Samsung Galaxy S23 is official, with a special edition Qualcomm chip

It’s a new year and that means it’s time for a new flagship from Samsung. The Galaxy S23 series it’s official, with a modified design for the cheaper models and a big SoC change for international users. As always, there are three models: the 6.1-inch Galaxy S23, the 6.6-inch S23 Plus, and the 6.8-inch S23 Ultra.

With the release of the S23, Samsung is kicking off an internal drama, with Samsung’s Galaxy phone “DX Division” rejecting Samsung LSI, the division that produces Exynos chips, for not being good enough. In the past, the Galaxy S series has opted for dual vendors for its SoC, where some regions get Qualcomm Snapdragon chips (usually US, China, Japan, and Latin America) and others get Samsung Exynos chips (Europe, India, among others). ). ). The performance of Exynos chips is usually not up to par (second place) standard from Qualcomm, and Exynos customers stuck with a purely inferior phone are naturally disappointed. The Exynos chips have angered Samsung fans enough to make requests begging for the release of Qualcomm’s top model in their markets.

This year, Samsung is listening and will be using all of Qualcomm, all of the time. Exynos chips have been banished to low-end devices, which is an unexpected turn after Samsung LSI got a collaboration from AMD last year and two years ago, perhaps out of desperation, it started naming Exynos chips after Galaxy S phones, with the Exynos 2100 launching on the S21 and the Exynos 2200 launching on the S22. The Exynos division still supplies chips to several mid-range Samsung phones and a Exynos 2300 orphan chip it’s still floating around in the rumor mill and could end up in a tablet or a stripped down version of the S23.

The star of the show is a newer and faster Qualcomm chip, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Samsung got a higher version of the chip from Qualcomm, officially called “Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy.” Adding to the long name, it has a slightly higher clock rate: 3.36 GHz versus the normal 3.2 GHz. In the non-Galaxy version, Qualcomm promises a 35% faster CPU and 25% faster GPU, both with 40-45% higher efficiency. It is a 4nm chip, with one Arm Cortex X3 CPU, two Cortex-A715 CPUs, two Cortex-A710 CPUs, and three Cortex A510R1 CPUs. It’s kind of a weird CPU design, but Qualcomm reworked Arm Recommended Layout a little keep 32-bit support rolling for another year. This is the first Qualcomm chip to support the Royalty-free AV1 codecand it can also support Wi-Fi 7, but Samsung didn’t add it to either model.

The base model of the S23 is getting some trimmed parts. The main differences are 128GB of UFS 3.1 storage, the lack of Ultra Wideband (UWB) support, and 25W charging on the base model, while the more expensive S23 Plus and Ultra have a base 256GB of UFS 4.0 storage. much faster and 45W Wired Charging. Those charging numbers are not anything to write at home, which is a pity. It all packs a base 8GB of RAM, 15W wireless charging, IP68 water resistance, and an 8MP front-facing camera. The Ultra model has higher tiers that can go up to 12GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.

The base model S23 costs $800 and has a 3900 mAh battery. The Plus model costs $1,000 with a 4,700 mAh battery, and the Ultra costs $1,200 with a 5,000 mAh battery. Those prices haven’t budged in the US, but leaked prices say the phones are around $100 more expensive internationally. The bottom two models have a 200mAh higher battery capacity than the S22.

The biggest visible change to the lineup is in the S23 and S23 Plus. Last year the two cheapest S22s had a wraparound corner camera block, while this year they look more like the Galaxy S23 Ultra with individual camera lenses. The corner block never had much of a design justification, but with the single camera lens, Samsung has landed on an honestly elegant minimalist design. One subtle change to the S23 Ultra is that, according to 9to5Google, Samsung flattened the screen by 30 percent, and the work area is now almost completely flat. Samsung finally admitted that curved screens are a bad idea and useless.

The Ultra model looks identical to last year’s: it’s much boxier than the two cheapest phones, and those higher corners make room for a stowable S-Pen. Apart from the bigger screen, the Ultra’s claim to fame is an improved camera loadout, and this year the main sensor is a whopping 200 MP.

The phones are available for pre-order today and will be in all major phone and electronics stores on February 17.

Listing Image by Samsung