Samsung’s Galaxy S26 FE Has Flagship Features, but It’s Harder to Call It a Bargain

Samsung's Galaxy S26 FE, the company's lower-cost flagship, boasts nearly all the same software features as its more expensive counterparts. Priced at $700 for 128GB and $800 for 256GB storage, the S26 FE is a $50 price increase from last year's S25 FE. Announced on Thursday, the most significant hardware change is its 12-megapixel selfie camera, which features a wider field of view for a larger photo area.

The phone is notable for software features found in Samsung's pricier devices, such as Super Steady Video with Horizontal Lock, My FanCam, and Audio Eraser that removes background noise and supports Netflix and YouTube. These features, running on Android 17 and Samsung's One UI 9, make the S26 FE more accessible to consumers than other phones in the lineup.

The S26 FE works with Samsung's Smart Switch app, enabling easier transfer of apps, data, and texts from an iPhone using iOS 26's Transfer to Android feature. Despite being $50 more expensive than last year's S25 FE, the S26 FE's $50 price increase is less severe than the $100 increases in base price for the Galaxy S26, Pixel 11, and Motorola's Razr, all driven by memory cost rises.

Upgrading from a Galaxy S23 FE or earlier offers the most noticeable jump in performance, thanks to its 6.7-inch display, the Exynos 2500 processor, and the camera features. The S26 FE's display has a peak brightness of 1,900 nits, which should suffice for most environments, although it falls short of comparably-priced phones like the Pixel 10A that reach 3,000 nits.

The phone's starting storage of 128GB may fill up quickly for video users, making 256GB the better choice for long-term use. Despite the many features and Samsung's promise of seven years of software and security updates, the S26 FE remains more expensive than similar phones like the $499 Google Pixel 10A and Apple's $599 iPhone 17E.

The S26 FE retains the same camera system as the S25 FE, including a 50-megapixel wide camera, a 12-megapixel ultrawide camera, and an 8-megapixel telephoto camera with a 3x optical zoom, which were unchanged from the previous year. The phone also includes a 4,900-mAh battery with 45-watt wired charging and 15-watt wireless charging speeds, an improvement from last year's model.

Samsung will offer cases for the S26 FE with support for magnetic accessories like chargers and wallets, and the phone will be available in three colors: Pistachio, Blueberry, and Graphite. The S26 FE is set to launch on September 3.