If you were to ask a Samsung executive about the Galaxy S23, the official line would be “you must mean the S22, because there’s no such thing as an S23.” Possibly accompanied by a stage wink.
However, those of us with average pattern recognition or above will have noticed that the last three years have seen Samsung release the Galaxy S20, Galaxy S21 and Galaxy S22. Despite Samsung’s cunning attempt to throw people off the scent by skipping nine digits between 2019’s S10 and 2020’s S20, it’s safe to say that another phone is imminent. And coming on February 1, judging by the invite above, which offers the usual attempt at cryptic intrigue (three spotlights looking an awful lot like a triple-camera array, y’see. Just humour them.)
If you don’t want to sit through the usual self-aggrandisement of a tech company product unveiling, leakers have already cut out the middle (management) man, and none more so than WinFuture’s Roland Quandt, who shared a very official-looking specs comparison chart with his followers on Twitter:
As per usual, the S23 and S23 Plus are essentially the same phone with a choice of sizes: large or very large (catering for small handed folks being something that the industry has all but given up on).
For those with even larger hands, there’s the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, where things get a bit more interesting. Not only does it pack an S Pen for important note taking or less important doodling, but this year it gets a 200MP camera upgrade. Something that the leaker Ice Universe appears quite taken with.
While the specs are otherwise pretty similar between the S22 and S23 families, there is one curious downgrade. The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra had a ridiculous 40MP front-facing camera, but it’s apparently getting the same 12MP one as its cheaper siblings this time around. Maybe buyers would prefer a selfie camera that doesn’t pick up every blemish in such detail, or perhaps Samsung would just like to save a few dollars.
While it’s not mentioned in the spec sheet, the handsets will all be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset. It’s been reported that this will be a slightly souped-up version exclusive for Samsung’s flagships, and that appears to be the case, with Quandt sharing a little bit of branding too:
There’s not much reason to doubt any of this, given Quandt’s strong track record, but we don’t have long to wait to find out if the material is legitimate or not. Samsung Unpacked is taking place on Wednesday 1 February at 1pm ET – or at the somewhat anti-social hour of 7am on Thursday in New Zealand. You can watch it live here, if you like.
