Tag Archives: HP2

Samsung Galaxy S23 rumor roundup

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.

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Familiar options with some design tweaks

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Fresh new series, fresh new colors. Image source: Android Authority

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

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Cleaner design for the camera housing and a new 200MP main shooter for the S23 Ultra. Image source: SamMobile.

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.

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Samsung’s new 200MP ISOCELL HP2 sensor for the Galaxy S23 Ultra. Image source: SamMobile

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.

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All variants will run the Android 13-based OneUI 5.1 out of the box. Image source: Android Authority

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.

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Google Fast Pair finally has a Samsung debut. Image source: GizmoChina

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.

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Leaks from Verizon for pricing of the Galaxy S23 (DM1), S23 Plus (DM2) and S23 Ultra (DM3).
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

Samsung introduces the ISOCELL HP2 – The Little 200MP Sensor for Your Smartphone

Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked 2023 is happening in less than 2 weeks. They are set to launch their latest flagship, the Samsung Galaxy S23 series of smartphones in that event. With the new device, they are also expected to unveil a few new features on the device itself as well. One of them is a new camera sensor module.

Samsung has been leading the charge in the smartphone camera Megapixel war. They introduced their 108-Megapixel sensor a few years ago and Sony has not come up with an answer for that kind of resolution just yet. Sony does have their larger format 1-inch sensors shoehorned into their smartphones though, effectively making them proper compact point-and-shoot camera with smartphone built-in.

While the 108-Megapixel camera still sits on top of its throne, it is getting a little outdated. There are new technologies to be explored, there are cleverer ways to cram more pixels in a sensor; there is always a new horizon to be explored. In that spirit, Samsung introduced the ISOCELL CP2 sensor.

Welcome to the world of super high-resolution photos coming from your smartphone. At 200-Megapixel, even medium format cameras from Hasselblad cannot compete in terms of theoretical detail. All this might come to your next flagship smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra (or whatever they want to call it this time).

The 200-Megapixel is packed in a 1/1.3” sized sensor, the same size from the previous 108-Megapixel ISOCELL you can find in your Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra today. That means you get nearly twice the pixel amount in the same amount of space. But it is not just a small sensor with added pixels.

The sensor packs Samsung’s latest advanced pixel-binning technology, Tetra2pixel. The HP2 sensor with the technology now can simulate different pixel sizes for different lighting levels. That means that the camera can basically combine the pixels into larger pixels to make 50-Megapixel or 12.5-Megapixel clusters for low-light conditions. The 50-Megapixel mode will also be used for 8K 30fps videos so that you do not have to crop too much out of the frame.

Getting a focus in low-lit environments is a challenge for most cameras. Because the Samsung camera can see better, auto focus in the environment should be less of a problem. With Super QPD, the 200-Megapixel available become part of the focusing mechanic. The technology allows for the pixels to be divided into four parts to recognise pattern changes to ensure that autofocus is more accurate and much faster than before.

In conditions where there is too much light, yes; you can have too much light, the HP2’s Dual Vertical Transfer Gate (D-VTG) technology can make the images vibrant still. The D-VTG is basically an added voltage transfer gate for the sensor to sort of increase its dynamic capabilities by up to 33%. This allows the sensor to cleverly reduce overexposures of photos while optimising colours. That all means you can take a photo on a bright day without worrying about getting washed out details and colours.

The Samsung ISOCELL HP2 should start making its way into flagships in the coming year. We are expecting the HP2 to make it first into Samsung’s Galaxy S23 series flagships. You can expect the usually suspects like Xiaomi capitalising and shoehorning the high-resolution sensor in their smartphones in year 2023 as well.