how natural and easy it is to use.
There's a host of the latest One UI 9 and Galaxy AI features inside the Galaxy S26 FE too. The MyFanCam mode, where you can edit your concert videos to focus on a single performer, is onboard, along with Photo Assist where AI edits and transforms videos.
Both Now Brief and Now Nudge prepare you for the day, and shorten the time it takes to switch apps when making appointments or plans, plus features like Audio Eraser, which very effectively removes unwanted background noises from your own videos and those playing on YouTube and Instagram, and tools like Document Scan and Circle to Search.
How does the Galaxy S26 FE feel in your hand?
Expensive and comfortable
Equipped with a 120Hz, 1,900 nit brightness, 6.7-inch screen, the Galaxy S26 FE feels very similar to the Galaxy A57 and the Galaxy S26+ in your hand. The metal chassis is smooth with a slight curve, making it comfortable to hold.
The bezels around the screen are slim, the redesigned camera module is quite tall and wide, but it's really slim, avoiding any design imbalances. I think it looks excellent. Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 covers the front and the rear.
Inside the camera module is a 50-megapixel main camera, a 12MP wide-angle camera, and an 8MP telephoto camera for a 3x optical zoom. Apparently, the 12MP wide-angle is new, and there have been software changes to improve sharpness between 1x and 2x zoom on the main camera.
The software is fast, and there's no pause between swapping lenses. I took some 3x zoom photos to try and understand the quality of the 8MP telephoto. The photos looked good on the phone screen, with no obvious pixelation or color and contrast issues.
This may change when the photo is viewed on a monitor, especially based on the relatively low quality photos the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra's 10MP telephoto takes. Other camera features include Super Steady Video with Horizontal Lock, and Nightography enhancements for low light video.
What about the rest of the specs?
All very familiar
The battery has a 4,900mAh capacity, but it's not one of the flashy new silicon-carbon cells seen in the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Z Fold 8 Ultra. It's equipped with 45W wired charging and 15W wireless charging, and Samsung expects a 70% charge to arrive in 30 minutes using a compatible wired charger.
You get a choice of internal storage spaces, 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB, but the RAM stays the same as the S25 FE at 8GB.
There are three colors available, a simple graphite, plus a very on-trend Pistachio and a smart Blueberry. The phones are glossy and stylish, and look just as expensive and premium as the full, non-FE Galaxy S26 models.
Worth an upgrade?
No, but it's still going to be popular
The Samsung Galaxy S26 FE is, as you can see, not all that different to the Galaxy S25 FE. This is representative of the industry, rather than a Samsung-specific tactic, but it's hard to see any upgrade path from the S25 FE, or even from the Galaxy S24 FE if you're already happy with it.
What the S26 FE does well is fill the gap between the Galaxy A57 and Galaxy S26. In the UK it costs £699 for the base 8GB/128GB model, so it sits in the middle of the pair, price-wise.
I liked the Galaxy S26 FE, but it hasn't stayed in my mind after I used it for an hour. It's the awkward middle ground, where it's not quite stellar value, and not quite flagship level either.
However, rather than making it a bad buy, this will probably make the Galaxy S26 FE a great buy for newcomers, or for anyone using a much older Galaxy A series. The latest software is already installed, there's the highly desirable seven-year OS and security update commitment, and a slick modern design. No, it's not all that exciting, but that doesn't stop it being desirable, even with a slight price increase.
