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Samsung might launch the S23 series as early as February 1. Not just Samsung; many smartphone companies have been holding launch events earlier than the last year. We can assume the reason for this is the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SOC.
It strikes the right balance between efficiency, heat management, and raw power. The GPU also supports ray tracing. Most importantly, it’s based on TSMC’s 4nm fabrication process. This is way more efficient and does not suffer from thermal throttling problems.
Update January 7: Samsung’s Colombian website has revealed that the next Galaxy Unpacked event is happening on February 1, 2023. The promotional image shows the tagline “Epic moments are coming” and three rear cameras of the Galaxy S23 family. The web page has now been removed. We can expect Samsung will make an official announcement about the event soon.
Most 2022 flagship phones suffered from extreme thermal throttling and overheating problems in daily use because the 8 Gen 1 was based on Samsung’s inferior and dodgy 4nm fab. Manufacturers had to build dedicated cooling systems to keep the chip under control. This also hurts their overall reputation.
Keeping this in mind, Samsung will mostly prepone the launch of the S23 series (Galaxy S23, S23+, and S23 Ultra) to February 1, 2023. Earlier reports conveyed that the S23 lineup might launch on February 8. However, new information from leaker Ice Universe on Twitter has surfaced, and the launch has supposedly been preponed to February 1. In other words, the Galaxy Unpacked event will likely take place on February 1, 2023.
Galaxy Unpacked
— ICE UNIVERSE (@UniverseIce) December 21, 2022
The phone will mostly go on sale for the global market two weeks after the launch event. In some select countries, the phone might be available by the end of February or the beginning of March. The most probable cause is supply chain trouble and a pending decision on pricing.
In China, the Galaxy S23 Ultra has already been certified by TENAA, with the model number SM-S9180. Since it was certified, we already know some of the key specifications. The S23 Ultra will have an upgraded primary sensor.
It’ll most likely have the ISOCELL HP2 sensor they announced in 2021. The HP2 has a 1/1.3″ 200MP sensor, and the image output will look very detailed thanks to a higher resolution and a larger sensor size than the S22 Ultra. The S22 Ultra has a 1/3.33″ sensor, and the new one is slightly larger.
It’ll still have a 120Hz AMOLED screen with 1440P resolution and HDR10+. The rest of the cameras are expected to stay the same as the S22 Ultra, but an improved ISP paired with better software processing will lead to slightly better results.
Leaked Geekbench scores for the S23 Ultra are already here. The 8 Gen 2 will power this phone, and this version of the 8 Gen 2 is exclusive to Samsung. It’s slightly overclocked, at clock speeds of up to 3.36 GHz, compared to 3.2 on the standard 8 Gen 2 that other manufacturers use.
All models of the S23 lineup (Galaxy S23, S23+, and S23 Ultra ) in all regions will most likely ship with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SOC, and there won’t be an Exynos version this time.
The vanilla S23 and the larger S23+ will stick with the 50MP 1/1.57″ GN5 sensor. These phones will run One UI 5 or One UI 5.1 based on Android 13 out of the box. They’ll have four years of promised software updates and five years of security patches.
We might see a confirmation of the Galaxy Unpacked in the third or fourth week of January 2023. Samsung usually announces the date two weeks before the event.
