It doesn’t take a genius at pattern recognition to predict that Samsung’s next handset will be the Galaxy S23 after the previous few years have introduced the S22, S21 and S20. But anybody foolish enough to hope that this year’s shiny rectangle will look dramatically different to last year’s shiny rectangle is set to be sorely disappointed if the latest leak from 91mobiles is accurate.
The site has got hold of what looks to be official looking promo images of both the Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus and Galaxy S23 Ultra — the former in pink with a woman enjoying some mindfulness, and the latter in green with two outdoorsy times bravely taking their NZ$2,040 toy perilously close to some jagged-looking rocks.
As with this year’s devices, the former has a triple-camera array and a somewhat curved design, while the latter has five black lenses staring at you from its imposing, angular frame.
Both handsets are shown alongside additional Samsung accessories, but these look suspiciously like the Galaxy Watch 5 and Galaxy Buds 2 Pro which both came out in August. In other words, it’s almost certainly a “would you like fries with that?” upsell, rather than a new product.
Just because the two Samsung Galaxy S23 handsets look pretty much identical to their predecessors, doesn’t mean they won’t be a worthwhile upgrade, of course. Not only will both reportedly pack modestly overclocked versions of Qualcomm’s latest and greatest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, but they’ll also feature SOS satellite communications and, in the case of the Ultra model, a somewhat unnecessary sounding 200MP camera.
The leaker Ice Universe is particularly enamoured with this, writing that “it is stronger than all the 200MP [smartphone cameras] I have seen before”. Further, improvements in the CIS (contact image sensors, for those without that acronym on the tip of their tongue) have apparently resulted in “the biggest improvement of Samsung’s flagship mobile phone in five years.”
We shouldn’t have long to wait to find out if this is just hyperbole. The latest insider information points to a release early next year, with February 1 being mooted as a possible release date to look out for. Maybe get an Advent Calendar in the sales, and make the countdown to the next Galaxy Unpacked a bit more festive.
