Qualcomm hints at Galaxy S26 featuring a Snapdragon chipset

On Tuesday, Samsung announced that it will launch the next Galaxy S series smartphones, which are expected to be the Galaxy S26, Galaxy S26+, and Galaxy S26 Ultra on February 25, 2026. According to multiple leaks about them, the base and the mid-model will feature Samsung’s latest flagship SoC for mobile devices, the Exynos 2600.

Whereas the top-of-the-line model will feature Qualcomm’s latest flagship chipset for mobile devices, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. While there has been no official information on the matter, Qualcomm has now strongly hinted that the Galaxy S26 series will feature a Snapdragon SoC.

Qualcomm has quoted Samsung’s post announcing the date for the Galaxy S26 launch, saying, “Something big is coming.” It strongly suggests that one or more phones in the lineup will feature a Snapdragon SoC.

While the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is made on a 3nm fabrication process, the Exynos 2600 is made on a 2nm fabrication process. The former features an octa-core CPU configuration (2x Oryon V3 Phoenix L at 4.74GHz + 6x Oryon V3 Phoenix M at 3.62GHz), whereas the latter features a deca-core CPU configuration (1x Cortex C1 Ultra at 3.9GHz + 3x Cortex C1 Pro at 3.25GHz + 6x Cortex C1 Pro at 2.75GHz). 

The one from Qualcomm features the Adreno 840 GPU, and that from Samsung uses the Xclipse 960 GPU. In some aspects, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 beats the Exynos 2600, and in others, vice versa. It will be interesting to see how they perform in the Galaxy S26 and which one turns out to be best overall in daily usage. Fortunately, we will have to wait only thirteen days to know for sure.