Samsung’s Galaxy S26 FE Has Flagship Features, but It’s Harder to Call It a Bargain
Samsung has announced the Galaxy S26 FE, a lower-cost flagship smartphone starting at $700. While it includes advanced software features like Super Steady Video and Audio Eraser, the price represents a $50 increase over the previous model.
Why it matters
The release highlights the trend of flagship-level software features trickling down to more affordable devices, despite rising hardware costs.
Samsung's best software features from 2026 are coming to the lower-cost S26 FE -- but at $700, it's certainly not cheap.
Read full bio August 27, 2026, 8:00 am ET
The Galaxy S26 FE comes in three colors: pistachio, blueberry and graphite. Joseph Maldonado/CNET Samsung’s Galaxy S26 FE may be the company’s lower-cost flagship, but the phone’s getting nearly all of the same software features we first saw on the company’s more expensive phones. And it better be, as it’s also getting a $50 price bump over last year’s S25 FE , with this year’s phone starting at $700 for 128GB of storage and $800 for 256GB.
Announced Thursday, the S26 FE’s biggest hardware change is its 12-megapixel selfie camera. That’s the same megapixel count as last year’s selfie camera, but its new wider field of view allows you to photograph more of your surroundings.
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