Samsung Launches $699.99 Galaxy S26 FE With Exynos 2500 and New Galaxy AI Tools

Q: With a steep price hike, does the Galaxy S26 FE still deliver the ultimate budget flagship experience, or is the Fan Edition dead?

The Galaxy S26 FE still qualifies as a budget flagship, but only narrowly; the bigger price tag means the Fan Edition is no longer the clear-cut bargain it once was. On paper, Samsung has kept much of the FE formula intact. The S26 FE offers a large 6.7-inch 120Hz AMOLED display, strong claimed brightness at 1,900 nits, a versatile triple-camera system with 3x optical zoom, 45W charging, long battery claims, and seven generations of Android updates. For buyers who want a big screen, solid cameras, premium build quality and long software support without stepping up to a full S26, that remains a compelling package. The problem is value. At £699 for 128GB, the S26 FE is £50 more than the S25 FE, and the upper tiers climb quickly to £949. At that level, the FE starts to drift away from its traditional role as the “smart compromise” in Samsung’s lineup. The use of the Exynos 2500, while improved, is still below the standard S26’s Exynos 2600, and the camera hardware does not appear to be a major leap. That makes the higher entry price harder to justify purely on performance grounds. So the Fan Edition is not dead, but it has changed. The S26 FE looks more like a lower-tier premium Galaxy than a true cut-price flagship killer. Buyers heavily invested in Samsung’s ecosystem may still see good value, but bargain hunters may find the FE label now promises more than the pricing delivers.

3 articles · Updated · PCMag · Aug 27

$699.99 buys Samsung’s new Galaxy S26 FE, which adds Galaxy AI features, ships with Android 17-based One UI 9, and goes on sale Sept. 3.
Exynos 2500 is the main hardware upgrade, while much of the rest stays close to the S25 FE: a 6.7-inch 120Hz display, 4,900mAh battery, and 8GB RAM with 128GB or 256GB storage.
Camera hardware is largely unchanged too—a 50MP main, 8MP telephoto, and 12MP ultrawide—but Samsung added software features including Super Steady Video, brighter night video, and My FanCam editing tools.
The phone also brings AI additions such as Document Scanner upgrades, natural-language Photo Assist, broader Audio Eraser support, and more customizable Now Brief and Now Nudge suggestions.
That package comes with a $50 increase from the S25 FE, a rise Samsung reports have linked to an ongoing RAM supply crunch, even as the upgrade over last year’s model remains modest.