Photography will certainly be one of the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra's biggest selling points, and leaker Ice Universe has found a novel way to demonstrate how its images could look.
He claims to have seen images taken by the new Ultra Samsung phone, but isn't able to show them to us. Instead, he's taken a photo with the Galaxy S22 Ultra, the current top Galaxy S model that the S23 Ultra would replace, and edited it to resemble the S23 Ultra's characteristics. You can see the original and S23 Ultra-ified images side-by-side below.
Based on S22 Ultra, the photo style of S23 Ultra is simulated.p1 S22 U，p2 S23 U pic.twitter.com/ComI5ELFRiDecember 10, 2022
As IU mentions, the main differences here are the enhanced detail and more saturated colors in the Galaxy S23 Ultra's shot. The extra detail makes sense since the S23 Ultra is rumored to be getting a big 200MP main camera, up from the already hi-res 108MP main camera on the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
As for the enhanced saturation, this follows from the tendency of Samsung's existing photo processing to crank up the colors in an image. It can make for striking-looking shots, but if you put it next to photos from the best camera phones like the Google Pixel 7 Pro or the iPhone 14 Pro, Samsung photos can look very artificial. If the saturation on the Galaxy S23 Ultra is going to be even more intense, that could do more harm than good for Samsung's photography.
Aside from the new main sensor, the rest of the rear cameras on the back of the Galaxy S23 Ultra should be the same as on the S22 Ultra. Those include a 12MP ultrawide camera and 10MP 3x and 10x zoom telephoto cameras. The front camera may change however, moving from a 40MP sensor to a 12MP one. This selfie camera upgrade has been rumored for the basic Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 Plus, too.
That's not all the changes we may be getting for the Galaxy S23 series either. All three models should be getting a new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset for greater performance, while the Ultra model could get an enhanced display and the base and Plus models could be getting a redesign to give all three Galaxy S23 handsets the same look as the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
The clock's ticking down to the likely launch window for the Galaxy S23 series, which is anticipated to be February 2023 at the earliest. Whenever the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 Ultra do arrive though, we'll definitely be comparing their photo performance with the previous generation to see exactly what Samsung's been doing, and if the changes are enough to overtake Apple and Google.
