All the t-shirt tearing and "will they, won't they" sobbing over which chipset will Samsung use for the Galaxy S25 series have slowly come to a close, with various independent sources reporting that the three phones will only be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite (Gen 4).
While we do have benchmarks with its homebrew Exynos 2500 processor on board, there are plenty more Samsung Galaxy S25 units benchmarked with Snapdragon 8 Elite (Gen 4). The last one in that panopticon on Geekbench is none other than the Korean version of the Galaxy S25 which, surprise, surprise, carries a Qualcomm chipset.
If even the lowly S25 won't ship with an Exynos in the home turf, then all hope is lost, and we may only see the Exynos 2500 in a phone at a much later date, perhaps as far out as the Galaxy Z Fold 7 even, since the S25 slim is said to come with Snapdragon 8 Elite, while the S25 FE may don a MediaTek Dimensity 9400 chipset.
What led to all this drama were the reports that Samsung will only be ready with the desired quantity and quality of Exynos 2500 processors in the first half of 2025 as opposed to the last quarter of this year, as previously thought.
Thus, the Exynos 2500 chip may eventually be used to lower the cost of Samsung foldable phones that are arriving in the second half of 2025, rather than the S25 series that will land early next year.
In addition, Samsung reportedly came away impressed from Qualcomm's presentation of a Snapdragon 8 Elite chip made specifically for the Galaxy S25 Ultra, and ultimately decided to battle the iPhone 16 series with a chipset that has a performance and power draw comparable to the upcoming A18 Pro processor of Apple.
It wanted to include Exynos 2500 because of the up to $100 lower price compared to the $250 Snapdragon that is becoming the most expensive part in an S25, but its foundry simply wasn't ready with the yield from the second-gen 3nm production process.
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Qualcomm is the reason that Samsung's mobile chipset supply costs went way above $8 billion last year for the first time, as 20% of its phone manufacturing costs now go to the processor, so it wanted to mix Exynos with Snapdragon for the S25 to no avail.
Some Samsung insiders blame the shortened 52-hour workweek in Korea, but there are other forces in play, too, as its foundry works with a fraction of the personnel that TSMC makes the Snapdragon 8 Elite chips with.
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Daniel, a devoted tech writer at PhoneArena since 2010, has been engrossed in mobile technology since the Windows Mobile era. His expertise spans mobile hardware, software, and carrier networks, and he's keenly interested in the future of digital health, car connectivity, and 5G. Beyond his professional pursuits, Daniel finds balance in travel, reading, and exploring new tech innovations, while contemplating the ethical and privacy implications of our digital future.
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