Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra going all-in on Exynos chip to leave the iPhone 17 Pro in the dust
Snapdragon is out. Samsung is reportedly planning to equip the entire Galaxy S26 series, including the flagship Ultra, with a new 2nm Exynos chip
Samsung is reportedly pivoting back to the homegrown Exynos series of chips for the entire forthcoming Galaxy S26 smartphone range, including the flagship Galaxy S26 Ultra, and departing from Qualcomm’s Snapdragon silicon.
However, it remains to be seen whether the company will deploy the new 2nm chipset in next-generation Galaxy S phones around the world, or whether the company will continue with current strategy of using Exynos here and Snapdragon there.
The chip to power both the standard and Galaxy S26 Ultra is said to be the Exynos 2600 which, according to a report from Hankyung (via 9to5Google), is shaping up to be much more powerful than both the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 set to power the top Android phones of 2026, and the Apple A19 Pro within the iPhone 17 Pro range. According to the report neural processing unit (NPU) designed to assist with artificial intelligence tasks and the graphics chip are both around 30% faster than the latest Snapdragon mobile flagship.
The improvements over Apple’s A19 Pro are far more significant, according to the report, which speaks of a GPU that’s 75% faster and an NPU that’s six-times faster than Apple’s best chip.
Samsung has traditionally used Snapdragon chips for its most powerful Ultra-series, but it appears the mobile giant is happy enough with its own solution to jettison Qualcomm’s best solution. Samsung fans in the United States might still get Snapdragon chips in the Galaxy S26 series because of the need to “ensure smooth local regulatory approvals” the report says. It’s not clear which chip users in the United Kingdom or Europe will receive in the top flagship.
Stuff had no complaints about the performance of the Galaxy S25 Ultra running the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy tune-up that “basically makes the S25 Ultra’s Snapdragon 8 Elite one of the most powerful mobile chipsets out there right now.”
The Galaxy S26 Series will likely be revealed in the first couple of months of 2026.
Chris Smith
