Samsung Galaxy S26 FE review: The perfect cure for Samsung's recent price hike frenzy

The Samsung Galaxy S26 FE is a phone that sits in a very awkward position in Samsung's phone lineup. The phone is designed to be a lower cost alternative to the standard Galaxy S26, but it also faces increased competition from the, frankly excellent, mid-range Galaxy A57. I've been questioning the need for a "Fan Edition" of Samsung's flagships, but with everything going on in the world it actually feels like a good mix of premium and affordable.

The price is the main factor for the S26 FE's success, especially now that Samsung has hiked prices for the rest of the Galaxy S26 series. On top of that you also have a lot of premium AI features, a solid (is imperfect) camera and a premium feel. However, that doesn't change the fact that the S26 FE has weak performance, and struggles to differentiate itself from both the Galaxy S25 FE and the cheaper Galaxy A57

Samsung Galaxy S26 FE review: Cheat Sheet

What is it? The latest release in Samsung's long-running "Fan Edition" series, offering a lower price tag in exchange for slightly worse features than the standard Galaxy S26Who is it for? The people who can't justify spending the full $899 on a Galaxy S26, but don't want to deal with the larger compromises made on the cheaper Galaxy A57What does it cost? Prices for the S26 FE start at $699, for a model with 128GB of storage. A 256GB model is also available for $799, which is $200 lower than the 256GB Galaxy S26's newly-raised starting price.What do we like? The low starting price, the good battery life, solid camera quality and the number of premium AI features Samsung has included.What don't we like? The weak performance, the lack of upgrades compared to last year and the fact the Samsung Galaxy A57 isn't that far behind.

Samsung Galaxy S26 FE review: Specifications

Samsung Galaxy S26 FE review: The ups

When I first went hands-on with the Galaxy S26 FE I commented on the fact that the phone wasn't actually that much cheaper than the Galaxy S26. In fact, at the time, a 256GB S26 FE cost the same amount as a 256GB Galaxy S26. Things have changed since then, though, thanks to Samsung hiking the price of the entire Galaxy S26 lineup — except the Galaxy S26 FE.

This means that the cheapest Galaxy S26 is now $999, complete with 256GB of storage. Meanwhile the cheapest S26 FE is $699, while the larger 256GB storage option will set you back $799. That's a $200-$300 difference, depending on how much storage you actually require.

With the cost of entry suddenly much higher, that gives a huge advantage to the Galaxy S26 FE since it offers a lot of the same features as the Galaxy S26 but for a much lower price tag.

Premium-feeling design

I'll caveat this by saying that the Galaxy S26 FE is not as premium as past fan edition phones. The S25 FE has the same matte glass back as the Galaxy S25 FE, but that isn't the case with the S26 equivalents. Instead, the S26 FE has a glossy glass back that looks more like the Galaxy A57 — to the point where I struggle to tell them apart.

That said, the design is more premium than your typical cheap phone. There's a large 6.9-inch display (rated up to 1,900 nits), and a brushed metal frame that helps the phone avoid feeling like it's a cheap device. The same goes for the solid glass camera bump, which is a trait Samsung usually reserves for other Galaxy S-series devices.

There's some weight to the S26 FE that makes it feel like it's got some solid construction. While lightweight designs are all the rage in certain circles, the extra half ounce the S26 FE has over the A57 goes a long way. Not to mention that the weight is fairly evenly distributed, giving the phone a more balanced feel. The mid-range Samsung feels a little too light for its size, and doesn't balance as well, which means it feels a little more flimsy as a result.

Solid AI features

It isn't a Samsung phone release without AI playing a key role in everything going forward, and the Galaxy S26 FE is no different. Samsung didn't add anything new and exclusive, which shouldn't surprise anyone, but it still added a bunch of Galaxy AI features we've tried and enjoyed on both the Galaxy S26 and the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8.

Included here is My Fan Cam, which follows human beings to turn existing video into something brand new, the literally-named Horizontal Lock, Samsung's Document Scanner, Audio Eraser, Photo Assist's AI editing tools, Now Brief and the contextually aware Now Nudge, as well as the currently Samsung-exclusive Circle to Search upgrade that lets you scan multiple objects at once.

