Pat PilcherPAT PILCHER previews the very hot new Samsung Galaxy smartphone range.
It’s that time of the year when Samsung unveils its new smartphone goodies. This time around, it’s the Galaxy S23 Ultra, S23+, and S23. As you’d expect from Sammy’s Galaxy phones, all three devices come with an epic camera and more grunt under the hood than a piggery.
The show’s undisputed star is the rear shooter that the S23 range comes equipped with. It makes use of a whopping 200 MP sensor. Around the front, the selfie shooter is equipped with fast autofocus, is HDR capable, and can capture video at 60 fps.
A stand-out feature that’s bound to appeal to phone snappers is the Expert RAW mode. It gives DSLR-style image shooting and editing capabilities in uncompressed RAW and JPEG. There’s also support for multiple exposures and Astrophoto settings for catching night sky shots. The S23’s optical image stabiliser supports wider stabilisation angles to keep everything sharp. On the video front, users also get a wider angle 8K video mode that supports 30 frames per second. Object-based AI examines every detail in the frame, including hair and eyes. If you have a pair of Galaxy Buds2 Pro, you can also record 360 audio with the Galaxy S23 range.
The S23 lineup is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 silicon and, in the Ultra, a massive 5,000 mAh battery that Samsung claims will last 20% longer (than what we’re still determining). The graphics on the Galaxy S23 Ultra have also been given a shot in the arm and are 40% faster. AI manages all this power and a bigger battery to balance performance and power for photography, videography, gaming, and other activities. Not content with putting all that raw grunt into the S23 range, Samsung’s elves also added the S Pen in the S23 Ultra for productivity, notetaking, sketching and so on.
For mobile gaming, the GPU in the Galaxy S23 Ultra supports real-time ray tracing, resulting in more lifelike graphics, which could see the S23 Ultra rivalling game consoles for in-game graphics. The vapour-cooling chamber on the Galaxy is also significantly larger, allowing everything to run cooler. The 6.8-inch edge display on the Galaxy S23 Ultra also has a “vision booster mode,” which can adjust display brightness in daylight to combat brightness and glare.
The Galaxy S23 series comes in four colour ways. In Samsung marketing speak, these are Phantom Black (black), Cream (off-white), Green and Lavender. The Galaxy S23 Ultra, Galaxy S23+, and Galaxy S23 will be available from February 17 onwards. As you’d expect, all this goodness comes at a price. Depending on your storage/ram combo, The Galaxy S23 Ultra starts at $2299, the Galaxy S23+ $1949 and the Galaxy S23 $1599
We’ve put our hands up for review units, so watch this space for full Galaxy S23 reviews over the next few weeks.
