It’s a new year, which means it’s time for a new Samsung flagship. The Galaxy S23 series is official, with a redesign for cheaper models and a big SoC change for international users. As always, there are three models: the 6.1-inch Galaxy S23, the 6.6-inch S23 Plus, and the 6.8-inch S23 Ultra.
With the release of the S23, Samsung kicks off an internal drama: The Samsung Galaxy “DX Division”phone is slamming Samsung LSI – the division that makes Exynos chips – for not being good enough. In the past, the Galaxy S series has worked with two SoC vendors, where some regions received Qualcomm Snapdragon chips (usually the US, China, Japan, and Latin America) and others received Samsung Exynos chips (Europe, India, etc.). The performance of Exynos chips is generally not up to Qualcomm’s (second) standard, and Exynos customers who are stuck with a completely bad phone are naturally disappointed. The Exynos chips have angered Samsung fans so much that they have written petitions asking for a better Qualcomm model to be released in their markets.
Samsung is listening this year and will continue to use Qualcomm. Exynos chips have been banished to lower end devices in a wild turn of events after Samsung LSI won a partnership with AMD last year and two years ago – perhaps in desperation – started naming Exynos chips after Galaxy S phones, with Exynos 2100 launches in S21 and Exynos 2200 launches in S22. Exynos still supplies chips for various mid-range Samsung phones, and the orphaned Exynos 2300 chip is still circulating in the rumor mill and could end up in a tablet or a cut-down version of the S23.
The star of the show is Qualcomm’s newer and faster chip, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Samsung has received a more powerful version of the Qualcomm chip, officially called “Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy.”Aside from the long name, it has a slightly higher clock speed of 3.36GHz rather than the usual 3.2GHz. In the non-Galaxy version, Qualcomm is promising a 35% faster CPU and 25% faster GPU, both with 40-45% higher efficiency claims. It is a 4nm chip with one Arm Cortex X3 processor, two Cortex-A715 processors, two Cortex-A710 processors, and three Cortex A510R1 processors. It’s a rather odd processor layout, but Qualcomm has tweaked the recommended Arm layout a bit to keep 32-bit support for another year. This is the first Qualcomm chip to support the free AV1 codec,
The base S23 model gets a few trimmed parts. The main differences are 128GB of UFS 3.1 storage, no support for ultra-wideband (UWB) and 25W charging in the base model, while the more expensive S23 Plus and Ultra have a base of 256GB of much faster UFS 4.0 storage and 45W wired charging.. Those charging numbers are nothing special, which is a shame. Everything has a base level of 8GB of RAM, 15W wireless charging, IP68 water resistance, and an 8MP front camera. The Ultra model has higher tiers that can go up to 12GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.
The base model S23 costs $800 and packs a 3,900mAh battery. The Plus model is $1,000 with a 4,700 mAh battery, while the Ultra is $1,200 with a 5,000 mAh battery. Those prices haven’t changed in the US, but leaked pricing information suggests the phones cost about $100 more internationally. The bottom two models have 200 mAh more battery capacity than the S22.
The biggest visible change to the lineup is the S23 and S23 Plus. Last year, the two cheaper S22s had a rounded corner camera unit, but this year they are more like the Galaxy S23 Ultra with separate camera lenses. The corner unit has never had much of a design rationale, but with a separate camera lens, Samsung gets a really sleek, minimalist design. The subtle change with the S23 Ultra is that, according to 9to5Google, Samsung has flattened the screen by 30 percent and the workspace is now almost completely flat. Samsung has finally admitted that curved screens are a bad idea and useless.
The Ultra model looks the same as last year – it’s much boxier than the two cheaper phones, and there’s room for a retractable S-Pen in the higher corners. In addition to having the largest display, the Ultra claims to be famous for its upgraded camera, and this year the main sensor has a whopping 200 MP.
The phones are available for pre-order today and will go on sale at every major carrier and electronics store on February 17th.
Listing image from Samsung