All of which makes this a solid low-cost choice for those of you that want access to Galaxy AI features.

Good battery life

We haven't been able to do our full battery life test on the Galaxy S26 FE just yet, but I have performed a rougher version to gauge just how much battery is lost when streaming video. That test involved streaming this YouTube video for three hours, with brightness set to 50%. For comparison's sake, I also ran the same test on the Samsung Galaxy S26 and Galaxy A57.

The Galaxy S26 FE was the worst of the three, which is bizarre considering it has a 4,900 mAh battery. At the end of the video stream it came out with 82%, compared to 85% on the 4,300 mAh Galaxy S26 and 87% on the 5,000 mAh Galaxy A57. That said, with an average battery loss of 6% per hour, that's not a huge amount of battery drain.

If that power consumption holds steady, it means the Galaxy S26 FE should last almost 17 hours in the same conditions. It's far from the best battery life we've seen, and logic dictates that the regular S26 should last 20 hours. But that should keep you going throughout the day.

As for charging, the Galaxy S26 FE promises up to 45W wired charging speeds. My USB-C power meter, paired with a 60W charging brick, saw the incoming power hit a high of 41W which is pretty close. As for actual recharging time, I found the S26 FE reached 39% after 15 minutes and 72% after half an hour.

That's faster than the S26 and A57, and only slightly behind the Galaxy S26 Ultra (77% in 30 minutes). The S26 FE hit 100% charge after 58 and a half minutes during my testing. This means that while the battery life could be better, at least you'll be able to recharge pretty quickly.

Camera quality is (mostly) good for the price

Since the Galaxy S26 FE is designed to sit between the Galaxy A57 and Galaxy S26, I decided that the fairest way to test the cameras was to compare all three phones together. To get an idea of just how much of a difference there is when the phones themselves sit a few hundred dollars apart from one another.

With the main camera lens, you can't see a whole lot of difference in the three, or at least you can't see them on my dog sitting in the foreground. At a glance the quality is generally pretty good, but if you look a little closer the A57 dips considerably compared to the S26 FE — which manages to capture more detail (especially in the background) and a higher quality.

It's a lot closer in quality to the standard S26, though I'd say the flagship model clinches it in terms of overall quality — despite the fact I can't see much difference on the dog.

The ultrawide lenses are easily the mostly evenly matched lenses on the three phones, and the quality is surprisingly uniform. I'd go so far as to say that the quality does improve as the price does, and both the S26 FE and S26 highlight the red spray paint a lot more clearly than the A57. However, the actual difference is not that noticeable unless you look super closely.

Sadly all three phones do a pretty poor job with zoom, no doubt thanks to the A57's lack of optical zoom and the S26 and FE's weak telephoto cameras. The S26 probably has the edge, especially since the S26 FE added a weird warm color hue to the photo, but none of them are particularly great when you crank magnification up to 3x.

Crank things up to 10x magnification and things are a lot worse. The A57 turned the tower into a fuzzy mess, while the S26 and S26 FE are more evenly matched — though not by a lot. The FE seemed to add a bunch of detail that the S26 didn't pick up. But considering the quality of the photo itself, I can't really say that's an improvement.

It's a similar story for both S26 models at 30x zoom — the maximum you can get on both these phones. The S26 FE looks a little washed out, and picked up darker coloring in the bricks, but the actual quality is on par with the standard S26. Though, this is not meant as a compliment.

When it comes to selfies, things are much the same. The overall quality isn't bad, but the level of detail you get improves as the phones get more expensive. The A57 is blurrier and captures far less, while the S26 FE looks a little more like a competent photo. However the S26 captures it the best, and you can make out the individual hair strands a lot more easily. Alongside improved background details.

Weirdly, though, things are a little different when Portrait mode is involved. Somehow the quality on the A57 seems to have been ramped up, to the point where I'd say the sharpness of the photo exceeds that of the S26 FE. Even the S26 seems to be struggling to visualize my facial hair and various facial details that the S26 FE manages without issue.

