Samsung announced the Galaxy S26 FE on 27 August, and it is now on sale in the UAE. The FE has always been the sensible Galaxy, the one that gives you most of the flagship experience but costs considerably less. That position looks shaky this time, because the price has gone up and Samsung’s own phones are squeezing the newcomer from both sides.
That doesn’t negate what the Galaxy S26 FE does right. It’s still a decent phone, with a flagship-grade screen and build, and the same seven years of software updates Samsung puts on the S26 itself. Even the price rise was expected, with memory prices still climbing. The Achilles’ heel for the FE is its timing, and the price curve Samsung phones usually take.
The Good
Flagship screen and build for less than a flagship
Software and security support until 2033
New 3nm chip with better battery life
The Bad
No cheaper 128GB model in the UAE
Same screen, charging and cameras as last year
Only about Dh200 less than the standard S26 at retail
Why is the Galaxy S26 FE more expensive?
In the UAE, the S26 FE costs Dh3,059 for 256GB, Dh360 more than the S25 FE’s 256GB list price, a steep rise for a mid-range phone. Samsung Gulf sells only the 256GB model, so the cheapest way into the FE is no longer available.
In previous years a price rise bought you something: more base storage, more memory or a genuinely new feature. None of that happened here. RAM is still 8GB, exactly as it was on the S25 FE, and the only visible change is a reshaped camera housing. The screen, the 4,900mAh battery, the 45W charging and all four camera sensors are the same as last year’s.
The price increase has a clear culprit: AI. Memory prices began climbing steeply in late 2025 as data centre demand outran supply, and DDR5 RAM prices quadrupled in three months. Manufacturers with scale absorbed it for a while. That is now running out. Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro starts at Dh400 more in the UAE than the iPhone 17 Pro did, and Google’s latest Pixel 11 Pro only avoided the price rise by cutting memory.
Is the new chip worth the extra money?
The one real upgrade is the processor. The S26 FE runs the Exynos 2500, built on a 3nm process, replacing the 4nm Exynos 2400 in the S25 FE. Samsung claims 15 per cent more big-core CPU performance and 28 per cent higher frame rates in ray-traced games, though real-world performance rarely tracks those figures. Battery life improves too, unchanged in capacity but rated for an extra hour of video playback.
The better argument is longevity. Samsung promises seven generations of Android upgrades and seven years of security patches, and a 3nm chip is what makes that promise survivable. The S26 FE might not feel that much quicker today, but with more features and AI implementations arriving with future updates, the new chip should pay off in the long term.
The awkward maths for UAE buyers
Samsung Gulf lists the S26 FE at Dh3,059, but less than a month after launch, retailers are already selling it for less, around Dh2,500 to Dh2,600 at the end of September. The thing is, other Samsung phones are a better deal at the same shops.
At major retailers, the Middle East version of the standard Galaxy S26 costs from around Dh2,800, only Dh200 more than the FE. For that you get 12GB of RAM instead of 8GB and the newer 2nm Exynos 2600, though with a smaller 6.3in screen and a 4,300mAh battery. The S25 FE, meanwhile, sells for Dh1,949 with a Samsung warranty, about Dh600 less than its successor for the same screen, battery and cameras.
There is still a case for the S26 FE. It has a bigger screen and battery than the S26, and a newer chip than the S25 FE, which matters if you keep a phone for all seven years of updates. But at these prices it sits in an awkward middle, Dh200 short of a flagship and about Dh600 above a phone that differs only in its chip.
Verdict: Is the Galaxy S26 FE worth buying?
Buy it if
You want the bigger screen and battery without dropping back a generation
You plan to keep it for years and would make use of the upcoming updates
Avoid it if
You already own a recent Galaxy S device; the upgrade is not worth it
You can live with last year’s chip to save about Dh600
You can wait, as Galaxy FE phones rarely hold their prices for long
The S26 FE is a good phone that has arrived at a bad moment. Nothing about it is broken, and for anyone coming from a phone three or four years old it will feel like a substantial upgrade. But it has to justify a higher price while wedged between a cheaper predecessor and a flagship that costs little more, which makes it a hard sell.
So the advice is simple. If you want an S26 FE, you will want it more in a year, when it costs what the S25 FE costs today. Right now, Dh200 more buys you the standard Galaxy S26.
Source: Khaleej Times