Samsung’s next flagship could arrive with a painful price increase, and the culprit isn’t what you’d expect.
Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro is shaping up to be expensive enough that smartphone makers are already weighing their options. According to recent leaks, the chip alone could force brands to either raise prices on their Ultra-tier phones or squeeze their margins until they bleed.
The next Snapdragon generation reportedly splits into two versions. The standard Gen 6 uses LPDDR5X memory and a scaled-back GPU. The Gen 6 Pro gets LPDDR6, more cache, and the full Adreno treatment. Both run on TSMC’s 2nm process, though Samsung may use its own 2nm node for the Galaxy S27 Ultra variant.
That performance gap matters less than the price gap. The Pro version costs enough that most brands will likely reserve it for their most expensive models only. Base and Plus variants will stick with the standard chip, keeping the Pro exclusive to Ultra devices.
Two forces are driving costs up. Advanced chip manufacturing on 2nm nodes is brutally expensive. At the same time, a memory shortage is squeezing supply chains across the industry.
The Galaxy S27 series will bring camera upgrades and better cooling to justify the premium, but those additions won’t soften the blow if the phone costs significantly more than its predecessor. Samsung has options, but none of them favor your wallet.
