Samsung’s first Unpacked event for 2023 is upon us and despite the myriad of leaks that have taken away much of our curiosity, it is still one of the most important events of the year. So let’s summarize all the leaks to get a better idea of what to expect.
Galaxy S23 series
We will see the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, along with the S23 and S23+, and probably some new laptops. We are very unlikely to see new tablets and extremely unlikely for smartwatch and headphone ads.
The Galaxy S23 Ultra will keep the design of its predecessor, but will come in a few new colors, such as Cotton Flower (the light yellow one) and Botanic Green (a different shade of green than last year).
The Ultra will still have an integrated S Pen, a top-of-the-line 6.8-inch display, a 5,000mAh battery with 45W charging, and a quad-camera setup on the back.
Among the big changes is the new chipset, which is a higher clocked variant of the SD 8 Gen 2, called Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy. Samsung is said to ship its new flagship phones exclusively with Qualcomm’s chip, which is a 4nm unit built on TSMC’s latest energy efficiency process. It should both ensure the best possible performance and be able to squeeze more stamina out of the 5,000mAh battery.
The other big change will be the main camera: a just announced 200MP ISOCELL HP2 sensor. It will provide different output resolutions, depending on your needs: 16 to 1 per 2.4 μm pixel at 12.5 MP or 4 to 1 per 1.2 μm pixel at 50 MP. It will also allow for 8K video capture.
The new sensor will enable, among other things, improved night mode images and better portrait videos.
The other two cameras on the back will keep their predecessors’ 3x and 10x specs, even in the sensors, but Samsung will certainly be making some incremental improvements to image quality. The ultrawide camera will still be a 12MP with autofocus, but will have a new behind-the-lens imager. The Galaxy S23 Ultra will also be capable of 100X Space Zoom and Moon Shot.
Finally, there is talk of a new selfie camera but all we know is that it won’t be a high-resolution sensor like the 40MP one in the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
Speculative rumors have suggested that Samsung will bring emergency satellite connectivity to the Galaxy S23 series, but that seems unlikely at this point.
The other two phones will be even more incremental in their changes than their predecessors. The Galaxy S23 and S23+ will retain their 6.1-inch and 6.6-inch resolutions, but receive a 200mAh increase in battery capacity to 3,900mAh and 4,700mAh each. The plus model will have 45W faster charging, compared to just 25W on the vanilla S23.
S23 and S23+ will also have access to the fastest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset for Galaxy. The back panel will once again be glass (probably Corning of some sort) and the pair will come in a new Mystic Lilac color option.
The Three Galaxies
Samsung is expected to start taking orders for the Galaxy S23, S23+ and S23 Ultra from February 1st. If you live in the US, prices will remain unchanged from last year. The Galaxy S23 Ultra will start at $1,200, the S23+ at $1,000, and the S23 at $800. However, European buyers will have to accept a price hike. The Galaxy S23 will start at €100 more than its predecessor, while the S23+ will cost €150 more for the corresponding base configurations.
The base Galaxy S23 Ultra will cost €150 more than the base Galaxy S22 Ultra, but there are differences in configurations: the base model of the new phone is 8/256 GB, while the old one started at 8/128 GB.
Galaxy Book3 series
The other big announcement at the Unpacked 2023 event will be the Galaxy Book3 series of laptops. They will consist of Galaxy Book3 360, Galaxy Book3 Pro, Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 and the flagship Book3 Ultra.
All three models will have 2880x1800px (16:10) Super AMOLED touchscreen displays, backlit keyboards, 13th generation Intel processors, enabling two Thunderbolt 4 ports, and Wi-Fi 6E connectivity. The laptops will also have a USB-A port, an HDMI port, an audio jack and a microSD slot.
Size-wise, the Galaxy Book3 360 is 14-inch, the Galaxy Book3 Pro has both 14-inch and 16-inch variants, while the Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 is 16-inch. All models will be able to choose between Core i5-1340P and Core i7-1360P and will have 16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM and up to 1 TB of PCIe 4.0 SSDs. Unsurprisingly, all models will boot Windows 11 with additions to Samsung’s Galaxy ecosystem such as Multi Control, Quick Share, Private Share, and Galaxy Notes.
The 14-inch models will have 63Wh batteries, while the 16-inch models will have 76Wh batteries – all models will come with 65W USB-C PD charging straight out of the box.
The Galaxy Book3 360 will have a 14-inch display with support for an S Pen. The Galaxy Book3 Pro probably won’t support an S Pen, while the Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 does.
The Galaxy Book3 360, Galaxy Book3 Pro and Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 laptops
Only the Galaxy Book3 Ultra remains, which is expected to have a more robust configuration with a 45W Core i9-13900H, Nvidia RTX 4070 GPU, up to 32GB of RAM and up to 1TB of PCIe 4.0 SSD. It will have a 76Wh battery with 136W charging (due to the power hungry GPU).
We will of course be covering the Samsung Unpacked event, so make sure you stick around on February 1st. Streaming starts at 18:00 GMT.
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