Samsung Galaxy Unpacked Impressions
Samsung has announced their challengers for 2023, the S23 Series (oh wait, is that why they're called that?) is here, and the question is: Will Samsung keep the ball rolling on what has been a very popular S22 series? It has been a launch with fairly few changes, but that may be what the public actually prefers. Unless you're in Europe, in which case there is one MASSIVE change we need to talk about. Oh, and there are laptops too! I'm sure someone will buy one of those...
S22 S23 Ultra
Camera Talk
I'm going to start this by saying just one thing: a 200MP primary rear camera is insane. I don't know whether it's good insane or bad insane yet, but either way it is absolutely wild. Samsung has a slight tendency of chasing the biggest numbers, and figuring it out later. Famously, the S20 Ultra never lived up to its potential as high shutter lag and terrible auto-focus meant that the 108MP main shooter wouldn't actually capture the things you wanted (unless you were looking for a blurry mess).
The default pictures you take are binned all the way down to 12.5MP, but you can go into the settings and choose between taking 50MP or even the full 200MP photos. Disclaimer: There's a tonne of processing that happens on 200MP photos, and after you click the shutter you will have to wait a few seconds as that processing happens before taking another picture.
The selfie camera has been "downgraded" to a native 12MP shooter, but the practical result should be more low-light performace and quicker processing as it's no longer binning 40MP shots.
Finally: The 8K video is no longer the cinematic 24fps, as the S23 Ultra can film at a full 30fps. I still don't know who's using their phone to film 8k footage, but hey, it's an option!
European Parity
Aside from that, my only other major reaction is: FINALLY. Here in the UK at least, we finally look set to get a Samsung flagship with a Qualcomm chip. Though, it's not just any chip. Following in the footsteps of Apple and Microsoft in wanting chips that are practically the same as the off-the-shelf counterpart, but also with a name that means it's no one else's, the S23 line will launch with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy. What does this mean in practice? It's the standard Snapdragon 8G2, but with a slight overclock.
It's hard not to be excited by this move as a consumer, you're getting a MUCH more efficient chip, and Samsung now has to do half the software updates they did previously, but it is a problem for competitiveness in the flagship mobile chip space. If you're on Android, chances are your high-end phone has a Qualcomm chip, as MediaTek can only compete at the low-end.
That's basically it.
Other than that, the hardware is mostly the same. The same 5000mAh battery, the same S-Pen, and the same 45W fast charging. It's a fairly safe route that Samsung is taking with this cycle, and it makes sense considering the success of the S22 Ultra. That being said, the one thing that isn't the same is the price tag. At £1249, the base model S23 Ultra comes in at a full £100 more than the S22 Ultra did.
You do get double the storage for that extra £100, but it is still weird that the base model has only 8GB of RAM, whereas the rest of the Ultras have 12GB. It's supposed to be an Ultra device, so why are they compromising on memory?
Pre-orders need not worry though, as Samsung offers the upgraded version for the same price as the base model, so you will get 512GB of storage and 12GB of memory for the £1249 asking price.
S23 / S23+
These are the phones that I think 99% of people should buy, and the S23+ specifically looks to be a super decent deal. The battery capacity has been upped to 4700mAh, and in combination with the dramatically more efficient SoC, we should see much better battery life. The reason the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 was so much more efficient than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 was Qualcomm's move away from Samsung's 4nm process to TSMC's. Samsung could never quite match the efficiency of TSMC, and that showed both in the Snapdragon, but also in the Exynos 2200.
The Gorilla Glass Victus 2 fronted displays are as AMOLED as ever, getting up to 120hz. The design has been moved to be more in line with the S23 Ultra. Sure, they're still more rounded than the Note-esque flagship, but they now feel like a cohesive family with matching camera modules.
The truth is, we're at a point where it is surprisingly hard to buy an outright bad phone. Any flagship phone, whether it be from Samsung, Google, Xiaomi, Apple, or even OnePlus (more about them on Friday) will be sufficient for a regular user.
Storage all around has been doubled on the low-end, but that's in part to mask the price increase. The base S23 comes in at an eye-watering £849, the same price as my Pixel 7 Pro. The baseline S23+ costs £1049, putting it on par with the iPhone 14 Pro. Is it worth that? Probably! If you want to stay outside the Apple ecosystem, and want the most complete package of a device, this is definitely the most easy to recommend device. What it isn't though, is the device I'd recommend to anyone looking for value-for-money.
Galaxy Book3 Series
With no new wearables launching (either in the form of headphones or watches), the only other major announcement was the new series of Galaxy Book laptops. They're a jumble of the words "3", "360", "Pro", and "Ultra', so pick the combination you like and there will be your next laptop. Frankly, I'm mostly just embarrassed that Samsung thought "Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360" was an acceptable name for a device.
The one feature I do miss, less so for the practicality and more for the fun quirkiness, is the Qi Wireless Charger that used to be built into the trackpad. The pad allowed you to place your phone, earbuds, or even watch on the trackpad and have it charge. Great for when you're using a mouse and need a tiny toput for your Buds.
They only come in 1 size, 16″ Book 3 Pro / Book 3 Pro 360 / Book 3 Ultra. The screens aren't particularly bright, at a fairly embarrassing 500 nits of peak brightness for the two Pro models. This isn't too bad if you're just using it indoors, but the fact that they call it "HDR" is a stretch. They all have 13th-Generation Intel processors inside, only the Ultra has any form of dedicated graphics.
Honestly, Windows laptops just aren't that interesting to me right now. I've talked about it on my Acer Chromebook Spin 514 page, but ChromeOS is the perfect secondary OS. If you're looking for a computer to double as at home PC and on-the-go powerhouse, the truth is that nothing can quite compete with the Apple Silicon Macs. If it has to be Windows, nothing about the Galaxy Book 3 series jumps out at me as a reason to get it over something either more powerful (like the Razer Blade 16), more repairable (like the Framework), or less expensive (like the Asus Vivobook 15X OLED).
I'll say it: The inclusion of a MicroSD card slot is just... odd. I get including a full SD Card slot, in fact, it's somethine I greatly appreciate as a videographer! But MicroSD feels more like the compnay teasing you with something that could have been useful, but isn't.
The Bigger Picture - Are Samsung in Trouble?
This Unpacked happens to come off the back of a very weak quarter from Samsung. In the last 3 months, the company made a profit of $8.5 billion, which sounds like a lot until you realise that it's a 69% decrease from the year prior. (major yikes!) The crazier part is that their revenue only dropped by around 9%, meaning the drop in profits have come from increasing costs.
During 2022, Samsung's operating profit fell by a (relatively) small 16% to $35.2 billion from the previous year, but crucially: the part of the company that sells chips took the hardest hit. Their operating profit sank an unprecedented 96.9%, mostly due to a rapidly shrinking memory market.
I don't think Samsung has done anything particularly groundbreaking with these releases, they're all solid devices that I'm sure will sell reasonably Samsung's real opportunity to push the boat out will come later this year when they release the new Z Fold and Z Flip phones. Those are the ones that have really been long in the tooth, with the Z Flip5 due for a major overhaul. Will it actually get one though? Only one way to find out!