Things are more or less back to normal with low light photography. The S26 comes out on top in the detail department, though the difference between it and the S26 FE is not that severe. The two certainly managed to capture a similar amount of light to illuminate the final product. As for the A57, the quality isn't there and the lighting has been processed in a way that makes the photo look a lot colder. Almost as though the tomato plant is being illuminated by fluorescent lights.

Overall I'd say the S26 FE sits in a comfortable position between the A57 and the Galaxy S26. The S26 certainly has the edge in most areas, but the quality difference isn't actually that severe compared to the S26 FE's camera. There's also a noticeable difference between the FE and the Galaxy A57, even though the A57 isn't a bad camera for its price tag.

Samsung Galaxy S26 FE review: The downs

Minimal hardware upgrades

Like many phones, the Galaxy S26 FE doesn't have a whole lot to offer when it comes to actual upgrades. The differences in comparison to the Galaxy S25 FE are minimal, and the only tangible changes are the upgraded Exynos chipset and the glass enclosure around the rear camera lens.

The rest of the hardware is basically identical, which shows Samsung is leaning more onto the software upgrades to try and sell the S26 FE. That's not bad, per se, and the S26 FE does have a heck of a lot of useful features you'd normally only find on flagship phones. However, there's no telling how many of those will make their way to S25 FE at some point.

In that respect, the S26 FE doesn't feel like a "must-have" device. Not unless you have a super-old Fan Edition phone, or some kind of mid-ranger that desperately needs upgrading.

Middling performance

When it comes to making phones cheap, compromises have to be made, and in the case of the Galaxy S26 FE Samsung appears to have nerfed the performance in a big way. The fact is, while the rest of the S26 series gets the custom Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy chips (or the latest Exynos 2600), the S26 FE is stuck with the Exynos 2500 — a chip that debuted at the start of 2025.

Obviously this means that the phone does not have the same level of computing or graphics power as more expensive phones.

As you can see, the Galaxy S26 FE trails quite far behind both variants of the Galaxy S26. Likewise it falls quite far behind the iPhone 17e, which is powered by Apple's A18 chipset. However, the older Apple chipset always struggled with the graphics side of things, which means it lags quite far behind the S26 FE in that area.

Performance is one area that the S26 FE truly beats out the A57. The mid-range phone's performance is very poor by comparison, especially where graphics are concerned. However, considering the A57 is $150 cheaper, that's not a huge surprise. In any case, if you were hoping for flagship performance from the Galaxy S26 FE, you are out of luck.

The A57 isn't too far behind

Having tested both the Galaxy A57 and the Galaxy S26 FE, I can tell you that the lived experience of using both phones is very different. That said, the Galaxy A57 is still an excellent phone for its price, and on paper the differences between it and the Galaxy S26 FE are fairly minimal — especially for casual users who prioritize value and battery life over raw power.

While I personally think the extra $150 you pay for a Galaxy S26 FE is justifiable, my finances are different than yours — and Samsung is going a lot to make its mid-range phones a heck of a lot more appealing. To the point where it's essentially competing with itself on multiple fronts. Frankly, Samsung should have done more to help the S26 FE stand out on its own more, rather than being compared to lesser phones.

Samsung Galaxy S26 FE review: Verdict

I didn't have high hopes for the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE when Samsung first announced it. Personally, I felt as though the Fan Edition series was being awkwardly stuffed into a niche that didn't really need to be filled, to its own detriment. But actually using the phone, combined with Samsung's unceremonious price hike for the rest of the S26 series, has softened me up a bit. There's more to a phone than the basic hardware specs, and you don't really get to experience that without having it in your hand.

The Galaxy S26 FE offers a flagship experience that you just don't get on Samsung's cheaper phones right now. The experience has been nerfed slightly, in order to save money, but you still get a lot of the best parts of having a premium phone without the high price tag. Considering a regular Galaxy S26 now costs $999, the willingness to accept some of those compromises can now save you a bunch of extra money.

The lack of meaningful updates is not ideal, though, and if Samsung wants the Fan Edition series to continue long into the future, it's going to have to step up and not let it get neglected and end up the same way as the Galaxy Z Flip lineup.