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Samsung still has one more phone to release before the year’s end. This is the newest Fan Edition phone: the Galaxy S26 FE that starts at $700, which is a $50 increase over the previous model. It will arrive on September 3rd with select carriers and on September 4th everywhere else, in blueberry, pistachio, or graphite.
Spec-wise, it mirrors that of the Galaxy S25 FE—even visually, save for the newer Exynos 2500 processor and Android 17 with Samsung’s new One UI 9 software. Both offer a 6.7-inch 120 Hz OLED display with up to 1,900 nits of peak brightness, 8 GB of RAM with up to 256 GB of storage, an IP68-rated body, a rear-facing triple camera setup with a 50MP main wide, 12MP ultrawide, and an 8MP telephoto with 3x optical zoom, a 12MP selfie camera, and a 4,900 mAh battery capable of achieving a 69% charge in 30 mins with 45 W wired and 15 W wireless charging.
On the software side, the Galaxy S26 FE supports up to 7 years of OS upgrades and 7 years of security updates. Also present are many features from the flagship S26 series, including Super Steady Video with Horizontal Lock, which keeps your footage level up to 360-degree rotations; My Fan Cam, which provides automatic subject tracking and video reframing in different aspect ratios and orientations; Audio Eraser, which removes background noise from audio and video; Document Scan, which is the company’s camera scanning feature; Photo Assist; and Now Brief, which is Samsung’s version of Google’s Daily Brief that gives you a summary of your calendar, sleep, and health metrics; Now Nudge, which is its proactive contextual actions via keyboard, notifications, and select third-party apps; Circle to Search; and Gemini Live.
The S26 FE is fully stacked in both hardware and software to be your next smartphone. We got a brief hands-on with it earlier this week, and it feels flagship-worthy on the hardware-wise. However, we’ll have to put it through our testing for performance, camera, and battery experience, and how it compares to other phones near its price point. Specifically the Galaxy S26, which provides more for an additional $200.
