It’s the time of year when Samsung trots out the latest in its flagship lineup of smartphones at its annual Galaxy Unpacked event. This year’s Galaxy S23 flagships are merely incremental updates to Samsung’s smartphone portfolio, but they’re still quite promising. The Galaxy S23/S23+ even received a slight makeover, and Samsung finally got rid of that rectangular housing around the rear camera lenses.
Samsung also opted not to update its tablet lineup this year, and instead, it refreshed the Windows-based Galaxy Book laptop range (though these devices will not be available in Australia at the moment).
If you’re in the market for a new Samsung smartphone, here’s a look at what’s coming soon.
Meet the new phones
Samsung’s new Galaxy S23 smartphones are the 6.1-inch Galaxy S23 (left), the 6.6-inch Galaxy S23+ (middle), and the 6.8-inch Galaxy S23 Ultra (right) and made their debut at Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event. The Galaxy S23/23+ are pretty much the same in terms of specifications (though there are some small things). But if you want all that Samsung has to offer, you can spring for the Ultra. Each device will be available from February 17.
The Ultra has the ultimate smartphone camera
Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra has four cameras — again. There’s a 200-MP primary camera coupled with an f/1.7 aperture and an 85-degree field-of-view (FOV). There’s a 12-MP ultra-wide camera with an f/2.2 aperture and a 120-degree FOV. And there are two telephoto cameras, one with a 3x optical zoom, f/2.4 aperture, and a 36-degree FOV, and one with 10x optical zoom, f/4.9 aperture, and 11-degree FOV. The 10x camera sensor is the one that helps facilitate the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s 100x digital space zoom.
The Ultra takes photos — of space!
Last year, Samsung’s working gimmick with the Galaxy S22 Ultra was that it could shoot the moon. And indeed, it did! But this year’s Galaxy S23 Ultra seems more focused on capturing video in the dead of night.
There’s also a curious Astrophoto feature that popped up while I was pawing around at the sample device.
The Galaxy S23 looks so much better
Samsung’s Galaxy S23/S23+ will be an excellent addition to the current landscape of Android flagships. This year’s rendition looks much better from the backside, since Samsung got rid of what it calls the “contour housing” around the triple-array camera system. Now it just looks like three camera lenses poking out of the back, contributing to a much more simplistic and approachable design.
The Galaxy S23 is more customisable
With the new batch of Galaxy S23 smartphones, Samsung is officially launching its One UI 5.1 software update. We’re looking forward to the iOS 16-like style of customising the lock screen — more than what Android offers natively. Samsung will also let you use a video as the background, and it’ll be interesting to see how that affects the overall battery life of the always-on display.
A batch of new Bixby features is also coming with the software update. They include a feature called Bixby text call, which lets you use the digital assistant as your transcription secretary. I look forward to testing this feature more closely with our Galaxy S23 review units.
Meet the new laptops
In addition to the new Galaxy S23 family of smartphones, Samsung introduced a batch of new laptops at Galaxy Unpacked. The Galaxy Book 3 Pro series includes the 14-inch and 16-inch Galaxy Book 3 Pros, the 2-in-1 convertible Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360, and the ultimate offering of the line, the Galaxy Book 3 Pro Ultra. Unfortunately though, these laptops will not be coming to Australia at the moment.