Samsung Galaxy S26 FE: Great Functional Elegance

The Samsung Galaxy S26 Series has been out since February this year in the Philippines. And just as they did last year, the brand has also released the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE this Q3.

Tagged as the most affordable model in the brand’s flagship lineup while sitting above the best model in their midrange A Series, the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE might just be the right choice for a good number of people.

I’ve spent a good three weeks with it as my daily driver, and found quite a few things interesting. Here’s my full review.

Design & Build

The Samsung Galaxy S26 FE comes in three colors, which include Graphite, Pistachio, and the one I got which is Blueberry, having a slightly dark shade of blue.

At a glance, it’s easy to tell that it continues to follow the same design language as other current Galaxy models, having the same style camera island on the upper left of the back that protects the individual lenses plus a reflective glass back that has the brand name placed toward the bottom.

The Samsung Galaxy S26 FE is encased in an aluminum alloy frame that’s smooth and cold to the touch, while the front features its large display with bezels thin enough to be barely noticeable. Power and volume buttons are on the right hand side of the display.

The top of the phone is where you’d find one of the microphones and one of the speakers, while the bottom is where the other microphone and speaker are, right alongside the charging port and a dual-nano SIM tray. This SIM tray, just like the rest of the models in the Samsung Galaxy S Series lineup, has no slot for expansion via microSD card.

And in terms of dimensions, the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE measures at 161.6 x 76.9 x 7.4mm and weighs 193 grams.

Apart from that, it’s certified for IP68 dust & water resistance having been tested in lab conditions. This makes it dust-proof and allows submersion into freshwater at 1.5 meters deep for up to 30 minutes.

Overall, the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE’s design is pretty straightforward, with a good amount of heft and premium feel when held while remaining lightweight despite having a metal chassis. The rounded edges at the corners are also angled well enough that they don’t wear down the user’s palms while in use, making it very comfortable to grip.

Display

It’s without a doubt that the brand is well known for manufacturing displays, so it’s not surprising that the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE greatly benefits from that fact.

The phone sports a Dynamic AMOLED 2x panel that comes with features that benefit the user greatly. These include an HDR10+ certification that enhances its visual experience through improved colors and contrast, as well as less blue light emission for reduced eye strain.

Additional benefits include high color accuracy that makes it great for curating content, as well as a high refresh rate for smooth and responsive use.

Watching content on this panel is also a delight, especially when watching full HD and 4K videos on platforms like Netflix and YouTube as the device is Widevine L1 certified. Viewing angles are also great, which makes it easy to share media streamed or viewed on the phone with others.

Also, for gamers like myself, touch response also proved to be fast enough for my level of competitive gaming on FPS titles like Call of Duty Mobile and even games in the MOBA genre.

The display on the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE is large at 6.7 inches, with thin bezels at the top, left, and right sides, as well as a rather small bottom bezel or ‘chin’ for extra screen real estate. It also sports a good amount of brightness with its peak at 1,900 Nits, making it fairly easy to use even under the sun.

Given everything mentioned, one can easily say that the display on the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE has all it needs to cater to various types of people – from the average user to content creators, and more.

Performance & Benchmarks

As it belongs to the brand’s flagship S Series, the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE is expected to boast a considerable amount of power to perform well in a lot of aspects.

With that in mind, it comes equipped with a Samsung Exynos 2500 chip at its core, which is the same one that was used on the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 from last year.

This proprietary chip from the brand has a 3nm architecture and 10 cores, translating to a good balance of performance and energy efficiency.

And so in terms of benchmarks, I would say that it performed relatively high against models within the same price bracket. Scores overall across AnTuTu, Geekbench 6, 3D Mark, and PCMark were reasonable especially since the unit I got my hands on was the base model with a configuration of 8GB RAM and 128GB ROM.

