Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra: Same as the Galaxy S22 Ultra, only with a special Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 version and 200 MP camera
Samsung held a big Galaxy Unpacked 2023 presentation today, where (it's no secret anymore) it unveiled the new flagships of the Galaxy S23 series. By the way, it is the first "live" presentation of the flagships in 3 years, because before that the company had to refuse public events due to the pandemic. Samsung even enlisted the help of directors Ridley Scott and Na Hong-Jin to evaluate and demonstrate the benefits of the camera. Of course, more attention was paid to the top model, the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra.
Here's What's New About It
The flagship is very similar to last year's Galaxy S22 Ultra - Samsung has made minimal changes to the exterior, leaving the same camera design, rectangular angular body shape and display rounded on the sides. Also in place is the in-built slot for the S Pen stylus and IP68 water resistance. The smartphone comes in three new colours - Green, Lavender and Beige, which join the old Phantom Black. Gorilla Glass Victus 2 is used as protective glass on the front and back.
The significant change is the processor used in all models of the Galaxy S23 range, which is a special version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. It has a Cortex-X3 core running at up to 3.36GHz, compared to a maximum of 3.2GHz on the regular Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. In addition, the Adreno 740 GPU runs at 719GHz rather than 680MHz. And yes, versions with the proprietary Exynos chips won't be available in either market this year.
Another big upgrade is the main camera. It now includes Samsung's 200-megapixel ISOCELL HP2 sensor, which can combine 16 pixels into one for a final resolution of 12MP with individual-sized 2.4µm pixels. Or it can combine its 4-to-1 pixels to give you a 50-megapixel image with more detail to work with.Users can also shoot RAW images with the benefits of multi-frame processing, use Expert RAW as an in-camera mode or the new Astro Hyperlapse video mode. The other three modules remain unchanged: a periscope with 10x magnification and f/4.9 aperture, a telephoto lens with 3x magnification and f/2.4 aperture, and an ultra-wide-angle camera with 12MP resolution. For selfies, there's an improved 12MP front camera with autofocus.
Otherwise, nothing new: a 6.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2x with a resolution of 1440×3088 pixels and an adaptive refresh rate of 1Hz to 120Hz, a 5000mAh battery and 45W fast charging.
Here's What It Costs
The Galaxy S23 Ultra is available in four variants:
- 8/256GB - $1199
- 12/256GB - $1299
- 12/512GB - $1399
- 12GB/1TB - not yet known
Source: Samsung
