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Engadget review finds modest upgrades in Samsung's $700 Galaxy S26 FE as price rises $50

Engadget's review of the $700 Samsung Galaxy S26 FE finds modest updates over last year's model, including an Exynos 2500 chip and new AI features, alongside compromises in storage, gaming performance and battery life.

AI News Feed · 2026-09-18 23:19

Engadget's reviewer writes that the S26 FE resembles the Galaxy S26+ more than the base Galaxy S26, carrying a 6.7-inch OLED display and three rear cameras. The screen refreshes at up to 120Hz and peaks at 1,900 nits, below the 2,600 nits of the Galaxy S26 series, a difference the review says shows up on bright summer days. Design changes from the S25 FE are few: a glossy back finish replaces the matte one used on the S25 FE and the current S26 flagships, the body is slightly taller, wider and three grams heavier while staying 7.4mm thick, and the rear lenses now sit in a connected camera island. The reviewer also praised the pistachio color option.

To keep the price down, Samsung retained 8GB of RAM and 128GB of base storage, with a 256GB version available. The phone runs the Exynos 2500 chip, the same processor used in last year's Z Flip 7. The review says it is not a flagship experience: Wuthering Waves stuttered in detailed environments and busy fights. The reviewer also noted intermittent sluggishness in the camera app that felt like a much cheaper A-series phone, a problem that matters when trying to capture a quick shot. The 4,900mAh battery matches the cell in the similarly sized S26+, but in Engadget's video rundown test it delivered just over 21 hours of playback, which the review calls a large drop in longevity compared with the base S26 and means daily charging. Charging tops out at 45 watts wired and 15 watts wireless, without magnetic mounting rings.

Software additions include Now Brief and Now Nudge, Samsung's contextual AI features. The review calls Now Nudge the more useful of the pair, because it surfaces shortcuts to calendar or contacts apps without requiring users to switch apps or copy dates and phone numbers manually. Object erasing and other AI photo editing tasks are faster and more accurate than on older FE phones, according to the review.

The camera hardware follows the FE series' existing formula: a 50-megapixel wide camera, a 12-megapixel ultrawide and an 8-megapixel telephoto with 3x optical zoom. The review notes that the dedicated telephoto sets the phone apart from some cheaper models.