I’m very sure that there would be people who might take a look at these charts and judge solely based on that, but benchmark scores however don’t paint the entire picture as my real world use throughout the weeks I’ve daily driven the phone maintained a consistent dependable level of performance.

Both download and upload speeds on my personal Wi-Fi were almost always consistent with the speed of my data plan of 600mbps during the early part of my testing, and a solid 300mbps toward the end. The reason for the varied speeds is that my bonus speed boost from my provider expired toward the end of my testing period.

5G connectivity via mobile data was also consistent, and I had no trouble streaming 4K music videos to pass the time while stuck sitting on a bus while commuting.

And since gaming is one of the ways to test how good a phone’s chip performs, I definitely didn’t skip that.

To put it shortly, playing games on the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE is enjoyable.

FPS games like Call of Duty Mobile ran smoothly on the phone even at high settings. For this title in particular, players can choose between two combinations of graphics and frame rate settings. You can select Very High graphics and Max frame rates to get a consistent 60fps, or choose Low graphics & Ultra frame rates to get a high 120fps while playing the game.

PUBG: Mobile is no exception from high fps gameplay either, since the lowest graphics and highest frame rates it can be set to also boast an almost always consistent 120fps while playing.

MOBAs also play well on the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE with Mobile Legends allowing Super frame rates and HD resolution for 90fps gaming.

Honor of Kings can have both frame rate and graphics settings set to Ultra for consistent 90fps plays.

Then League of Legends: WR will have you choose between having the highest frame rates or the highest graphics for only a medium level performance loss.

Heavier titles like those from HoYoverse will default to Medium or High depending on the game, but are very playable at a consistent 30fps across the various games. I play tested Genshin Impact, Zenless Zone Zero, Wuthering Waves, and Honkai: Star Rail below.

I’ve even tried Pokémon Unite which plays highest settings by default and the new Overwatch Rush that plays at 60fps, plus Pokémon Go which averaged about 100 to 120fps.

Battery & Charging

This aspect of the phone is what may be the dealbreaker for people who are looking to consider the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE as their next mobile companion.

It only has a 4900mAh battery which looks particularly small compared to lower midrange models that now have 7000mAh & up to 10000mAh cells. Not only that, but the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE’s PCMark battery tests showed results that were just short of 11 hours which raised a bit of a concern at first. The adaptive setting scored 10 hours and 48 minutes, then standard got 10 hours and 31 minutes.

But my actual day-to-day use showed that the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE is able to go through a full day of use depending on how heavy you really push to drain its battery.

My typical day isn’t far from the average employee who leaves home in the morning with their battery at 100%, then uses it in between activities for work, leisure, and the unholy commutes we go through each day. And in the weeks that I’ve used it, I would typically need to reach for a charger at about 9PM when the battery’s already gone below 15 to 20%.

That included a lot of music streaming, messaging apps, YouTube streaming, games, and a fair amount of use from the camera. So while the battery size isn’t much, you still get a lot out of it thanks to power efficiency gained from the display, processor, and software optimization.

Charging is also quite fast so long as you have an official compatible charger. Since the cell is small, 45W charging proved to be adequate, being able to charge to 50% in about 25 minutes, then 100% in 80 minutes per my testing. It really is best to get a proper charger for this phone since it doesn’t come included in the box, and unofficial ones will charge it really slowly.

Cameras

Cameras are easy to talk about when Samsung is mentioned. I highly appreciate that they placed a full set on the rear of the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE inclusive of an ultra-wide and a telephoto. All three of them having OIS is a great thing to have also.

Outputs from the main are very usable with a good level of detail and dynamic range, while shots from the telephoto and ultra-wide turn out pretty good depending on the subject or scene.

The selfie camera also does it job well in capturing details on people’s faces and background separation.

Videos taken on this phone are clean, have consistent frame rates, and the microphones capture audio clear despite a lot going on in the background. Samples below:

Rear Camera:

One UI 9 and Other Features

The Samsung Galaxy S26 FE is the first phone in the lineup to be released having One UI 9 out of the box with improved usability and up to 7 years of software support.

