Your votes suggest 42% of you are willing to give Exynos a chance on the Galaxy S26 Ultra

Samsung’s next ultra-premium flagship, the Galaxy S26 Ultra, is likely going to come out at the beginning of next year. However, we’re already hearing about some of its specs, and one potential change is being rumored: this year, the Galaxy S26 Ultra may come with an Exynos chip instead of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5. Now, we asked you whether you preferred a Galaxy S26 Ultra with a Snapdragon chip or an Exynos one. And some of the results are… well, interesting. 

Our poll indicates more than 40% of you are willing to give Exynos a chance with the Galaxy S26 Ultra

There’s a heavy stigma going around Exynos chips and Galaxy S devices. Exynos processors are made by Samsung, while Snapdragon chips are made by Qualcomm. Historically, Exynos chips have performed worse in Galaxy S devices in comparison to their Snapdragon counterparts, both in efficiency and power. Of course, early leaked benchmarks suggest the Exynos 2600, which is the chip that could potentially power the Galaxy S26 Ultra, may have ironed out some of its deficiencies in comparison to Snapdragon. So, we asked you guys, our PhoneArena readers, what you thought about it all. 

At the time of writing, the majority of you (49.29%) prefer to hear nothing about the Exynos and have the Galaxy S26 Ultra rock the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chip, which is the successor of the Snapdragon 8 Elite. And that’s understandable given Exynos’ bad rep. 

But then again, here comes the twist: 41.72% of you are actually willing to give the Exynos 2600 a chance. So, there’s a big portion of you guys who are relatively open-minded when it comes to Samsung’s first-party processor. Samsung will be delighted to hear that. 

And only 9% of you have stated that you don’t really care about the processor in the Galaxy S26 Ultra. 

At the time of writing, 1189 people have participated in our poll about the processors. 

Exynos vs Snapdragon: the Galaxy S situation 

Many of you who are hardcore Sammy fans are well aware where this Exynos-Snapdragon situation stems from. Samsung has the tradition of offering Exynos-powered Galaxy S models to most markets in the world, while Snapdragon-powered Galaxy S models were sold in its home country, the U.S., and a couple of other markets. Of course, the pricing is the same everywhere, but historically, the Exynos chips have performed worse. This disparity became a huge deal with the Galaxy S20 series, where the Exynos chip performed noticeably worse in thermal management and raw power, especially in tests, when compared to the Snapdragon version. 

It’s important to note that the differences between the two versions are hardly noticeable in real life. But hey, if the price is the same, one would expect the same exact performance in all regions in the world, right?

The split between Exynos and Snapdragon continued until the Galaxy S23 series, which all came with Snapdragon chips, to the joy of Sammy fans worldwide. Then, the S24 came with a split again, and then the S25 series was available with the Snapdragon chip worldwide. 

Exynos 2600 may have a chance 

The Exynos 2600, according to rumors, may tell a different story from its predecessors, though. Reportedly, the chip will be manufactured using Samsung’s 2nm process, which puts it a generation ahead of today’s 3nm Snapdragon 8 Elite. Technically, this should mean greater efficiency and more power. 

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