Samsung’s Galaxy S26 FE pairs last year’s hardware with last month’s software

The Fan Edition phones are rarely Samsung’s most exciting launches of the year, but the new Galaxy S26 FE feels especially familiar. Hardware-wise, little has changed since the S25 FE launched 12 months ago, and the upgrades have mostly come in the form of software tricks which themselves were already seen on this year’s previous Samsung flagships.

At its core, this is the same phone as last year’s. The 6.7-inch OLED display, 4,900mAh battery, and triple rear camera are all identical. The changes are few: The chipset has been given its annual upgrade to the Exynos 2500, and the 12-megapixel selfie camera is a little wider, with an 85-degree field of view, up from 80.

The design has been tweaked too, with glossier finishes and a raised camera island to match the other S26 phones. A few color changes complete the hardware update: a gray called graphite, a blue dubbed blueberry, and the same light green pistachio that’s already proven popular on this year’s Galaxy Z Fold 8. This isn’t quite as half-hearted a refresh as Sony’s phoned-in Xperia 10 VIII, but it’s not far off.

A modest update like this might play better if it weren’t for RAMageddon, which means the S26 FE also comes with a price hike. At $699.99 for a model with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, this is $50 more expensive than the S25 FE, rising to $799.99 for 256GB of storage.

The FE looks almost identical to the S26 Plus, which cost $1,099.99 at launch but can currently be had for $899.99 with 256GB storage — only $100 more than the FE. Both phones are the same size and weight, though while the FE’s screen is no smaller, it does have a lower resolution. The battery and charging match too, apart from very slightly slower 15W wireless speeds. It’s the underlying performance that really pulls the phones apart, with more RAM and a faster chip in the mainline S26 phones, better build quality, and superior telephoto and ultrawide cameras.

The bigger updates are to the phone’s software, though these are also familiar from those foldables, or the S26 phones earlier this year. There’s My FanCam, a video editing trick that uses AI to crop footage so that it tracks a specific subject throughout. Audio Eraser now supports third-party content apps, reducing background noise in videos on YouTube or Netflix to make it easier to focus on dialogue. Most useful might be the super steady Horizontal Lock video recording option in the camera app.

The daily Now Brief roundup has been updated to allow the creation of AI-enabled custom cards that you can use to track aspects of the weather, your health, or your favorite online content. The updated Now Nudge from the Z Flip 8 and Fold 8 appears too. It suggests contextual actions like adding events to your calendar or saving locations on Google Maps based on the content of your conversations with contacts. Unfortunately, Now Nudge requires you use Samsung Keyboard, and in my testing of Samsung’s recent foldables, I found it rarely triggered even when I did.

Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge

Update, August 27th: Added US pricing and the chipset name.