Samsung Galaxy S23: What to expect

The new Galaxy S23 series is finally here and this lineup will almost certainly be among the best on the market once they become available. Although, sincerely we hope that this year’s regular and Plus models are not another iterative upgrade.

New smartphone lineup

To tell the truth, gone are the days when smartphones evolved rapidly. Actually, a mobile from two or three years ago is not that different from anything you can get on the market today in the same price range. For instance, Apple’s latest iPhone 14 series from last year was perhaps the most attractive invention of the brand to date.

However, regarding the innovation, this terminal does not really differ from its predecessor, as it has the same chipset as the 13 series. On the other hand, that series introduced some changes with its Pro model, such as a new camera cutout and more advanced cameras.

Samsung sells three models in the main Galaxy S lineup right now: the regular Galaxy S22, the S22 Plus, and the S22 Ultra. The upcoming Galaxy S23 series is expected to maintain that. Nonetheless, the first two models have barely changed over the past few years, with most of Samsung’s attention going into the larger (and more expensive) Ultra.

How much has the Galaxy family changed?

Now that we’re about to receive a new Samsung Galaxy lineup, it’s a good time to recapitulate how these phones are changing over the years. To begin with, we should remember the first Galaxy S20 of 2020 which had a 6.2-inch 1440p screen with a refresh rate of 120Hz, 128 GB of base storage, 8 GB RAM, a 12 MP main camera, a 64 MP telephoto lens, a 12 MP ultra-wide, a 10 MP selfie camera, and a 4,000mAh battery.

After that, the company decided to released the next device, Galaxy S21, although for this model we had nearly the same exact specifications, except the resolution shrunk to 1080p, and well for the next year with Galaxy S22, despite the fact Samsung decided to shrink the phone and upgrade the main camera to 50 MP, the battery also became smaller, and the telephoto was downgraded to a 10 MP lens.

Is the Galaxy S series getting worse?

Okay, we can say that it’s a fact, the base Galaxy S handset hasn’t improved significantly in at least two years and with respect to screen resolution and battery life, has slowly become a worse buy.

And if you were wondering what about the regular S and Plus phones, in spite of keeping several amazing features, they have not been spared from the company’s downgrades. Each new Snapdragon chip brought minor speed improvements and more reliable 5G access, but besides that, you’d be hard-pressed to tell any recent S and S Plus phone apart — except for where the rear cameras are located.

The Ultra side of Galaxy

But all is not lost. We already talked about the changes that, sadly, the S and S Plus phones haven’t had, but what about the Ultra? Basically, there wasn’t an Ultra at all before the S20 series. 

Nevertheless, from the following year’s S21 Ultra added S Pen support (but the stylus didn’t fit in the phone) and replaced the useless depth camera with another telephoto, giving the phone incredible zoom capabilities. It also added ultra-wideband (UWB) support for locating SmartTags.

We know that this does not represent much news for some users, but there is a long list of features that only the Ultra version has. Hence, the Ultra is still the only model with two telephoto lenses. It’s still the only model with S Pen support — even just compatibility with an external pen would be great, like with the S21 Ultra. 

Final thoughts

Taking into account the changes that the Galaxy S series phones have had, we hope the company’s next device will exceed the expectations and that this time there really will be significant changes in the entire lineup.