If you ’ve abide by the story ofSamsung ’s phonesfor any length of time , the disputation around Snapdragon and Exynos will be familiar to you . Now , thanks to a account , it looks like we ’re going back into that debate for theSamsung Galaxy S26 – and things are going to get complicated .

Over the past decennary , Samsung has used a smorgasbord of computer hardware to power its phones . The most intimate – and the most popular – is Qualcomm Snapdragon .

Indeed , over the past couple of yr , Samsung has used a somewhat overclocked version of the latest Snapdragon hardware , in a special “ for Galaxy ” version . That first appear in theGalaxy S23 . That class also visualize Snapdragon globally , something that Samsung repeated for theGalaxy S25 .

But while Samsung fans may have breathed a collective suspiration of rilievo in 2025 , in 2026 there ’s expected to be a collective moan . That ’s because Exynos is have its way back to the Galaxy S phone line - up , concord to areliable leaker on X.

There ’s no bone about it either : “ The Exynos 2600 is decidedly back and it will be used in the S26 ” , reenforce a previous hearsay that Samsung wasenthusiastic about Exynos 2600 fabrication . So what does all this intend ?

Exynos is Samsung ’s own hardware , which comes from its own metalworks . The troupe has used this hardware on and off since the Galaxy S II in 2011 . There ’s usually a regional watershed between who baffle which hardware , with the US , Canada and China ( and some other region ) getting Snapdragon , while most of the rest of the world – like Europe – get Exynos .

The advantage for Samsung is likely the abject cost than buy hardware from Qualcomm , while also reducing its dependance on one provider . Samsung has always strived for independency like this , with Tizen earlier lurch as a rival to Android , a disjoined Galaxy Store and so on .

The downside is that Exynos hardware is seen as deficient , which has a negative marketing note value , while trigger no closing of comparisons and argumentation online about which adaptation is adept .

In the yesteryear it ’s been highlighted that some Exynos modem did n’t support cellular standards , like mmWave for exemplar , so using different hardware was necessary . But that ’s well in the past now .

For those in the US , this is likely to be little more than an comical pastime for Galaxy S26 purchaser : you ’ll in all probability getSnapdragon 8 Elite 2 in your earpiece and that will be the end of that .

The Exynos 2600 , however , is state to be the ware of Samsung ’s 2 micromillimetre appendage ( the current Snapdragon 8 Elite is 3 nm ) . make the transistors on the poker chip belittled generally leads to greater efficiency and improved performance for the sizing , which is what Samsung is striving for .

But each year we get a will they / won’t they debate around Exynos in the Galaxy S and this twelvemonth appears no dissimilar . We ’ll have to waitress until January 2026 to really discover out , however .