The Galaxy S series first introduced the FE variant of their flagship since the S20 FE. That was 6 generations ago, and now we have the latest Samsung Galaxy S26 FE. There are quite a lot of changes done inside and out, so let’s go through everything that you need to know about this new phone.
Performance
Let’s talk with what’s changed. The performance is an interesting point here since the Galaxy S26 FE is the first ever slab phone to be equipped with the Exynos 2500. It was supposed to be released with the S25 series last year, but there were yield issues and whatnot – and it was only ever found in the Z Flip7 before this.
So we immediately did our gaming test when we got the S26 FE to see how it actually performs. Surprisingly, the Exynos 2500 is really good. Genshin Impact maintained a very high frame rate even at the highest graphical settings, which is a great sign for sure.
Zenless Zone Zero is also quite okay. We can definitely see frame drops here and there, but even when the frame drops, it’s not dropping into the slideshow territory. It’s still relatively smooth to play with, hovering around 20-30fps at minimum while thermal throttling.
Wuthering Waves is the most surprising to me. We got the C# patch, which alleviates the CPU bottleneck a little, and it can run around 30fps at minimum – much more stable than I expected. The performance here is actually better than the POCO F9 Pro with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 V despite being 1.5 years old.
We also tested a lot of other games – so watch the video here.
Battery life
The battery life, while it is packed with the same 4,900mAh battery, it actually has a better battery life thanks to the new chipset that’s more efficient when compared to what we had in the S25 FE. Using our standardised battery life test, the S26 FE can last for 14 hours and 26 minutes.
Compared to the S25 FE, this is about 5.5% increase in efficiency. If we assume this is a 3.7V battery, it consumes around 1.256W average throughout the test. Not exactly the most efficient, but I’m also not surprised since the Exynos family of chipsets rarely get any optimisation anyway.
Charging speed
As for the charging speed, the S26 FE can support up to 45W of wired fast charging. It’s the same as the previous generation, but the charging speed is around 5 minutes faster than the previous generation S25 FE. Why is that?
Well, it seems like the S26 FE has better temperature control, so the battery doesn’t hit the charging thermal limit as much. 5 minutes might not seem like a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it’s still an improvement nonetheless.
Software
As for the software, there are a lot of changes here too. Samsung ships the S26 FE with the latest One UI 9, just like the Galaxy Z Fold8 series of phones.
We have the existing list of Galaxy AI features like photo editing, slow motion video, transcription of texts, all of that stuff. The Horizontal Lock feature from the Galaxy S26 series is also present here too.
But with One UI 9 comes the new My FanCam feature that sets you as the center stage of the video even when you’re moving around the video. This kind of centering takes video editors some time doing a horrendously tedious job, but the Galaxy S26 FE can do it automatically for you. Pretty neat features, I’d say – especially for those who wanna post TikTok dances.
Camera
But then again, the cameras themselves remain the same as the previous generations. Yes, plural. I only managed to take a few pics with this phone as I was busy testing other things at that time, and the quality is somewhat different from the previous generation.
To have a look at all the pictures taken with the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE, watch the video at the top of this review.
Screen
The screen is another part of the phone that’s the exact same as the previous generations too. We have a 6.7-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with the same resolution of 2340×1080 pixels and goes up to 120Hz refresh rate. I mean, it’s fine, and this screen is still considered very high-grade in today’s world of smartphone screens.
It can go up to 1186 nits at most, and down to 1.91 nits minimum. Pretty good even in 2026.
Now, the S26 FE has a total of 4 different color profiles – the natural color profile and vividness levels 1 to 3. For the sake of brevity, we’re going to test the natural color profile and the vividness level 3.
For the natural color profile, it covers up to 99.2% of sRGB and 77.05% of DCI-P3, giving you a very plain look. The ΔE number is also very low – which is to be expected, to be honest.
Bumping it up to vividness level 3, it can cover 100% of sRGB and 99.26% of DCI-P3, and the colors look super vivid. Actually, the newer Galaxy S26 Ultra’s screen is not as vivid as the S26 FE’s screen at vividness level 3. Not by much, but definitely measurable.
Design
The design is also unchanged. Well, technically unchanged. It has the same size and shape as before, the camera bump is considerably thinner and flat compared to other phones we have in the market today, and this Pistachio colour looks great.
However, Samsung changed from a matte finish on the S25 FE, to this super glossy finish on the S26 FE. Why? I have no idea. I’m not a fan of glossy finishes, but this is what we have right now.
Other than that, it’s basically the same as before.
A few more things to mention
And we have a few more things to mention. The S26 FE has been downgraded to a USB 2 port with no display output capability, so wired Samsung DeX is not possible. The S25 FE had USB 3 with wired DeX support, by the way.
We still have wireless DeX on the S26 FE, but wireless is honestly annoying due to latency.
We still have dual SIM card slots alongside eSIM support, so at least this part remains unchanged.
Should you buy the Galaxy S26 FE?
So then, should you buy the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE? Well, let’s start with an advise. Never buy the 128GB variant. Yes, I’m serious. 128GB should not exist in the year 2025. That means we’re looking at the price tag of RM3,299 – but there’s already discounts down to RM2,799 right now.
I think comparing the prices with the previous generation is not going to be fair since everything tech is getting a price hike, but this argument is only valid if no downgrades were made. Depending whether or not you use wired DeX or transfer files to and fro the phone, reducing USB 3 to USB 2 could be a big deal.
What we do get is a new-ish chipset – the Exynos 2500. It’s still 1.5 years old at this point in time but it’s a very powerful chipset that can run games better than the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 V found in the POCO F9 Pro.
So, whether or not you should buy the Galaxy S26 FE – that depends on your situation. If you can get it with a meaningful discount, then I guess it’s worth the price. Other than that, you can even score the S25 FE from last year though the performance and battery life is definitely not as good as the S26 FE. Ultimately, it depends on the price and what sort of deal you can get.
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