- I just got my hands (upbeat music)
on the new Samsung S23 phones, and I'm a believer.
I think we can just get rid of the camera bump altogether.
Overall this year, there's just a more unified design
between all three models.
They all got rid of the camera bump
and they just look like they belong in a family together.
There were some other hardware changes,
the kind of things you'd expect,
like they all use the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor
and the materials have been upgraded
so there's a little more durability.
They come with Gorilla Glass Victus 2 now
and they all have that aluminum frame,
so generally really sleek, really durable feeling devices.
And battery life has in theory improved,
which is a good thing.
Battery life on the S22 series wasn't terrible
but it wasn't a strength either.
Broadly, the differentiators between the three models
are the same as they were last year,
including at least in the US the price.
So the S23 starts at $799,
S23+ starts at $999, and the Ultra goes for $1,199.
So let's start with the S23 Ultra.
The big story here is the 200 megapixel main camera sensor,
and the thing to know is that most of the time
you're not going to be getting 200 megapixel images.
That would be ridiculous.
You'd fill up your storage really fast.
So what it's doing is binning 16 pixels together
to mimic the effect of a bigger pixel,
which is better for light sensitivity.
So what you really get is a 12 megapixel file,
but you can if you want shoot 50 or even 200 megapixels
and then blow it up and put it on your wall
because we're all doing that.
So the rest of the cameras
are pretty much the same as last year.
There's the 3x telephoto,
the 10x telephoto zoom, the ultra wide,
and all together it's a really strong camera system.
We really like the portrait mode in the S22 series
so we're excited to test it and see what's new here.
On the flip side,
the screen has been reshaped just a little bit.
The sides aren't quite as dramatically curved,
which is good when you're using the S pen
'cause you don't want to just keep running it off the edge.
The battery is still the same size,
but Samsung says that battery performance
is a little better.
That's down to the new processor
and some different materials in the display
that are a little more battery efficient, or so they say.
And some good news, the base storage
has been boosted up to 256 gigabytes
so you get twice the storage for the same price.
So far I can tell you
that everything that made the S22 Ultra
the kitchen sink of phones is still true in the S23 Ultra.
You have the huge display, fast refresh rate, S pen,
what is likely a very good camera system.
It's everything you could kind of want
from a slab style phone.
Let's talk about the S23+ and the S23.
There's an upgraded selfie camera.
They're now 12 megapixels as opposed to 10 megapixels.
It still has auto focus.
It's actually the same selfie camera across the entire line.
The Ultra dropped from 40 megapixels
down to that 12 megapixels.
The S23 and S23+ have bigger batteries this year.
They're each 200 extra milliampere hours,
so the S23+ is at 4,700 milliampere hours
and the S23 is at 3,900.
The S23 screen gets a little brighter now too.
It now reaches a peak brightness of 1,750 nits,
which matches the other two phones in the series.
The S23+ gets that base storage upgrade, too,
to 256 gigabytes,
but the S23 is still stuck at 128 gigabytes.
Friendly reminder, you get what you get as far as storage
because the micro SD slot went away a couple years ago
and that ain't coming back.
Camera bump aside, the biggest impression I got
from using these phones for a little while
is that Samsung is making an effort to unify the S series.
They all just look like they belong together,
and that wasn't the case with last year's models.
The color options are the same
and the camera design is the same.
I think it's a great change,
even though there's a pessimist inside me
that's wondering if this is a step
towards condensing the S series so that Samsung
can expand the foldable Z series later.
But that's another video.
That's another Galaxy, another time.
For now, the one in front of us is looking pretty promising.
I'm really curious to know what you all think
of the camera bump.
Is it terrible?
Should we abolish it?
Should we keep it?
I know what I think,
but let me know what you think in the comments.