Samsung might be undecided about using the Exynos 2500 in its next flagship, the Galaxy S25 series. While the Korean media recently said it has discarded the new Exynos chip and plans to go all-in with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, a fresh leak suggests otherwise. The company appears to be still testing the Exynos 2500 for the 2025 flagships.
Exynos 2500 is still on the cards for Samsung’s 2025 flagships
Samsung has already confirmed the Exynos 2500 chipset. It recently said the chip will power its next-gen flagship phones. While the company didn’t name any product, it was natural to expect the new Exynos chin in Galaxy S25 phones, at least the smaller two models in select markets. However, the Korean media says Samsung will use it in its 2025 foldables.
Amidst this, tipster @theonecid on X posted a screenshot of an apparent system utility app showing the hardware and software details of a device. The device in question is made by Samsung and features a 3,200×1,440 pixels display. It also has 14GB of RAM and runs Android 15. These specs do not pinpoint any Galaxy model but there are still a few interesting takeaways.
The screenshot shows a ten-core s5e9955 chipset with a 2GHz base CPU frequency and an Xclipse 950 GPU. That’s none other than the Exynos 2500. Based on this info, the tipster claims that the Galaxy S25 series will not be Snapdragon-only, indicating that the Exynos 2500 will power the phones in some regions. However, that isn’t the full story.
If you look closely, the “system name” for the device in question mentions “ERD” at the end. As Android Authority points out, it likely stands for Exynos Reference Design. A reference design is a test device used for chip development. It doesn’t represent a commercial phone, existing or upcoming. Other chipmakers also use a reference design to test their chips during development.
The bottom line is that this screenshot likely emerged from a reference design rather than an actual phone. As such, it still doesn’t confirm the Exynos 2500 powering the Galaxy S25 series. All it tells us is that Samsung has the chip in development, which we knew all along. Time will tell whether the new flagships will run a Snapdragon processor globally.
