Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra is the phone to get if you want to experience Snapdragon at its best

Next year, the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra will debut with, according to many reports, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2 processor. What’s worth noting, however, is that the Elite Gen 2 chipset found in Samsung’s flagship phone will actually be the best version of this processor.

According to one reliable source, the Snapdragon chip inside the S26 Ultra has a clock speed of 4.74 GHz, while the standard version of the Elite Gen 2 runs at 4.61 GHz. In benchmarks, the Ultra’s processor’s single-core performance score is 4,000, but the standard version’s score is 3,900.



So, if you want to see just how powerful the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2 can be, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is the phone for you. Of course, there’s always the chance that another phone manufacturer may make the chip even faster on its own phone, but it likely won’t get much better than what Samsung has managed.

If there’s one downside to the chip’s power, it’s that it might lead to less screen-on time. Samsung is, once again, sticking with its signature 5,000 mAh Li-ion battery for the S26 Ultra, while Apple is actually fattening up the iPhone 17 Pro for a bigger battery than last year.



The company has been trying to switch its phones back over to Exynos processors, but has been having poor luck with its attempts. Samsung first wanted to use the Exynos 2500 chipset across the Galaxy S25 lineup, but the processor wasn’t ready on time and debuted later alongside the Galaxy Z Flip 7.

Similarly, Samsung has been pooling resources into trying to perfect its 2 nm Exynos 2600 chipset for the Galaxy S26 series. However, according to multiple reports, the company may not have been able to do that, hence the leaked details about the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2 chip for Galaxy.

There’s also a slight chance that Samsung is able to go back to using both Exynos and Snapdragon processors in different regions with the Galaxy S26. Some early reports did hint at this happening, but it seems unlikely at this point.

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