Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event: what to expect

Like last year, the lineup looks to be three-strong. There’s the standard Galaxy S23, the slightly bigger S23 Plus, and finally, the high-end Galaxy S23 Ultra. Rumors suggest the first two will share similar designs and specs, while the third will be more visually distinct with at least one significant unique feature.

We’re referring, of course, to the S23 Ultra’s main camera, which has consistently been rumored to be using a high-resolution 200-megapixel main sensor. That’s almost double the 108-megapixel sensor found in last year’s Galaxy S22 Ultra. As my colleague Allison Johnson wrote last August, higher resolution sensors like these matter because they mean phones can bin more pixels together to gather more light and produce brighter, more detailed shots. The exact sensor is expected to be Samsung’s ISOCELL HP2, which Samsung announced just weeks ago.

Alongside this 200-megapixel sensor, a leaked spec sheet suggests the Galaxy S23 Ultra will have three additional cameras, a 12-megapixel ultrawide, a 10-megapixel telephoto with a 3x optical zoom, and another 10-megapixel telephoto with a 10x optical zoom. It amounts to a significantly better camera system than both the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 Plus, whose own leaked spec sheets suggest both will have triple-camera systems consisting of 50-megapixel main sensors, 12-megapixel ultrawides, and 10-megapixel telephotos.

Leaked images suggest it won’t just be the camera systems that distinguish the S23 and S23 Plus from the S23 Ultra but their designs as well. The Galaxy S23 Ultra will seemingly have square corners and an accompanying S Pen stylus, reiterating its status as the spiritual successor to Samsung’s discontinued Galaxy Note phones. Meanwhile the Galaxy S23 and S23 Plus have much softer rounded edges, even if they ditched the camera bump that distinguished the S22 and S22 Plus from the S22 Ultra last year.

Next up, screens. As its name suggests, the Galaxy S23 is the smallest of the three phones, with a 6.1-inch 1080p 120Hz OLED display. The S23 Plus is slightly bigger at 6.6 inches, although its screen specs are otherwise largely the same. Finally, the S23 Ultra has a larger screen still at 6.8 inches, and importantly, it bumps the resolution to 1440p. It’s still OLED and still 120Hz.

Those same leaked spec sheets we mentioned earlier suggest all three phones are going to be powered by Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor in Europe, and historical precedent suggests we’ll see the same processor used in North America as well. What’s interesting is that there’s no sign of Samsung’s own Exynos processors in the Galaxy S23 lineup, which the company has historically used to power its phones in select regions around the world like Europe and India. Qualcomm suggested as much in an earnings call last year when chief financial officer Akash Palkhiwala said Qualcomm’s processor share would increase from “75 percent in G S22” to “global share in G S23.”

The rest of the lineup’s specs appear to be broadly consistent with previous Samsung flagships and the industry at large. We’re looking at between 8 and 12GB of RAM and 256GB to 1TB of storage in the Ultra, while the two other models will reportedly only ship with 8GB of RAM and between 128 and 512GB of storage. Battery capacities range from 3,900mAh to 5,000mAh across the three phones, with 45W fast charging on the Plus and Ultra and 25W on the base S23.

In terms of pricing, internal Verizon documents posted to Reddit suggest we’re looking at a $799.99 starting price for the Galaxy S23, $999.99 for the Galaxy S23 Plus, and $1,199.99 for the Galaxy S23 Ultra, which is in line with last year’s models. European buyers might not be so lucky, however. In countries like Spain and Germany, leaked pricing suggests the starting prices may have increased by around €100 for certain models.