Samsung is days away from its next Galaxy Unpacked event, where the company will announce its new folding phones. But there are rumours circulating about a couple of other future devices – and those rumours aren’t good.

Pocket-lint has been passed information from a reliable source that claims that Samsung is considering returning to its own-brand Exynos hardware for the forthcoming Samsung Galaxy S23 FE, as well as returning to using Exynos in the 2024 Samsung Galaxy S24 series in some regions too.

Our source told us that the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE will launch later in 2023 – putting to bed speculation about whether Samsung will continue with this range of devices – and it will run on Samsung’s own Exynos hardware rather than Snapdragon.

It’s an interesting move from Samsung following pronouncements about Snapdragon for Galaxy that underpinned the launch of the Galaxy S23 family – but it also raises a question about the FE device. The original Samsung FE phone – the S20 FE – launched with Snapdragon hardware, very much fitting the “Fan Edition” theme that gave the phone its name. Will fans be happy with the return to Exynos hardware? Experience would suggest not.

Our source also told us that, currently, the Galaxy S24 series will also revert back to Exynos too. For 2023, Samsung put Snapdragon under the hood of all three models in the Galaxy S23 series globally.

When Samsung launched the Galaxy S23 series, it was highlighted in the press release and other marketing materials that the devices would be running on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy, which delivers slightly higher clock speeds than the standard Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 platform found in other competitor devices. Despite what many of us had assumed was a multi-year partnership, it seems the global use of Snapdragon in the flagship Galaxy S devices wasn’t to last. Our source told us that while Snapdragon might still power the Galaxy S24 variants in the US, Europe is currently on track for Exynos.

“This is a strategy Samsung has adopted in the past, offering the Exynos variant to the European market, while delivering the Qualcomm solution to other markets such as the US and South Korea. The decision proved unpopular with technology enthusiasts and some network operators who liked the predictability and performance advantages of the Qualcomm Snapdragon platform and there was delight in some quarters when the Galaxy S23 series was launched with the Snapdragon platform in all markets,” Ben Wood, Chief Analyst and CMO of CCS Insight said to Pocket-lint.

There may still be some hope for some though, as Wood also said: “I’d be surprised if Samsung decided to return to Exynos for the important European market, but we might see it in some smaller markets to ensure Samsung’s in-house platform stays in the game. There’s also likely an element of Samsung wanting to keep Qualcomm on its toes too, which may be what is driving these recent rumours.”

We have reached out to Samsung for comment and are waiting for a reply.