The Samsung Galaxy S23, S23+, and S23 Ultra will be available globally starting February 17th, 2023. As expected, the phones are relatively modest updates over last year’s S22 series, bringing a slightly updated design and a faster processor.
But there are a few key changes.
First, all versions of the phone will ship with Qualcomm “Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy” processors – there will be no Exynos-powered models.
If you’re wondering what’s up with that “for Galaxy” bit, these Qualcomm chips are customized for Samsung with support for higher speeds and a few extra features. The fastest CPU core can hit speeds up to 3.36 GHz, making it a bit faster than a standard Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, which tops out at 3.2 GHz. And the GPU runs at up to 719 MHz (up from 680 MHz on devices with standard Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chips).
The processor is also the first to implement Qualcomm’s new “Snapdragon Cognitive ISP,” which enables “real-time semantic segmentation” for photography. That means the phones can use AI to identify different objects in a photo and adjust your settings appropriately for better photo processing.
Aside from the processor upgrade, Samsung has also given the Galaxy S23 and S23+ bigger batteries than last year’s models, as well as some camera improvements. And the Galaxy S22 Ultra is the company’s first phone with a 200MP primary camera with Samsung’s ISOCELL HP2 image sensor.
While you’d probably run out of storage space pretty quickly if you actually went around snapping 200MP photos, but the camera actually offers the option of saving 12MP images (that combine data from 16 separate pixels into a single pixel). You can also save 50MP resolution photos that use data from 4 pixels.
Here’s an overview of key specs for the Galaxy S23 lineup:
| Galaxy S23 | Galaxy S23+ | Galaxy S23 Ultra | |
| Display | 6.1 inches 2330 x 1080 pixels 425 ppi 120 Hz AMOLED HDR10+ Gorilla Glass Victus 2 | 6.6 inches 2340 x 1080 pixels 393 ppi 120 Hz AMOLED HDR10+ Gorilla Glass Victus 2 | 6.8 inches 3088 x 1440 pixels 500 ppi 120 Hz AMOLED HDR10+ Gorilla Glass Victus 2 |
| S-Pen | No | Yes | |
| Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy | ||
| RAM | 8GB LPDDR5 | 8GB or 12GB LPDDR5 | |
| Storage | 128GB or 256GB | 256GB or 512GB | |
| Cameras (rear) | 50MP primary 12MP ultra-wide (120 degrees) 10MP telephoto (3X) | 200MP primary 12MP ultra-wide (120 degrees) 10MP telephoto (3X) 10MP telephoto (10x) | |
| Camera (front) | 12MP | ||
| Wireless | WiFi 6E BT 5.3 NFC GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo 5G | WiFi 6E BT 5.3 NFC GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo 5G UWB | |
| Ports | USB Type-C Dual SIM (eSIM + nano SIM) | ||
| Audio | Stereo speakers | ||
| Security | In-display fingerprint sensor Face recognition | ||
| Battery | 3900 mAh | 4700 mAh | 5000 mAh |
| Charging | 25W (wired) 10W (wireless) | 45W (wired) 10W (wireless) | |
| IP rating | IP68 | ||
| Dimensions | 146.3 x 70.9 x 7.6mm | 157.8 x 76.2 x 7.6mm | 163.4 x 78.1 x 8.9mm |
| Weight | 167 grams | 195 grams | 233 grams |
| Starting Price | $800 / €950 | $1000 / €1,210. | $1200 / €1,400 |
I rather like the clean no-fuss design, compared to the horrors of some of the Android handsets hitting the market with huge clunky camera islands and other pointless decorative frills.
Better cameras at watching you poo!
It wipes too!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz70o2Ia4X0
Bill Gates can only dream of making an audio poo recording of equal quality with Windows..
Did Samsung really bring back the microSD slot!? That’s awesome news!
From what I hear the SD8G2 is back to being built by TSMC, so it should be less of a hot mess than the SD8G1 (built by Samsung) was.
Sorry to get your hopes up. I copied that from leaked specs… and it looks like that part of the leak was incorrect. There is no microSD card reader.
You might want to checkout the Samsung XCover6 Pro. MicroSD, removable battery, 5G, Samsung Dex, but a removable battery
Damn, the Samsung XCover6 Pro is missing a couple of Verizon’s primary 4g and 5g bands – other than that it looks like a really great phone.
But, to be honest, I’m pretty happy with my moto g100 – slightly better specs for a lower price.
It’s kinda weird that while I’d be totally willing to pay for a flagship phone, the manufacturers keep taking away features that I care about (microSD, headphones jack, etc.) and only leaving them in lower tier phones. So, they just get less of my money.
So, maybe S22 will be more reasonably priced?
It depends on what you mean with reasonably priced, didn’t it already drop in price? To be honest here in Europe I would rather wait for the S23’s prices to drop in the future, at least you get a Qualcomm SoC, seemingly built on TSMC’s node, instead of the Exynos nonsense.
Bill Gates thinks its a good deal!
Right now the S22 is $100 less than the S23 at both Amazon and T-Mobile, but it will probably drop more. But T-Mobile is offering some good deals on trade-ins and new lines, as well as other things (e.g. S23+ with 512GB of memory for the 256 price), where it’s actually much better to get the S23 models. I think you’d be waiting a long time for the S22 to get the same basic net price, and then you’d only have something well less than four years of security updates.