Despite the Samsung Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 Ultra likely launching today, leaker Evan Blass has posted a huge number of assets and promotional material for the new phones several hours early.
These mostly focus on the new phone's top-level features, but there is also one image comparing the key Galaxy S23 specs to a Galaxy S22, showing off several changes to the cameras, batteries, memory and storage capacity and color options.
- MORE: Follow our Samsung Galaxy S23 launch live blog for all the big news
In all the images, GIFs and video clips Blass posted, the new design of the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 Plus is clear. It now has separated camera lenses on its back just like the Galaxy S22 Ultra did, not a unified camera block like the regular Galaxy S22 sported. While the Galaxy S23 Ultra should look very similar to last year's Ultra, it will apparently have a flatter display for easier us, although that's not easy to make out in these leaked assets.
One of the clips posted by Blass promotes the Galaxy S23's use of the "toughest Gorilla Glass," presumably referring to Gorilla Glass Victus 2, which glassmaker Corning confirmed would appear on the next Samsung Galaxy. That's combined with Samsung's signature Armor Aluminum frame, and the promise that getting wet won't be an issue for the phone; alluding to the Galaxy S23 series' assumed IP68 water/dust resistance rating.
For photography, the specs sheet and video clips highlight the 50MP main camera on the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 Plus, and a new 200MP camera on the Ultra model. The Ultra is also blessed with a 10x optical zoom, while all three phones use a new 12MP selfie camera for sharper front-facing photos and video calls.
Samsung also looks to be focusing on improvements to its Nightography low-light camera mode. One piece of promo art is focused on low-light portrait selfies, while the other shows a user taking smooth and steady video at a concert. We like the sound of these upgrades, but we'll save our judgement for after we've tested them ourselves.
Another prominent part of the marketing is the Galaxy S23 series' use of Samsung's "fastest processor ever," which is believed to be a custom variant of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, with increased GPU power and a higher CPU clock speed. This could give Samsung an advantage over other Android flagships, which will likely use the Gen 2 chip but not the tuned-up version exclusive to Galaxy phones.
Samsung is also promising "more than all day battery" for at least the Galaxy S23 Ultra model, although the Galaxy S23 Ultra isn't getting a capacity bump, unlike the base and Plus models. We'll have to see if Samsung's made other changes to its power management software, and if that allows its phones to perform much better than the average-to-poor performance of the Galaxy S23 series on our in-house battery test.
The Galaxy S23 Ultra also appears again with a built-in S Pen stylus, with the promo material promising more apps supporting handwriting-to-text conversion. We're not sure how much the stylus adds to Samsung's Galaxy S Ultra models for most users, but we're still happy if Samsung makes the feature more practical by allowing users to "type" by writing normally.
Galaxy Unpacked is happening later today, and is when Samsung should come forward and confirm all these leaks, plus the myriad of others that have appeared in the past few months. But in case Samsung surprises us with some other new announcements for the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 Ultra, make sure you know how to watch Galaxy Unpacked yourself, or follow our Galaxy Unpacked live blog for our take on the reveals as they happen.
