Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Watch 9 will run on Qualcomm's new Snapdragon Wear Elite processor, according to newly leaked promotional images that confirm months of prior reporting about the smartwatch's biggest hardware shift in years, just days ahead of the device's official unveiling.

The leaked marketing materials, shared by longtime leaker Evan Blass through his "Leakmail" newsletter, include an image explicitly labeling the standard Galaxy Watch 9, not the higher-end Watch Ultra 2, as "Powered by Snapdragon Wear Elite." The image marks the clearest visual confirmation yet that Samsung is moving away from its longtime in-house Exynos chip for the flagship version of its smartwatch line, following a series of earlier leaks that had pointed toward the same conclusion.

The end of an Exynos era

The shift represents a significant change for Samsung's wearable strategy. The Galaxy Watch series has relied exclusively on Samsung's own Exynos chipsets for years, a choice that had actually worked in Samsung's favor during an extended period when Qualcomm's competing smartwatch processors lagged behind in performance. With Qualcomm's chip technology having since closed that gap and, according to recent reporting, surpassed Exynos in key performance metrics, the open question heading into this year was whether Samsung would abandon its in-house silicon for its watch lineup entirely. The newly........

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