Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Pro is gearing up for the big Exynos comeback

For better or for worse, Samsung doesn’t want to give up on its Exynos range of chipsets. After avoiding it altogether for the Galaxy S25 series earlier this year, rumors that the company might switch to the 2nm Exynos 2600 chipset for the Galaxy S26 series began circulating early. Fresh reporting suggests that there may have been some truth to those rumors.

The folks at SamMobile have reportedly uncovered evidence “confirming” that the Galaxy S26 Pro — the entry-level model in the Galaxy S26 trio — will use the company’s Exynos 2600 chipset.

Fortunately, this will be limited to global markets, while the Galaxy S26 Pro variants sold in the US and China are expected to use the (confusingly named) Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC, which was officially unwrapped by Qualcomm last month.

SamMobile’s reporting also indicates that the Galaxy S26 Plus, previously known as the Galaxy S26 Edge, may adopt a similar strategy. However, even in this case, markets like the US and China will probably stick with Qualcomm’s powerful new chipset.

The Exynos 2600’s yield issues may have been resolved

Samsung’s hesitance to use Exynos chipsets on its flagship Galaxy phones has been largely due to yield-related problems. However, a recent report by Korean publication The Bell claims Samsung has overcome those hurdles, with the Exynos 2600’s yield percentage reportedly reaching 50%.

Meanwhile, the Exynos 2600 will also feature the Xclipse 960 GPU, which leverages AMD’s RDNA architecture. While this is promising, at least on paper, it’s hard to determine the GPU’s performance until we try it out for ourselves.

The Galaxy S26 Ultra is expected to be unaffected by this reshuffle, as the flagship will feature the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC across all markets.

This mixed chipset strategy was also followed with the Galaxy S24 series last year, so it’s not unfamiliar territory for the manufacturer. The Galaxy S24 Ultra launched with Qualcomm’s high-end chip everywhere, whereas the base model and the Plus variant came bundled with the Exynos 2400 chipset in all markets except the US, Canada, and China.