Weekly poll: Samsung Galaxy S23 series – pre-order or pass?

The Samsung Galaxy S23 series is here and it brings a fast new chipset, a 200MP camera with a new sensor for the Ultra, bigger batteries for the other two and, for some regions at least, new prices.

Samsung Galaxy S23 series infographics

The pricing for most regions was announced on Wednesday, details for India came in the day after. While North America avoided the price hike, the rest of the world did not. But everything is getting more expensive and Samsung compensated the price bump by doubling the base storage for the S23+ and S23 Ultra. That’s fair – or is it?

In case you missed it, check out our hands-on review with the three phones and watch Will’s report from the Unpacked event. Now let’s drill into the details.

The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra has changed the least on the outside but has the best upgrades on the inside. Yes, we’re talking about Samsung’s first ever 200MP camera. A sibling company made the ISOCELL HP2 sensor just for the Ultra, it’s different from the HP1 and HP3 we’ve seen on other phones. The Super Quad Pixel autofocus should be a noticeable improvement over the AF systems on previous 108MP and 200MP phones. Samsung also upgraded the OIS system, so it can now correct angles up to 3.0° (double the 1.5° that the S22 Ultra OIS can manage).

All three phones use the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chipset, which runs its prime core at 3.36GHz (up from 3.2GHz on other Gen 2 phones). The GPU is faster too, though Qualcomm isn't commenting on details (we'll find out through benchmarks, anyway). However, the Ultra is the only one with the option for 12GB of RAM. Considering that phones with 16GB are hardly uncommon, 8GB sounds limiting.

The S23 Ultra makes a bid for the smartphone camera king. Whether it earns the crown is a subject that will have to wait for the reviews. But based on what you have seen so far, will you pre-order an Ultra today (and benefit from some of the early bird perks) or would you rather wait and see? Vote below or using this page.

The Samsung Galaxy S23+ and its smaller sibling still feature flat displays. We doubt we will hear complaints about that. But they are still FHD+ LTPS panels at a time when QHD+ and LTPO are expected of flagships. We can already hear the complaints.

These two also have less to show in terms of camera upgrades. The new selfie camera has slightly higher 12MP resolution (this is an upgrade for the S23 and S23+, downgrade for the Ultra). Video recording was improved too with support for 8K at 30fps for the rear as well as Super HDR at 60fps for the front cameras. Still no autofocus for the ultra wide camera, though.

The Ultra missed out on a battery upgrade, but the S23 and S23+ got a 200mAh increase. Charging speed for the two larger phones is set at 45W as it was last year. Even though Samsung sells self repair kits for its flagships, it does not believe in pushing the battery hard (and the kits don’t include new batteries, anyway).

What do you think – is this the year go for the Plus model or maybe one of the other two models looks better? Vote below or using this page.

The Samsung Galaxy S23 is the only one stuck with 25W charging. And the only one to have a 128GB storage option (with UFS 3.1 at that, though the real life impact of that is yet to be determined). Despite missing out on several upgrades the small S23 didn’t escape the price hike.

Still, there is a good chance that it will outsell its Plus sibling – according to reports, that was the case for the S22 generation and the S23/S23+ have the same advantages and disadvantages relative to each other. It’s one of the smallest Android flagships (it’s about the same size as the Zenfone 9) and it’s the cheapest of the three.

What about you – are you looking at the pre-order page with your finger over the ‘Buy’ button? Vote below or using this page.