Preview Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra with 200MP camera

Samsung today introduced the new Galaxy S23 series, consisting of the Galaxy S23 and S23+ and the S23 Ultra. The same as the S22 series that consisted of the Galaxy S22 and Galaxy S22 + and the S22 Ultra. Read more about the ‘normal’ Galaxy S23 and S23+ here, in the article below you can read the preview of the Galaxy S23 Ultra. Earlier I was allowed to briefly hold this smartphone in my hands and since today I have the final version, so you can read the review soon on pcactive.nl.

Design and housing
What is immediately striking about the S23 Ultra is that there is no longer a camera island on the back, but that the cameras are ‘separate’ from each other. And although they logically protrude a bit, it looks nice and sleek. Incidentally, the smartphones from the A series that will appear later this year will no longer have an island. (text continues below the image)

Samsung is fully committed to sustainability and that is reflected in the glass front and back, among other things. Samsung is the first to use Gorilla Glass 8, which should last longer and is made from an average of 22% recycled material. And the sides of Armor Aluminum (Samsung’s strongest aluminum) have an eco-friendly paint finish. The packaging is also sustainable: no more plastic, everything is made of paper.
The S22 Ultra measures 78.1 x 163.3 x 8.9 mm and weighs 234 grams. See size differences with the S23 and S23+ at the bottom of this article. He appears in four colors: Phantom Black, Green, Cream and Lavender. Black will probably be the most sold color, followed by green. (text continues below the image)

All in all, the S23 Ultra has a very nice and tighter one due to the disappearance of the camera island look & feel.

Screen
The S23 Ultra has the same size screen as the S22 Ultra with its 6.8 inches, although this is slightly less due to the slightly rounded corners. Also now an impressively bright Dynamic AMOLED 2X QHD screen with a resolution of 3088 X 1440 pixels. There is a Super Smooth 120Hz refresh rate (refresh rate), while there is a 240Hz Touch Sampling Rate in game mode. Moreover, once again technology provides Vision booster the intelligent screen adjusts the brightness during the day, for example in full sunlight. You want to watch series and movies via streaming services on such a nice big screen, and then you have HDR on the S23 Ultra, just like with the S23 and S23+.

New processor, more memory and longer battery life
In terms of chipset, the Galaxy S23 Ultra now has the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform for Galaxy, or a chipset specially developed with Qualcomm that is optimized for Samsung. And that is immediately reflected in, for example, the graphics performance: compared to the S22 Ultra, they are 40% faster. It also has an effect on the battery life, as you can read later.
In terms of memory, there are 4 flavors, with Samsung no longer offering 128 GB of storage memory. This is partly due to the 200MP camera: a photo takes up 60 MB and an 8K video about 600 MB per minute. The storage memory fills up pretty quickly if you take a lot of photos and videos. In addition, Samsung indicated that (younger) users would like to have an image immediately and do not want to first search the cloud for working memory to ensure a fast and reliable smartphone.
The 4 flavors are: 8GB of RAM with 256GB of storage, 12GB of RAM with 256GB of storage or with 512GB of storage, while the most expensive version has 1TB of storage and 12GB of RAM and is only available through Samsung’s e-store.
The powerful battery (battery) of 5000 mAh lasts longer: thanks to the chipset, there is an up to 22% longer battery life. A USB-C cable is included, but no charger. Incidentally, you can now also use a handy tool that charges up to 85%.

Cameras: Much better selfie camera
In addition to the aforementioned specifications and focus points of Samsung, which should ensure consistent performance and a premium design, Samsung mainly focuses on the cameras. In any case, it is remarkable that every S23 has the same selfie camera that now has 12 megapixels (F2.2 and Field of View or FOV 80) (was 10 MP). Field of View means field of view and is expressed in degrees; the human field of view is approximately 140 degrees horizontally and 80 degrees vertically. The S23 series features a new fast autofocus and is Samsung’s first Super HDR selfie camera with 60 fps (frames per second) instead of 30 fps for visibly better photos and videos.
In addition, the available object-based artificial intelligence should also result in more beautiful and better night selfies on photos and videos, thanks in part to the dual pixels (for night portraits) and the noise reduction for background, sky, skin, lips and hair, among other things. Under dark conditions, visual noise can cause lesser photos, but a new AI-driven algorithm for image signal processing (ISP) should improve details and color tones.

Cameras on the back: 200 MP
On the back is a 200MP Adaptive Pixel sensor (F1.7, FOV 85 degrees) that uses pixel binning for multiple levels of high resolution image processing simultaneously: 200MP, 100MP and 50MP output options. There is also a 12MP (F1.7, FOV 120 degrees) wide-angle camera for panoramic photos and two 10MP telephoto lenses, one with 3x optical zoom (F2.4, FOV 36 degrees) and the other with 10x optical zoom (F4.9, FOV 11 degrees). All cameras are equipped with a ring to protect them.
A well-known problem with many night photos and videos is that it often takes a few seconds before you get results, or a (too) slow shutter speed. Especially with the Ultra, according to Samsung, the optical image stabilizer (OIS) is much better than with previous models: videos should be stable thanks to doubled optical image stabilizer angles in all directions. Furthermore, videos should produce an almost cinematic effect thanks to improved 8K video at 30 frames per second and a wider angle.
With a range of built-in editing tools, it almost feels like you’re holding an SLR camera in your hands. This allows you to save photos in RAW format up to 16-bit and gives you more control over your edits with more data from your images. The Expert RAW app, which is only available on Samsung Galaxy, allows RAW and JPEG photos to be captured and edited in DSLR fashion. You can experiment with Multi-Exposure photography or take a clear shot of the galaxy with the Astrophoto functionality in the Samsung Camera App or the Expert RAW app. Just like on a DSLR camera, you make your photos brighter or darker with ISO settings and shutter speed. You can also adjust the white balance to make your photo warmer or cooler.

S Pen
Only the S23 Ultra has an S Pen. Another striking novelty with the S23 Ultra: the S Pen is not on the right, but on the left. Externally it seems that it only reaches the bottom camera internally, perhaps Samsung has found some space now that the camera island has disappeared.

Software, updates, connections, security, IP68
The Galaxy S23 series is equipped with Android 13 and the Samsung shell One UI 5.1. About the latter: there are more widgets, clearer letters and you can also play videos on your lock screen, a cool option. Furthermore, Samsung guarantees no less than 4 years of Android updates and 5 years of (monthly) security updates, which you then receive once every 3 months. Of course this is a 5G model and it also has Wi-Fi 6E and bluetooth 5.3. The Galaxy S23 series is secured with Samsung Knox and Samsung Knox Vault. Finally, it receives a water and dust rating of IP68: water resistant to 1.5 meters of fresh water for up to 30 minutes and protected against dust, dirt and sand. Not recommended for beach or pool use, according to Samsung.

Price and availability
Samsung asks a lot of money for the Galaxy S23 Ultra. They classify a smartphone above 1000 euros as a super premium flagship, a segment that will experience a growth of 25% from 2020. For the model with 256 GB of storage memory, the suggested retail price is 1399 euros, if you go for the 512 GB of storage memory, it costs 1579 euros and the model with 1 TB of storage costs 1819 euros. Incidentally, there are great cashback promotions with the pre-order, so pay attention to that. You don’t get an extra device, but you get double the amount of memory for the same price (not the 1 TB model I think).

On the left the Galaxy S23, in the middle the S23+ and on the right the S23 Ultra. No more camera island and you can also see the difference in the rounded corners of the different models: the S23 Ultra has much less rounded corners than the S23 and S23+