If you have followed the story of Samsung’s phone for any length, then the debate around Snapdragon and exinos will be familiar with you. Now, thanks to a report, it seems that we are going back to that debate for Samsung Galaxy S26 – and things are going to be complicated.
In the last decade, Samsung has used a mixture of hardware to provide electricity to its phone. The most familiar – and the most popular – Qualcomm is Snapdragon.
Indeed, in the last few years, Samsung has used a slightly overclocked version of the latest Snapdragon Hardware, in a special “Galaxy” version. It first appeared in the Galaxy S23. That year also saw Snapdragon globally, something that Samsung repeated for the Galaxy S25.
But when Samsung fans have taken a collective breath of relief in 2025, a collective groan is expected in 2026. This is because the Galaxy S is returning to the line-up, according to a reliable leakar on Exinance X.
There are no bones about this: “Exynos 2600 is certainly returned and will be used in S26”, strengthening a previous rumor that Samsung Exynos was excited about the 2600 manufacturing. So what does all this mean?
Exynos Samsung has its own hardware, which comes from its own founders. The company has used and discontinued this hardware since the Galaxy SII in 2011. There is usually a regional partition, which gets hardware with Snapdragon with US, Canada and China (and some other regions), while most of the world – like Europe – get exynos.
Benefits for Samsung are likely to cost lower cost than purchasing hardware from Qualcomm, while also reduce its dependence on a supplier. Samsung has always tried for such freedom, Tizen originally picked as a rival of Android, a separate galaxy store and so on.
The negative side is that Exynos hardware is seen as a inferior, which has a negative marketing value, while there is no end to comparisons and debates that are better about online.
The past has revealed that some Exynos modem did not support cellular standards, such as MMWave for example, so it was necessary to use various hardware. But now it is good in the past.
For those in the US, it is likely to be slightly higher than a recreational pastime for Galaxy S26 buyers: you will probably get Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 in your phone and it will end the same.
Exynos 2600, however, is called the product of Samsung’s 2Nm process (current Snapdragon 8 Elite is 3Nm). Creating a transistor on the chip usually leads to greater efficiency and better performance for size, which is trying to Samsung.
But every year we get a desire/they will not argue around the exinos in the Galaxy S and this year does not look different. We will really have to wait by January 2026 to find out.
