I’ve been using the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 for well over a month and have enjoyed my time with the phone, but a newer, cheaper phone from the brand has been drawing my attention.
Before its release, I spent time with the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE, a new mid-range phone that offers many features of the Folds and the Galaxy S26 Ultra at a lower price pointthan either.
Some people like closing handsets, and others would never buy a foldable phone, so it’s impossible to compare them since preference will dictate your winner. But the S26 FE boasted one feature which I really wished my Galaxy Z Fold 8 had.
The S26 FE is a stronger camera phone
It can do what the Galaxy Z Fold 8 can’t
Samsung hasn’t given the Galaxy S26 FE super-powered cameras to beat the S26 Ultra; it wants camera fans to buy the pricier phone. The new mobile has a 50MP main, 12MP ultra-wide and 8MP telephoto array.
I’d call that the “classic combo”: the bare-minimum trio of lenses which a camera phone needs to be worth using for photography. We see the first two modules in most handsets, but zoom lenses are much rarer.
Case in point: The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 does not have a zoom camera. I’m constantly surprised by this absence, and it means that you have to rely on digital zoom for photography or, if you care about the result, spend more for the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra.
I certainly fall into the “I care about what my pictures look like” category, and so I’ve been a little disappointed at the Galaxy Z Fold 8’s camera capabilities. It’s generally fantastic, but the lack of a zoom camera hurts.
So when I saw that the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE has such a module, allowing for 3x optical zoom (even with a relatively low 8MP to spare for the shots), I was immediately jealous.
Why a telephoto camera is such a big deal
It’s not only for nice pictures of views
Plenty of people I’ve spoken to about telephoto cameras don’t understand or appreciate what they’re actually for. They’re not only used to zoom slightly further in on a vista or distant building, even though that’s often the example brands show off.
One great use is portrait photography, as shown by the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra using its 3x telephoto lens when you turn on Portrait mode.
Lenses with a long focal length create a pleasing background blur for out-of-focus objects, and flatten facial features in a way that’s desired for portrait shots. Lenses around 75mm to 85mm are often recommended for portrait photography; the FE’s telephoto is 75mm.
I love using this kind of lens to photograph objects like phones and earbuds I’m reviewing, and animals I find. Any time I bump into a cat on the street, my phone’s zoom lens comes out. This is for the same reason: the lovely-looking bokeh.
Digital zooming, which crops in on an object to give the illusion of zoom, is often discouraged since you lose resolution. But you also lose any benefits of the long-focal-length lens when you opt for this kind of zoom.
The Samsung Galaxy S26 FE is a stronger phone for it
Even if the main upgrades are in its modes
When I tested the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE, it was only over a brief hands-on session, and so I didn’t get to test it for portrait photography or give a wandering cat a photo shoot.
I used it to capture some nearby blueberries, and it offered the results I expected for this kind of lens; akin to shooting on the S26 Ultra or Z Fold 8 Ultra’s 3x zoom lenses (albeit with a slightly lower-res result).
As with most of its phones, Samsung’s post-processing comes up trumps, sharpening blurriness in zoomed-in images and adding copious lashing of saturation.
The Galaxy S26 FE has some camera improvements over its predecessors, but they’re in modes: Nightography (low-light shooting) is now smarter, and you can do horizon lock videography for super-stabilized shots.
When I use a foldable phone, the draw isn’t the cameras; it’s the form factor. And so I’m not heartbroken that the S26 FE trumps the Z Fold 8, but I was envious of its enhancements.
Let’s normalize telephoto cameras in premium smartphones
When I started testing smartphones nearly a decade ago, the ultrawide, wide, and zoom lens combo was the gold standard, even for affordable mobiles, but nowadays, that’s not the case. Case in point, the Fold.
Plenty of mid-range phones skip the zoom camera, and are worse off for it. To me, it doesn’t make sense that Apple and Google sell expensive phones that lack this simple piece of photography kit.
That’s why I’m glad that Samsung keeps packing the FE range with zoom cameras, even if it means my foldable misses out. Maybe I should have stuck with the Z Fold 8 Ultra, which has a telephoto lens as well as a fantastic and under-appreciated camera filter mode.
8.5/10
- SoC
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Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy
- RAM
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12GB / 16GB
- Storage
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256GB / 512GB / 1TB
- Battery
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5,000mAh
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is a productivity-focused big-screen folding phone, with an emphasis on power and performance over the more media-focused Galaxy Z Fold 8. However, the specification is similar, with the camera and battery being the standout upgrades over the Z Fold 8.
