For years, buyers of Samsung's flagship phones have been subjected to a geographic lottery. Although the phones look the same on the outside, the chipsets they carry usually vary depending on the region of purchase, with the United States seeing Qualcomm chips and the rest of the world seeing models with Samsung's own Exynos processors.

Next year's Samsung Galaxy S25 family is an exception, with all three models reportedly powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite, no matter where they are purchased. This is because Qualcomm's chips have historically outperformed their Exynos counterparts.

However, this is apparently not a change that will last long: on X, leaker @Jukanlosreve claims that Samsung is “significantly” planning to put an Exynos chip in the Galaxy S26 next year. Of course, given that this leaker actually means the year after next and we haven't seen the Galaxy S25 yet, but you get the point.

In a way, these changes are to be expected. After all, the main reason we don't expect to see an Exynos-powered device this year is because of low chip yields in Samsung's 3nm manufacturing process, according to Korean media. In addition, we have already heard that Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip 7 will be the first foldable device with Exynos, and it is clear that the company will not be solely focused on Qualcomm in the future. [In particular, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite is said to be 25-30% more expensive than its predecessor. The depreciation of the South Korean won is not a solution to the problem either.

Nonetheless, tech enthusiasts may be disappointed. Historically, Qualcomm versions of Galaxy phones have outperformed their Equinox counterparts, so it is unfortunate that they may be put back on the same playing field as early as 2026.

However, there are two things to keep in mind. First, we have heard the big talk before about the possibility of Exinos hardware surpassing Qualcomm, only to be greatly disappointed, and there is always the possibility that 2026 will indeed be the year. Considering past examples, the likelihood does not seem high.

But second, it would not make much difference. Benchmarks provide excellent bragging rights, but the actual difference in performance of flagship phones remains largely invisible to most users.

Unless pushing the phone's GPU in extremely intensive games, most people will find the feel of an Exynos-flavored Samsung Galaxy S26 indistinguishable from a Qualcomm-powered one.

Of course, given that Samsung needs to launch the Galaxy S25 first, the Galaxy S26 is still a long way off! We expect it to launch in late January, featuring the rounded corners, larger display of the S25 and the rounded back panel of the S25 Ultra. This deluxe model may feature 50MP sensors for both the ultra-wide angle lens and the secondary telephoto lens.