The worst thing about the Galaxy S24 is coming back for the Galaxy S25
If you weren't a fan of Samsung using different chipsets for its Galaxy S24 models this year, you're probably not going to like what the phone maker has planned for next year's Galaxy S25 release.
Digitimes, citing a report in a South Korean news outlet called Ddaily, notes that Samsung has begun work on the Exynos 2500, a successor the the Exynos 2400 featured in some Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus models. Given Samsung's track record in using its own silicon alongside chipsets from Qualcomm in its Galaxy S phones, Digitimes concludes that history is going to repeat itself with the Galaxy S25.
For this year's Galaxy S24 release, standard S24 and Plus models that shipped in North America used the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 from Qualcomm. In other parts of the world, those models ran on the Exynos 2400. Meanwhile, the Galaxy S24 Ultra featured Qualcomm's Snapdragon silicon regardless of where in the world it was released.
That's actually fairly consistent with Samsung's way of handling its flagship phones. Apart from 2023's Galaxy S23 release, where every model featured a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, Samsung has split up usage of Snapdragon and Exynos silicon depending on where a particular model gets released.
Samsung's approach to chipsets hasn't always been popular. Galaxy phones powered by Qualcomm's silicon tend to outperform their Exynos counterparts. Indeed, in our Galaxy S24 benchmarks, the Exynos-powered phone produced slightly lower scores in the Geekbench test of overall performance; the gap between the two different chipsets was even wider when we ran graphics tests. That said, some observers argue that the Exynos 2400 is closer to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in performance than previous Exynos/Snapdragon comparisons.
Indeed, the Digitimes report notes that the Exynos 2500 should be able to outperform the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 both in terms of its CPU and GPU, according to an industry source. The problem is, Qualcomm isn't exactly standing in place with its leading system-on-chip. Leaked Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 specs have impressed, and the Digitimes article concedes the latest Exynos is unlikely to catch up with Qualcomm's upcoming chipset.
At least this report should quash a rumor that Samsung planned to exclusively use the Exynos 2500 in next year's flagships, excluding the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 entirely. That rumor always struck us as a bit nonsensical — even the leaker posting it seemed to disavow the claim — and Digitimes' new report seemingly confirms that Qualcomm's system-on-chip is very much in Samsung's plans.
Still, the news of Samsung continuing its split chipset strategy for the Galaxy S25 isn't going to please people who think the different silicon creates an inconsistent experience for Galaxy S owners. Perhaps the Exynos 2500 will further close the performance gap with Qualcomm's top chipsets, but we won't know that until the Galaxy S25 models arrive early next year.
