The Galaxy S26 FE is the wrong Samsung phone to buy right now

Not content with launching three foldables and a pair of smartwatches this summer, Samsung is rounding off its latest launch window with the Galaxy S26 FE.

It’s hard to object to the idea behind the FE — the core of a premium Samsung phone experience with some bits trimmed off to make it easier on your bank account. And I am fairly sure that when the Galaxy S26 FE is reviewed, it will score well. But it’s still going to be a phone that’s hard to find a suitable buyer for, due to its unfortunate mix of features and pricing.

S FE stands for “still fairly expensive”

The big reason for the Galaxy S26 FE’s problem is that while the specs and features of the new FE are only slightly upgraded, as we’ll get into later, the price has increased too. You now pay $50/£50 more for the equivalent storage options of the outgoing Galaxy S25 FE. This is likely another case of RAMageddon making the consumer hardware market a bleak place to shop.

It leaves the FE in the same awkward spot it’s always been in: too big a leap in price to entice someone looking at a mid-range Galaxy A-series phone, and too small a step down in price to make it a smart cost-saving measure compared to a full-fat S26. There’s only a hundred bucks/quid difference between the Galaxy S26 FE and the standard Galaxy S26, which offers noticeably more in terms of camera specs and chipset power, even if it has a smaller display and battery. 

All of that assumes you’re buying these phones at full retail price, and given how regularly Samsung or its partners discount even the latest Galaxy S26 models — or the outgoing S25 FE — that makes things even tougher for the Galaxy S26 FE. 

The old version isn’t dead yet

Speaking of the Galaxy S25 FE, its existence makes things worse for the Galaxy S26 FE, as the hardware upgrades Samsung has made are very minor.

The S26 FE’s display is unchanged from the older model, as are its RAM and storage specs. Other elements, like the cameras or the battery and charging systems, are identical on paper between the Galaxy S25 FE and S26 FE, except Samsung has seemingly squeezed a little more out of the newer model. For instance, the S26 FE’s main camera’s in-sensor zoom between 1x and 2x is supposedly sharper, and its battery lasts an extra hour on Samsung’s internal video playback endurance tests while also charging slightly faster.

Perhaps the most notable upgrade is a new Exynos 2500 chipset, which uses a smaller 3-nanometer process than the outgoing 4nm Exynos 2400. This should hopefully mean a boost in processing power and efficiency, but we’ll have to wait for the test results to be certain of that. But even with slightly better performance, is that reason enough to make the S26 FE a better buy than its cheaper, older sibling? I’d argue not.

Is software a reason to buy?

Samsung seems to be banking on the Galaxy S26 FE’s software updates to really sell the phone. And while there are definitely changes to be seen here, there are still issues to consider.

The Galaxy S26 FE comes with Android 17-based One UI 9 out of the box, making it the first Galaxy S phone to do so. That gives it tools like My FanCam, the latest version of Photo Assist, Now Brief with custom cards, Now Nudge with third-party app support, and cross-app assistance that are currently only available on the much more expensive Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Galaxy Z Flip 8 models.

But that exclusivity is time-limited. You can already download the beta version of One UI 9 for the Galaxy S26 series, with the stable version expected to arrive in the coming months, if not weeks.

The Galaxy S26 FE doesn’t make sense

All of this leaves the Galaxy S26 FE with only a small set of buyers — those who want a large phone with some, but not all, of Samsung’s best features, but at a slightly discounted price in return for weaker cameras and performance compared to the regular Galaxy S26 models.

It’s a niche for sure, but not a huge one. I can only assume the people this phone suits are dedicated to the Samsung brand, or that there are factors in other countries I can’t account for. After all, Samsung sells enough Galaxy S FE models to make it worthwhile to continue producing them.

I could finish up by wishing for the Galaxy S27 FE next year (if such a phone ends up existing) to fix these problems — upgrading more parts and keeping the price steady, if not dropping it a little. But given Samsung hasn’t done either of these things since it started making the Galaxy S FE models an annual thing in 2023, I’m going to save my energy.

Like it or not, this seems to be the phone Samsung wants to make, which leaves it up to you, the phone buyer, to figure out whether it fits your budget or whether another device — even another Samsung — might better fit your needs. And it almost certainly will.