Another aspect of this UI is the full suite of Galaxy AI tools made available, and while there are a lot of them that would benefit various types of users, I admit that I rarely used some of them while daily driving. However, I did find that the most useful ones for me would be:

• Interpreter: For real time translations
• Photo Assist & Creative Studio: If I wanna get crafty
• My FanCam: For important events like birthdays, recitals, graduations, and TikToks
• Audio Eraser (for videos): Since public spaces like streets can get really noisy
• Now brief: For easy access to weather updates, important notifications, & suggested content from my YouTube and Netflix accounts

Verdict

Overall as a smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE is an easy recommendation if you look at what it has to offer from its premium build quality, flagship tier peformance, reliable display, well-performing cameras, and all-day use on a single charge despite its small battery.

There are a few things however that would make it a bit difficult for others to consider this phone which include the following:

• Battery size: While able to last all-day brand new, after years of use, it may require much more frequent charges to last in a day. This can be addressed through aftersales replacements or with a reliable power bank.
• Limited internal storage: With no way to upgrade after purchase, one has to consider their use case and how much storage they’ll need without having to rely on SSDs and cloud storage.
• Pricing: The phone is fairly priced in my opinion, but with costs for storage ramping up this year and in the forseeable future, consumers would choose to be smart and may look for alternatives elsewhere even at the sacrifice of a bit of performance to save money and maybe even get larger capacity storage.

However, for those with the capacity to buy who are looking to get an S Series model that does not skimp out on the essentials of a proper flagship with a midrange price, this will be a good choice, considering the gap between it and the same-sized Samsung Galaxy S26+. For reference on the price of the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE as well as added insight, you can watch Sir Gian’s video below:

@gadgetpilipinas

The Galaxy S26 FE is now official, and here’s everything you need to know, including price and availability. #GalaxyS26FE

♬ original sound – Gadget Pilipinas – Gadget Pilipinas

Samsung Galaxy S26 FE Spec Rundown

Display	6.7″ Dynamic AMOLED 2x Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+ 1080 x 2340 resolution (385 PPI) Peak brightness at 1,900 Nits 120Hz adaptive refresh rate / 60Hz standard refresh rate
Processor	Exynos 2500 (3nm Architecture, up to 3.3GHz)
GPU	Xclipse 950
RAM	8GB (LPDDR5X); with RAM Plus (2GB, 4GB, 6GB, 8GB options that use storage to act as RAM)
ROM/Internal Storage	128GB, 256GB, and 512GB options (UFS 4.0)
Rear Cameras	50MP Main – f/1.8 aperture – 84° FoV (field of view) – OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) – Records HD (720p) video at 30fps, FHD (1080p) and UHD (4K) at 30fps/60fps, and 8K video at 60fps 12MP Ultra-wide – f/2.2 aperture – 123° FoV – OIS 8MP Telephoto – 3x optical zoom – Up to 30x digital zoom – OIS – f/2.4 aperture – 32° FoV
Front Camera	12MP - f/2.2 aperture - 85° FoV
Battery & Charging	4900mAh 45W wired charging (max power accessible through official compatible chargers with support for QC2.0 & AFCPD protocols) 15W wireless charging (compatible with WPC) Wireless PowerShare (reverse wireless charging with compatible devices)
OS & Software Support	One UI 9 based on Android 17 7 years of Android updates 7 years of Security updates
Colors	Graphite, Pistachio, Blueberry
Dimensions	Height: 161.6mm Width: 76.9mm Depth: 7.4mm Weight: 193 grams
Others	Dual Speakers 2 Microphones IP68 Dust & Water Resistance (based on lab test conditions, can be submerged in freshwater 1.5 meters deep for up to 30 minutes) Optical fingerprint sensor Connectivity: – 5G, LTE, Wi-Fi 6E, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth® 5.4