Galaxy S23 Series Receives Major Camera Update and April 2023 Security Patch

Update 12/04/2023: Last week, Samsung rolled out a significant camera update for the Galaxy S23 lineup in South Korea, followed by its availability in Europe and India. Now, the update is being rolled out in the United States for carrier-locked and unlocked Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23+, and Galaxy S23 Ultra models. The update comes with firmware version S91xUSQU1AWC8 for the carrier-locked units and S91xU1UEU1AWC8 for the unlocked units.

The original story published on April 5 follows…..

Nearly two months ago, we saw the launch of the Galaxy S23 series. The base models got incremental updates to battery size, and there was also a chip bump to the 8 Gen 2.

The S23 Ultra, however, got most of the changes. It offers a more flat display with better colors and a new 200MP HP2 primary camera. It’s an upgrade from the previous 1/1.33″ 108MP sensor.

The other camera lenses are the same as the S22 Ultra, and the overall design language remains the same with the same camera module.

The HP2 sensor offers faster autofocus, theoretically better dynamic range, improvements to videography, and much more. The only letdown was the comparatively smaller sensor size of 1/1.3″. We see many flagships in 2023 with massive 1″ sensors.

Despite the significant camera improvements, there were still many complaints about the camera performance of the S23 Ultra. One was autofocus speeds, despite the marketing material claiming that the phone has faster autofocus.

There were reports across the internet about issues with focus locking and sharpness. These issues were prevalent with all the lenses. There was also some sharpness loss in some images, which people didn’t expect from a new 200MP sensor.

According to many camera samples online, the shadow regions of images (darker areas) are noisy with the primary camera. The photos also have too much artificial sharpening and detail boost since the sensor doesn’t always capture enough light.

The dynamic range on the S23 Ultra didn’t meet expectations either, with a lot of shadow crush and black trees. There’s also the historical issue of slow capture time, so there is motion blur with moving subjects like pets, kids, or vehicles.

While a few updates came out since the launch, none had major camera improvements. Instead of minor improvements every update, Samsung rolled out a significant camera update for the S23 Ultra at the end of March.

This update arrived at the beginning of April in some regions. There are some new tweaks to the algorithm, and the shutter speed and focusing speeds are a marginal but noticeable improvement. This is also tweakable with Goodlock modules.

Viewfinder flickering when the camera calculates an ISO and shutter time balance is also reduced, so the phone calculates it faster now. There are also improvements to low-light photos using the ultra-wide camera.

There’s also better sharpness with super steady mode and better stabilization with 1080P 60FPS videos. This update also fixes color banding and noisy skies, especially in low light.

There are some algorithmic improvements to the 50MP and 200MP modes, too. You can find the entire list of camera changes in the official changelog. Camera improvements aside, this update also carries the security patch for April 2023.

There’s also an update to the Camera Assistant, which has some new Settings. There are general bug fixes, too, like face recognition bugs with third-party video calling apps.

The update is live in Europe, with the firmware version S91xBXXU1AWC8. The update is nearly a gigabyte in size, 936MB.

The update is live in South Korea, too, with the firmware version S91xNKSU1AWC8. The size is, again, nearly a gigabyte, at 922MB.

The Galaxy S23 major camera update is currently unavailable in the US. Users can expect it within a few days.

To install the update, you’ll have to open the Settings app, go to the Software Updates section, and then download and install to experience all the camera improvements on your S23 Ultra.