Qualcomm hints at major hardware shift for Samsung Galaxy S25

We now know that the Samsung Galaxy S25 family of phones will be launched on 22 January, at Galaxy Unpacked. The event will be held in San Jose, California, and will see Samsung launch its latest devices in a bid to top the best phones lists for another year. We also now know that another significant hardware supplier will also be there.

In response to Samsung’s announcement of Galaxy Unpacked, Qualcomm replied, saying it would also be there.

There has been plenty of speculation about the hardware that’s going to power the next-gen Samsung phones, but with Snapdragon (Qualcomm’s branding for its mobile device chips) saying it’s going to be there, we at least have confirmation of what’s going to be inside the Galaxy S25.

It’s expected that the Samsung Galaxy S25 family will be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite, the chip that was announced in October 2024. Samsung will also be one of the first manufacturers to release devices on this new hardware, with the OnePlus 13 being a significant alternative.

There’s been plenty of debate surrounding the hardware in the Galaxy S25 devices. In the past Samsung has flipped between offering Snapdragon across all its phones globally (which was the case for the Galaxy S23), before reverting to a mixture with the Galaxy S24. In both cases, the Samsung devices ran a special version of the Snapdragon hardware, branded as Snapdragon for Galaxy.

However, that doesn’t seem to have stemmed Samsung’s ambitions to have Exynos (Samsung’s own hardware solution) powering all its devices. Earlier in 2024, it was suggested that the Galaxy S25 family might all be Exynos-powered, it was later suggested that the Galaxy S25 would be Snapdragon-powered because of the increased demand for AI.

We then saw benchmark results appearing for new Samsung phones with Exynos hardware, suggesting that Samsung might be looking to offer a mixture once again.

With Snapdragon using its official social media presence to confirm its attendance, it does beg the question of whether we’ll see representatives from Qualcomm taking to the stage. Does this also mean that we’re going to be seeing a continuation of Snapdragon for Galaxy hardware?

The launch of the new devices is now tantalisingly close, so there won’t be long to wait to find out exactly what Samsung’s plans are.