Samsung Launches £699 Galaxy S26 FE With 6.7-Inch AMOLED and 45W Charging

Q: With a steep price hike, does the Galaxy S26 FE still deliver the ultimate budget flagship experience, or is the Fan Edition dead?

The Galaxy S26 FE still qualifies as a budget flagship, but only narrowly; the bigger price tag means the Fan Edition is no longer the clear-cut bargain it once was. On paper, Samsung has kept much of the FE formula intact. The S26 FE offers a large 6.7-inch 120Hz AMOLED display, strong claimed brightness at 1,900 nits, a versatile triple-camera system with 3x optical zoom, 45W charging, long battery claims, and seven generations of Android updates. For buyers who want a big screen, solid cameras, premium build quality and long software support without stepping up to a full S26, that remains a compelling package. The problem is value. At £699 for 128GB, the S26 FE is £50 more than the S25 FE, and the upper tiers climb quickly to £949. At that level, the FE starts to drift away from its traditional role as the “smart compromise” in Samsung’s lineup. The use of the Exynos 2500, while improved, is still below the standard S26’s Exynos 2600, and the camera hardware does not appear to be a major leap. That makes the higher entry price harder to justify purely on performance grounds. So the Fan Edition is not dead, but it has changed. The S26 FE looks more like a lower-tier premium Galaxy than a true cut-price flagship killer. Buyers heavily invested in Samsung’s ecosystem may still see good value, but bargain hunters may find the FE label now promises more than the pricing delivers.

3 articles · Updated · What Hi-Fi? · Aug 27

£699 gets buyers Samsung’s new Galaxy S26 FE, an entry-level S26 model with a 6.7-inch AMOLED display, 120Hz refresh rate and 50MP main camera.
45W charging is a key upgrade: Samsung says the phone reaches 70% in 30 minutes, while battery life is rated at up to 28 hours of video playback.
Exynos 2500 powers the device on Android 17, and Samsung is promising seven generations of updates despite positioning the FE below the standard S26.
Pricing rises from the S25 FE’s £649 starting point to £699 for 128GB, £799 for 256GB and £949 for 512GB, with Pistachio, Graphite and Blueberry color options.