Samsung unveils Galaxy S23 lineup with exclusive chipset and bigger batteries, S23 Ultra...

[Tudor Cibean]

Highly anticipated: At its Unpacked 2023 event, Samsung unveiled its new lineup of non-foldable flagship phones. The Galaxy S23, S23+, and S23 Ultra look almost identical to their predecessors but come with new chipsets and incremental improvements to the cameras and battery life.

Samsung finally decided to stop shipping their flagship lineup with (often inferior) Exynos SoCs in some regions, such as Europe. All Galaxy S23-series phones will come with an exclusive version of Qualcomm's flagship chipset, dubbed the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy. This will have slightly higher maximum clock speeds for the Prime CPU core and the GPU, making it similar to past years' Plus variant.

Also read: Samsung looking to impact the PC market with sleek third-gen Galaxy Book laptops

Screen sizes are identical to last year, meaning the vanilla Galaxy S23 will again be one of the few compact phones on the market with flagship-tier specs. It features a 6.1-inch 1,080p AMOLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate and an improved 1,750 nits peak brightness. The battery also gets a slight bump up to 3,900mAh, while wired charging is still limited to 25W.

Meanwhile, the Galaxy S23+ has a larger 6.6-inch AMOLED screen with the same refresh rate and brightness. It also comes with a slightly bigger 4,700mAh battery, which can charge at up to 45W.

Both of these phones share the same camera system with a 50-megapixel primary sensor that can record video at 8K@30fps, joined by a 12-megapixel ultrawide and a 10-megapixel 3x telephoto. On the front, there's a new 12-megapixel selfie camera with autofocus and support for HDR video at 60fps.

Moving on to Samsung's non-foldable flagship for the year, the S23 Ultra features a massive 6.8-inch 1,440p AMOLED display with S-Pen support and a variable refresh rate between 1-120Hz. Powering it all is a 5,000mAh battery with 45W charging support.

The main upgrade compared to its predecessor is the primary rear camera. It comes with a new 200-megapixel Isocell HP2 sensor that can merge up to 16 pixels into one, improving light-gathering capabilities and giving you a more-manageable 12.5-megapixel final image. The rest of the camera setup consists of a 12-megapixel-ultrawide and two 10-megapixel telephotos -- one with 3x optical zoom and another with 10x. On the front, there's the same 12-megapixel sensor found on the smaller models.

All three phones will ship with Android 13 and One UI 5.1 out of the box. Samsung claims that the devices will get four years of Android updates and five years of security enhancements. It's worth noting that this is even better than Google's Pixel update policy, although the South Korean brand's software updates likely won't be as punctual.

Samsung's Galaxy S23 lineup will start shipping on February 17, but you can already preorder them today. The Galaxy S23 starts at $799 for 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Opting for the base-model Galaxy S23+ will get you 8 GB RAM and 256GB of storage for $999. Finally, the top-tier Galaxy S23 Ultra starts at $1,199 for the same configuration. The company also announced a new lineup of Galaxy notebooks at today's event.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/97464-samsung-unveils-galaxy-s23-lineup-exclusive-chipset-bigger.html

 

[NintPlayBox]

Very meh....
Sticking to my very affordable 7000mAh battery Samsung M51 for another year.

 

[Superconductor]

Samsung went Apple-esque some time ago ... nothing really exciting to see here.

 

[emmzo]

Boring as hell. If a battery breakthrough or smt doesn't come soon enough, this whole market is going to sink.

 

[dangh]

"Samsung finally decided to stop shipping their flagship lineup with (often inferior) Exynos SoCs in some regions, such as Europe"
oh at last! maybe it's a time to change my note9. Will wait for a sale.
Just wonder if there are any plans for a tablets...

 

[SirDigby]

Just wonder if there are any plans for a tablets...

If I remember correctly the tablet refresh is slightly longer at 18-ish months, but there's probably some good deals around for the Tab S8 series which I have, or wait til June for a likely announcement - though there's a rumour that the Tab series announcement will be alongside the Flip/ Fold announcement in August.
The Tab S8 series has the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip so plenty of power even though its not the latest.

 

[toooooot]

"Samsung finally decided to stop shipping their flagship lineup with (often inferior) Exynos SoCs in some regions, such as Europe"
oh at last! maybe it's a time to change my note9. Will wait for a sale.
Just wonder if there are any plans for a tablets...

How is the battery holdin?

 

[poohbear]

Nice incremental upgrade, but not for the asking price. I'll wait 2 years and buy it when it drops to the $500-$600 range. The days of upgrading every 2 years are long gone. Smartphones have gone the route of PC's & Laptops, every 4-5 years is fine for the vast majority of users given the technology of any phone from the past 7-8 years.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

Nice incremental upgrade, but not for the asking price. I'll wait 2 years and buy it when it drops to the $500-$600 range. The days of upgrading every 2 years are long gone. Smartphones have gone the route of PC's & Laptops, every 4-5 years is fine for the vast majority of users given the technology of any phone from the past 7-8 years.

You upgraded every two years! Wow, 4-6 years fr me. There has been little progress from the S20 for the non-utra models. Last two upgrades have been useless for S21 owners. Maybe by S25 we'll see some real progress

 

[guillejp]

Ultra meh... It's also time these 6.8 things get a 6k battery, but I guess it's not coming since they need to sell you a new thing at some point.

 

[adamada72]

Needs an SD card slot and flat screen

 

[TazR6]

I was not going to bother and hold on to my S21 Ultra for another year. I pay upfront for my phones as it works out much cheaper than getting one on contract (UK, at least).
Compared to the S21 Ultra, the S23 Ultra is quite an update, so I decided to get one. Ordered my Sky Blue 512Gb one on Wednesday. Because I went off standard on the color, it is not due to arrive until Feb 20 compared to Feb 13, had I got a standard color, but I am a sucker for blue. I will be getting the case and the screen protectors on the day of release, which seems a bit silly, rather than them holding on to them for when they ship the phone.
I am looking forward mainly to the Snapdragon chip, which I think unconsciously was my main reason for getting this. The camera, too, sounds very promising indeed.
It will be weird using a screen that does not have the same curvature as my last few phones, but I think that the curve trend is on its way out. It was a huge novelty, but I think I will prefer the flatter screen on the new phone. It will seem wider, I think, as there is no sudden drop-off around the sides.
I am quite looking forward to it.