The Galaxy S26 FE has a tough act to follow. Last year’s Galaxy S25 FE was a big hit in India, winning over enthusiasts while also delivering strong sales for Samsung.
And that really is the appeal of the FE series. For Samsung fans who want the Galaxy S experience without paying flagship prices, these phones have traditionally offered a pretty compelling middle ground. You get a lot of what makes the premium S series desirable, but at a more accessible price.
The smartphone market, however, looks very different today. Rising RAM and storage costs have pushed prices up, and outside the premium segment, we’re increasingly seeing phones that struggle to justify what they cost.
So, can the Galaxy S26 FE still make the FE formula work in this market? I’ve spent some time with it, and here are my initial impressions.
The Galaxy S26 FE doesn’t stray too far from Samsung’s familiar design language. The overall shape remains largely unchanged, but the rear cameras now sit together on a raised island instead of using three separate camera rings.
My review unit is the Pistachio variant, which I find the most interesting of the three available colours, with Blueberry and Graphite being the other options. Samsung has switched to a glossy finish this year, and while it looks premium, I personally preferred the subtler matte finish on the S25 FE. The glossy back also picks up fingerprints quite easily.
Build quality, however, remains excellent. The phone uses an aluminium alloy frame, gets Gorilla Glass Victus+ protection, and carries an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance. Overall, it feels sturdy and appropriately premium in the hand.
The Galaxy S26 FE gets a 6.7-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with a 120Hz refresh rate and a claimed peak brightness of 1,900 nits.
As you would expect from Samsung, the panel looks great. Colours are vibrant, contrast levels are excellent, and the 120Hz refresh rate makes scrolling and animations feel smooth. It also gets bright enough to remain comfortably visible outdoors.
The problem is that there isn't much here that feels new. It is very similar to the S25 FE's display, right down to the slightly uneven bezels and thicker chin. You also don't get the broader adaptive refresh rate range found on Samsung's LTPO flagship displays, with the S26 FE switching between 60Hz and 120Hz instead.
It's an excellent display overall, but certainly not a meaningful generational upgrade.
Performance is one area where the Galaxy S26 FE gets a more substantial upgrade. Samsung has equipped the phone with the Exynos 2500, paired with 8GB of RAM.
So far, the experience has been quite good. The S26 FE feels snappy in everyday use, apps launch quickly, multitasking is smooth, and I haven't noticed any major slowdowns or stutters.
Samsung has also added a fairly large 5,526mm² vapour chamber, which should help with thermals during longer gaming sessions and other demanding workloads. I'll be testing that more extensively for the full review.
That said, the Exynos 2500 isn't Samsung's most powerful chipset, while 8GB of RAM feels a little modest for a near-flagship phone in 2026. Even so, there's a clear performance improvement over the Galaxy S25 FE, and the initial experience has been promising.
Samsung is putting a lot of emphasis on the Galaxy S26 FE’s cameras, with photography taking centre stage, followed by video and portrait capabilities.
The actual camera hardware, however, hasn’t changed much. You still get a 50MP primary camera, a 12MP ultrawide and an 8MP telephoto with 3x optical zoom.
Based on my initial testing, the main camera is easily the strongest of the three. It captures plenty of detail, handles dynamic range well and delivers the vibrant colour processing we’ve come to expect from Samsung. The ultrawide also performs well in good lighting, while the dedicated 3x telephoto gives you more flexibility than phones that depend entirely on digital zoom.
Samsung is also focusing heavily on low-light photography this year, backed by its computational photography and AI processing.
Still, I would have liked to see some meaningful hardware upgrades. The 8MP telephoto, in particular, is starting to feel dated, especially in low light. I’ll be testing all three cameras much more extensively for the full review.
Software is perhaps where the Galaxy S26 FE comes closest to delivering on Samsung’s promise of bringing the flagship Galaxy experience to a more accessible phone.
It ships with Android 17 and One UI 9 out of the box, along with several features that have trickled down from Samsung’s more expensive devices.
One of the more interesting additions is My FanCam, which we recently saw on the Galaxy Z Fold 8. You also get AI-powered features such as Audio Eraser, along with productivity tools including DocuSign integration.
There’s Digital Car Key support for compatible vehicles from select manufacturers, wireless charging, and access to Samsung’s wider suite of Galaxy AI features.
More importantly, Samsung is promising seven years of major OS upgrades. If you tend to hold on to your phones for several years, that level of long-term software support remains a major advantage for the Galaxy S26 FE.
The Galaxy S26 FE comes with a 4,900mAh battery, but the bigger upgrade this year is support for 45W wired charging.
Samsung says the phone can go from empty to around 70 per cent in 30 minutes, which is a welcome improvement over the relatively slow charging speeds we’ve seen on several Galaxy phones in the past.
As for endurance, my initial experience has been promising so far. However, I’ll need considerably more time with the S26 FE before drawing any conclusions about its real-world battery life.
The Galaxy S26 FE sticks closely to the formula that has worked well for Samsung, while making a few meaningful upgrades where they matter.
Performance is better, build quality remains premium, the display is excellent, and the cameras offer plenty of versatility. You also get several flagship-level AI features and Samsung’s excellent long-term software support. At the same time, quite a bit of the hardware feels familiar, particularly the display and camera setup.
That makes the price incredibly important.
On paper, the Galaxy S26 FE still looks like a compelling entry point into Samsung’s premium ecosystem. But with smartphone prices climbing across the board, simply being a good phone isn’t enough anymore. It also needs to offer good value.
Whether the Galaxy S26 FE manages to strike that balance is something I’ll explore in the full review.