The Samsung Galaxy S26 FE is a decent smartphone for work, but it's missing some of the features that businesses really need

2026 may go down as the year that foldable phones came of age, but it will be worth looking back at the number of quality budget phones that were released. The latest is the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE, the most affordable model of the S26 that often doesn't fall too far behind its premium siblings.

Due to the state of memory chips and the general cost of living at the moment, the term 'budget' might need a rethink, especially as the S26 FE is $699 for the basic model. Which might make it too expensive for a business phone, but still, that's a lot less than any of the premium models.

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Samsung Galaxy S26 FE: Design

The Samsung Galaxy S26 FE is, as expected, a condensed version of the Ultra, with some features missing to save costs. However, visually, it's simply a smaller model than the Ultra.

You get a gloriously large 6.7in display, a delicately curved camera bump with three lenses, and it comes in three colors – Blueberry, Graphite, and Pistachio – and all models have a metal frame around the chassis with flat sides. At first glance, it looks exactly like the Ultra, with only the slightly smaller size giving it away.

It's 7.4mm thick, which is 0.5mm less than the Ultra. It still feels quite cumbersome to operate one-handed; my short thumb struggled to reach all of the touchscreen while I was on the move. And I did almost drop it a few times while getting it out of my pocket due to the slippery back cover. But these are things I'm willing to overlook for the use of a 6.7in display.

Samsung Galaxy S26 FE: Display

The screen is a gorgeous Dynamic AMOLED x2, with a 120Hz refresh rate and HDR10+ capabilities. It's seemingly the same display as found in the S25 FE model, and there are no complaints here from us. It's bold, bright, and very crisp. Great for YouTube videos, photos, even some document editing.

In our tests, the S26 FE recorded 100% for sRGB gamut color coverage (115.8% for volume), which is a high score for a budget device. This is the most affordable Galaxy S26 device, but the standard is still high. The S26 Ultra, for instance, hit 96% for color coverage.

The S26FE couldn't really compete with brightness, peaking at 421.72cd/m2 during our tests. That's a little low compared to other S6 models, but it's still bright enough to handle most sunny conditions.

You also get a wealth of modes and controls for the display, though there's no Privacy Display on the FE; that's still exclusive to the Ultra. This isn't much of a surprise as it isn't on the ZFold8 either, but still, once you see the Privacy Display in action, a life without it seems insecure – it's one of the best privacy features we've seen for a while, and it's a shame it's not available on the FE.

Samsung Galaxy S26 FE: Specs and performance

The FE is packing the in-house developed Exynos 2500 chip, which is the same as last year's models. It is a good chip, but it's matched with a measly 8GB of RAM. What's worse, you can only opt for up to 512GB of storage, which is a bit of an issue if you are heavy on downloading files and videos.

In Geekbench 7, the FE came back with 2,048 for single-core and 7,503 for multi-threaded. Neither is particularly groundbreaking compared to the Ultra, but they are good scores. Both scores were nearly double that of our recent review of the Motorola Edge 70 Pro, for example.

The FE has Android 17 out of the box, with Samsung's One UI 9 overlay. And even better, it has a guarantee of up to 7 major OS updates across its lifetime. The best feature here, from our experience, is the split-screen multitasking mode, where you easily switch between apps with just a tap.

As with recent Galaxy S models, the battery lasts well beyond our 20-hour looped video test. The Galaxy S26FE needed two attempts and held out for 28hr, 54min – around 7hrs less than the S26 Ultra. This rings true in real life, as I found on a recent trip to Berlin for IFA; I went two whole working days before needing a charge.

Samsung Galaxy S26 FE: Cameras

Similar to the 25 FE, the 26 FE supports a triple camera setup with a 50MP, f/1.8, 24mm (wide) lens, an 8MP, f/2.4, 75mm telephoto one with 3x optical zoom, and 12MP, f/2.2, 123˚ ultrawide lens. On the front is a 12 MP, f/2.2, 26mm wide camera.

The main 50MP lens is brilliant, captures nice crisp images, particularly in portrait mode where you get a nice differentiation between subject and background. The optical zoom capabilities of the telephoto lens are limited; the closer you get to the limit, the blurrier and grainier it gets. And not everything comes back in focus – I found it hard to get stabilized images and video while walking around IFA.

As with the last few Galaxy smartphones, you get a Pro mode that shoots RAW. You can have a play about with the ISO and shutter speed and get more true-to-life shots. It is, admittedly, quite tricky to find the right balance every time; it's oddly easier on an actual camera, but it is nice to have that option as the point-and-shoot capabilities of the FE can seem a bit too enhanced.

Samsung Galaxy S26 FE: Is it worth it?

For $699 (£699), you may have expected a little more from the S26 FE. It's still using last year's chip, has largely the same display and camera tech as the S25 FE, and Samsung has not installed the privacy display, which will be something businesses want. And that's before we get to the issue of RAM and storage, where only the latter can be boosted, for a price, but only to 512GB.

In many ways, however, the main issue is that the S26 Ultra is just so darn good; it has so many top features, many that will appeal to businesses, that it makes the FE a bigger drop-off in quality, one that's much more noticeable than there was between the S25 and S26 FE. It's worth remembering that the S26 FE is a budget model, but it could have been so much more.

Samsung Galaxy S26 FE specifications