Samsung had today launched the Galaxy S26 FE. It is the fourth and final phone in this year’s Galaxy S26 range, arriving six months after the S26, S26+ and S26 Ultra. Sales begin on 4 September in what Samsung calls select markets. Yes, Samsung Kenya has confirmed the phone will be available here. Starting KES 103,100.
“FE” stands for Fan Edition, the cheapest way into Samsung’s flagship S line each year. Samsung keeps the parts most people notice and drops the parts that cost the most to build.
The phone starts at USD 699.99 in the United States for 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, USD 50 more than the Galaxy S25 FE cost at launch. UK pricing is GBP 699 for 128GB, GBP 799 for 256GB and GBP 949 for 512GB.
What is actually different
The processor. The Galaxy S26 FE runs the Exynos 2500, built on a 3nm manufacturing process, replacing the 4nm Exynos 2400 in last year’s Galaxy S25 FE. Smaller manufacturing numbers usually mean more work done for the same battery drain. The chip is not new. Samsung first shipped it in the Galaxy Z Flip 7 in 2025, and it sits below the Exynos 2600 in the Galaxy S26 and the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in the S26 Ultra, as our June benchmark round-up indicated it would.
The software is the other change. The S26 FE is the first phone in the S26 family to ship with One UI 9, Samsung’s interface layered on Android 17. The S26 phones that launched in February came with Android 16 and are still waiting for the stable update. We explained what separates One UI 8.5 from One UI 9 here.
Make tech-ish your favourite source
Star us on Google — you'll see more tech-ish in Top Stories and AI results.
Most of what Samsung announced is camera software rather than camera hardware. My FanCam keeps a chosen person centred while you record, moving the crop as they move. Photo Assist edits a photo from a typed instruction and watermarks the result as AI-generated. Gemini Omni cuts clips from your gallery and needs a Google AI Pro subscription, free for six months with the phone.
What is the same
A 6.7-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X screen at 1080p and up to 120Hz, peaking at 1,900 nits. That is dimmer than the 2,600 nits on the rest of the S26 range.
A 4,900mAh battery with 45W wired and 15W wireless charging. Samsung says 30 minutes on a 45W adapter gets you to 69%. The adapter is sold separately.
The same cameras as the S25 FE: 50MP main with optical stabilisation, 12MP ultra-wide, 8MP telephoto at 3x, 12MP front. Samsung’s claim of better detail rests on the new chip doing the processing, not on new sensors.
Support runs to seven Android upgrades and seven years of patches, carrying the phone to 2033.
More
The Galaxy S25 FE launched here on 29 September 2025 at KES 99,999 for the 128GB model, three and a half weeks after its global release, and had fallen below KES 70,000 by June.
Join the discussion