The chipset, which will almost certainly power at least some of the upcoming Galaxy S26 series, has been announced, and while details are scant at the moment, Samsung is promising a significant upgrade over its predecessor.
In a 30-second teaser video, Samsung claims the new Exynos chip, called Exynos 2600, is “refined at the core,” “optimized at every level” and will “express the extraordinary.”
Rumors already suggest that Samsung will reintroduce its own chipset for the Galaxy S26 series, although it may only appear in the Galaxy S26 and Galaxy S26 Plus. Some reports suggest the S26 Ultra may be Snapdragon only.
A return to form?
Samsung’s Exynos chips have a bad reputation because previous generations had overheating and performance issues.
This has led Samsung to split its chipset strategy in the past, with some markets getting the latest flagship phone with its own Exynos chip, while other markets – like the US – got the same phone but with a Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC (system-on-chip) instead.
In recent years, Samsung has completely abandoned its split-chip strategy on some models: the Galaxy S23 Ultra, S24 Ultra and the entire S25 series all only feature Qualcomm’s Snapdragon offering.
However, calls for Exynos improvements weren’t ignored, as Samsung admits in the teaser video above: “In silence we listened.”
While the quote has a hint of movie villains to it, we hope it recognized the problems of some of its previous generations and prepared a competitive powerhouse in the 2600.
However, the jury is still out, and we’ll have to wait for the launch of the Galaxy S26 – which we expect in mid-to-late January – and our testing to find out whether the Exynos 2600 can deliver the performance expected of a flagship chipset.
While you wait for the Galaxy S26, be sure to check out Samsung’s latest foldable device, the Galaxy Z Trifold, and its unique hinge system.
