(Xiaomi) Poco F8 Ultra vs Samsung Galaxy S26 FE

EDITORIAL: Another Ultra phone from Poco brings updates but also some downgrades to excellent F7 Ultra. F8 Ultra advantage of being a cheap flagship phone is fading with higher pricing and exposing it to last year’s best phones of the same price. Still, it offers top processor with fastest memory, great endurance and screen (tho non-LTPO) and solid performance main and periscope tele cameras. Bose partnered to create the first 2.1 sound on a phone – standard two channels that add a woofer speaker located in the camera island. It produces excellent sound.

EDITORIAL: When S20 FE arrived in 2020, it created a lot of interest as a cheaper (fan edition) version of it's Galaxy S20+ flagship phone. It made compromises to achieve lower price and they were reasonable: 1mm wider, plastic back, good but lower quality screen, downfraded 8MP tele (instead of a 64MP) lens, sans-AF selfie and no DeX. That phone sold well and Samsung had a S FE phone every year (skipped only 2022) since. Over time, the compromises became bigger and now we got an FE that omits latest processor, comes with lower endurance and a slow USB-C 2.0 port. It still brings other sacrifices typical for a Samsung FE phone: cheaper Victus glass, lower quality screen, 8MP telefoto and a sans-AF selfie but wireless DeX is now included (as it is on all Samsung's flagship phones). It is hard to understand why is Samsung degrading a phone model that build good reputation and following over the years but it is what it is.