Samsung’s budget phones don’t usually get the deep-dive leak treatment, but the Galaxy A18 4G just got a nearly complete spec dump. According to NotebookCheck, a Citilink retailer listing aimed at the Armenian market has surfaced, revealing nearly every spec and a 2026 release date.
What chip is actually powering this thing?
Here’s the twist: the listing names a Samsung Exynos 1610, and this chip has never shown up anywhere on Samsung’s official site or in its marketing before. People already had a theory going. Back in late April, Geekbench results tied to its internal codename, S5E8365, made the rounds, and the general assumption was that Samsung had simply slapped a new name on the Exynos 1280 or 1330.
Turns out that’s not the case. Kernel source code dug up by gamma0burst suggests this is actually its own chip. The CPU and GPU carry over from its siblings, but Samsung gave the ISP a real bump, enough to handle 4K60 recording now, and the video encoder and decoder picked up support for HEVC, H.264, VP9 decode, and VP8. Given that this shows up specifically on the “4G” variant of the A18, it’s safe to assume the chip itself is 4G only.
What else does the Galaxy A18 4G bring to the table?
The rest of the listing reads like classic budget Samsung fare. The phone will reportedly pack a 6.7-inch Super AMOLED panel with FHD+ resolution, a 90Hz refresh rate, and a waterdrop notch. You will also get 128GB of internal storage with room to expand through a hybrid microSD slot, paired with 6GB of RAM.
Providing the juice will be a 5,000 mAh battery supporting 25W charging. The camera department gets a triple setup anchored by a 50MP main shooter. The rest of the specs include a side-mounted fingerprint sensor, Android 17 fresh out of the box, Wi-Fi 6, and Bluetooth 5.3.
Since this info comes from a retailer listing rather than an official Samsung announcement, it’s worth taking with a pinch of salt for now. Specs and features could shift by the time it actually launches, and Samsung hasn’t said anything about pricing or availability just yet.
