Galaxy S26 FE Lab Tests: Nearly 3 Hours More Battery From the Same Cell, for $50 More

Samsung's $699 Fan Edition went on sale September 4, and GSMArena's full lab review shows where the new Exynos 2500 helps and where the phone barely moved.

Samsung's Galaxy S26 FE, announced August 27, went on sale in the US on September 4 at $699 for 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage, with a 256 GB model at about $800. It comes in Blueberry, Graphite and Pistachio. On paper it changes little from last year's S25 FE: the same 6.7-inch 120 Hz display, the same 4,900 mAh battery with 45 W charging, and a 50 MP main camera with a 12 MP ultrawide and an 8 MP 3x telephoto. The headline change is the chip, Samsung's Exynos 2500, and GSMArena's full lab review, published September 8, is the first detailed look at what that chip does for battery, heat and speed.

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Samsung Galaxy S26 FE specs →YouTube ↗

Battery is where the new chip earns its place. GSMArena gave the S26 FE an Active Use Score of 14:49h, against 11:56h for the S25 FE and 11:47h for the S24 FE. That is close to three extra hours from an identical 4,900 mAh lithium-ion cell. Early leaks had suggested Samsung would switch to higher-density silicon-carbon cells, but it didn't. GSMArena credits the gain to the Exynos 2500's more efficient 3 nm process, against 4 nm last year, with the biggest improvements in web browsing and video playback. The same review adds a caveat worth keeping in mind: many competing phones now ship with far larger batteries, and in GSMArena's words, Samsung is 'kind of getting lapped' on endurance overall.

Charging barely moves. The S26 FE is still rated at 45 W wired. In GSMArena's test it reached 40% in 15 minutes and 69% in 30 minutes, and took 1 hour 8 minutes to fill from empty, against 1 hour 10 minutes for the S25 FE. In practice, a coffee-break top-up still gets you to about 40%, and a full charge is still roughly an hour. It keeps 15 W Qi2-compatible wireless charging and reverse wireless charging for earbuds or a watch.

The display is effectively the same panel as last year. GSMArena measured 1,268 nits with a 75% white window in auto mode and about 1,850 nits in a small 10% window. Those numbers are nearly identical to the S25 FE and well below the regular S26 models. They are enough to read the screen outdoors, but not in the harshest midday sun. GSMArena also notes the panel still uses 8-bit color, as the regular S26 does.

Performance and heat improved more than the spec sheet suggests. The 10-core Exynos 2500 pairs with an Xclipse 950 GPU and 8 GB of LPDDR5X RAM. Under prolonged stress testing, GSMArena saw it hold 62% to 68% of its peak performance, which it calls about as good as it gets for a powerful chip in 2026. It also found the back gets noticeably less uncomfortable to hold than the S25 FE's under load. For long gaming sessions, that means less slowdown and a phone you can still comfortably hold.

Software support remains the S26 FE's strongest argument. It ships with One UI 9 on Android 17, the first phone in the S26 family to do so, and Samsung promises up to seven major Android upgrades. A phone bought now should keep getting new OS versions well into the 2030s, a longer runway than most phones at this price.

The price is the problem. The S26 FE costs $50 more than the S25 FE did at launch. 9to5Google, which attributes the increase to rising memory costs, noted at launch that the S25 FE was already selling for as little as $500 through some carriers and retailers. GSMArena's verdict lists a 'high launch price' and 'barely any major upgrades' as the main cons. It also flags a quieter downgrade: the USB port drops to USB 2.0, so wired DisplayPort video output and wired Samsung DeX are gone. If you plug your phone into a monitor, check this before you buy.

Who should care? If you own an S24 FE or something older and your phone no longer lasts a day, the three-hour battery gain is real and worth paying for. If you own an S25 FE, there is little here to justify switching. And if you are buying new, a heavily discounted S25 FE gives you most of the same phone for less. If you don't need the telephoto camera, the $499 Pixel 10a in our under-$500 phone guide is also worth considering. Samsung phones rarely stay at launch price for long, so waiting a few weeks for the first discount is a reasonable plan.

Original coverage: Galaxy S26 FE launch and first lab results