Samsung upgrades the budget-priced Galaxy Watch FE with LTE support

Today’s the day when Samsung’s latest “Fan Edition” smartphone goes official, but the new Galaxy S24 FE isn’t the only FE model taking the spotlight. Earlier this year, Samsung expanded its wearable lineup with the addition of the affordably positioned Galaxy Watch FE. At its launch event this morning, Samsung is sharing a little bit about what’s next for this hardware, as well as announcing a new LTE edition.

The Galaxy Watch FE, if you’re not familiar with it, emerged a few months back as a lower priced alternative to the Galaxy Watch 7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra. And while the name might have you thinking that this follows the same design principles as Samsung’s FE phones — a few downgrades from the flagships, but still recent, powerful hardware — we ended up discovering that the Watch FE is for all intents and practices a rebranded and refreshed Galaxy Watch 4.

We didn’t love how that took shape, but if you were OK with what the Watch FE offered, and really just craved a little better connectivity, Samsung has just the ticket for you. This new model is basically just the same as the original Watch FE, but now with the ability to use LTE networks. For that, you’ll pay $249.99, a $50 premium over the original price.

Samsung’s taking pre-orders now with the same black, silver, and pink gold options as before, and says that the Watch FE LTE will formally be available as of October 3. That said, we notice that shipping estimates are already sliding back to October 7, so you might not want to wait too much longer to get your order in.

As for the existing watches, Samsung says that Energy Score and an enhanced sleep-tracking algorithm are both arriving for the Galaxy Watch FE sometime this fall.