The highly anticipated release of Samsung’s latest flagship series, the S23, is just around the corner. In preparation for that, here is a roundup of all the rumors and leaks to give a sneak peek for what is to come.
Familiar options with some design tweaks
The S23 series will feature three variants as its predecessor; the standard S23, S23 plus and the premium S23 Ultra. From leaked renders, all three devices look fairly similar to their S22 counterparts, with the S23 Ultra bearing the larger form factor and silhouette of the defunct Note series. On the rear, is the same 3 camera set up for the S23 Plus and S23 with a four-camera set up for the Ultra. A slight change is that the Ultra’s camera set up now sits in individual circular cutouts instead of the raised housing, giving it a cleaner look. There will be new colors available for the series with pink, beige, green and the classic Phantom Black options.
Goodbye Exynos and hello 200MP shooter for the S23 Ultra
The big news of course is the end of the Exynos variants, as Samsung has opted for a Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 powering the series. There has been talk that a special variant of the chipset will be used, with slightly higher clock speeds for its primary CPU and its Adreno GPU. With the enhancements of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, we can expect all variants to have great performance and improved battery life.
The camera on the S23 Ultra has received a fantastic upgrade with a new 200MP shooter. The in house developed sensor, dubbed ISOCELL HP2, offers double the resolution of its predecessor and is expected to offer improved dynamic range and color reproduction. It also features Samsung’s new pixel binning technology, Tetra2pixel, which is expected to improve images in low-lit environments. Thanks to this new sensor, we can expect an improved Night Mode images and Portrait video. The Ultra will now be capable of Space Zoom 100X and Moon Shot for improved astrophotography. The other sensors will be expected to remain the same, with a 10MP 3x telephoto lens, 12MP ultrawide sensor and 10MP 10x periscope. Both the S23 and S23 Plus are expected to retain a 50MP main shooter, 12MP ultrawide and 10MP telephoto lens.
Other hardware and software features
All three devices in the series will run Android 13 out of the box with OneUI 5.1, which remains largely unchanged from 5.0. The series will also debut Google’s Fast Pair feature. which allows faster set up of Android-based peripherals. This feature detects and allows quick pairing of headphones and WearOS smartwatches with just a pop-up. Support for trackers and styluses is expected to arrive soon.
The Ultra is expected to ship with a 6.8-inch QHD+ resolution display, 5000mAh battery and the signature S-Pen. The S23 comes in with a 6.1-inch FHD+ display with a lower capacity 3900 mAh battery while the S23 Plus has a 6.6-inch FHD+ display with 4700mAh battery. Charging speeds are similar as well, with 25W wired charging for the S23, 45W wired charging for the S23 Plus and Ultra, with 15W wireless charging across the board. The IP68 rating is retained for all devices and is now protected with Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the front and back.
Another notable hardware upgrade is the use of LPDDR5X RAM, which is expected to be both faster and more energy efficient than the S22 series. Memory and storage configurations still remain the same though, with the S23 available in 8GB/128GB or 8GB/256GB variants and S23 Plus in 8GB/256GB and 8GB/512GB variants. The S23 Ultra offers the choice of 8GB or 12GB of RAM with 256GB, 512GB or 1TB of storage.
Pricing and availability
Overall, the S23 series seems to be an incremental upgrade over the S22 series. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing since the S22 series were among the best Android smartphones of 2022. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset across all variants will be a welcome addition as it has shown to be the more reliable and energy efficient chipset over the Exynos series. While the S23 and S23 Plus have only minor changes, the S23 Ultra received some decent upgrades in the camera department.
Image source: GSMArena
As for the pricing, a leak from US-based telco Verizon reported via GSMArena shows that prices for all three variants remain the same as the S22 series. The S23 starts at USD 799.99 for the 8GB/128GB variant, the S23 Plus starts at USD 999.99 for the 8GB/256GB variant and S23 Ultra at USD 1199.99 for the 8GB/256GB variant. Previous leaks however have pointed to price increases in other regions. The most prominent being a price increase of up to €300 in Spain, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium, one of the largest price hikes for Samsung, as reported by Forbes. At the moment, there have been no circulating rumors about pricing in Malaysia or South East Asia for that matter, but it seems we may have to expect a price increase for the series.
The S23 series definitely ticks all the boxes to be the top Android device of 2023, but are there more surprises in store for us? We won’t have to wait for too long, as all the details and presumably pre-orders will be available come Galaxy Unpacked on February 2nd.
Sources: GSMArena, Android Authority, SamMobile, GizmoChina, Forbes
