The Galaxy S23 series is officially unpacked — here's everything you need to know

Do marginal improvements matter much to most people?

Like any other business out there, Samsung's trying to beat a sagging economy (it's not doing a good job of it yet). Unlike any other business, though, it's the world's best-known name in Android. This year, it also wants to beat Apple and is willing to spare no expense in its quest for the crown of phone-dom. That brings us to today as the company unpacks the shining-bright rainbow it has dubbed the Galaxy S23 series, led by the Galaxy S23 Ultra and its Babel-esque camera system.

The Galaxy S23 offers the best that Samsung has — from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chipset to a high-class camera system led by an impressive 50MP sensor — just at the right size with a vibrant and "palmable" 6.1-inch display. The phone also brings a larger battery than the S22's, plus a sector-leading five years of monthly security updates to the table. That's all for the same price as last year.

Phone for phone, we're really talking about an upgrade at the margins when comparing against the Galaxy S22 series, especially with the two smaller devices in play. The Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23+ feature Dynamic AMOLED 2x displays spec'd to most of the same parameters as their predecessors — 6.1" and 6.6" diameters, 1080p resolution, 19.5:9 aspect ratio, embedded ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, and punch-hole selfie camera for facial recognition among other items.

The S23, however, does get a peak brightness boost of 17% to 1,750 nits to match the Plus and Ultra's outdoor performance, so, if anything, one of the best viewing experiences in Android should get better here.

Floating all boats this season is the inclusion of Corning's Gorilla Glass Victus 2, a bump up from the S22's Victus+ and meant to protect against bigger impacts on bigger screens like the S23+ and S23 Ultra's.

All three phones share their engine in the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform for Galaxy. It's a mouthful, but the main appeal of this systems-on-a-chip is that its top-performing Cortex-X3 core clocks slightly slightly faster than a regular Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Samsung claims the S23 Ultra's 5,000mAh battery will last 20% longer with enhanced efficiencies exclusive to this silicon. We'll have more insights on this with our hands-on coverage. The S23 and S23+ are blessed with 200mAh bumps to their battery capacities this year, but not much else has changed in that department.

The Galaxy S23+ is built to provide a top-notch Android experience in 2023 for those who like to live just a little larger. The 6.6" AMOLED display runs smooth, the 45W wired charging should allow for longer days with shorter breaks plugged in, and there's also more room to run around with, thanks to the 256GB and 512GB options. Backed by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform for Galaxy, it's about as much phone as you can get right on that $1,000 mark.

Samsung has dropped what it calls the contour housing for the rear cameras on the S23 and S23+, but again, it's more or less the same shooting experience from the S22 phones — which is to say, not bad at all.

The 50MP rear-facing sensor should still bring beautiful photos in challenging low-light conditions while the ultra-wide and telephoto sensors provide flexibility. The company is also introducing Super HDR to its selfie camera that's shared on all three releases this year (no special 40MP camera for the Ultra).

If you're looking for the best of the best out of Android in 2023, the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is it. It's the only one in the S23 lineup to feature the company's flagship 200MP ISOCELL HP2 camera sensor, the only one with a 5,000mAh battery, and the only one to push the storage envelope up to 1TB. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform for Galaxy should run fast and easy and everything on that 6.8" Dynamic AMOLED 2x display (the only one in the series with adaptive refresh rates between 1 and 120Hz) should look smooth and beautiful. And who can forget about all the note-taking features and the added convenience the S Pen brings? This is Samsung's all-out effort for the Galaxy S nameplate.

So, what does make the Galaxy S23 Ultra special? For starters, it's got that S Pen, bringing along all those convenient note-taking features Samsung has fostered over the years from screen-off scribbling to remote camera shutter abilities plus a few new ones including video call controls. The display glass features a narrower-radius curved edge than in previous generations to keep that sense of premium refinement while also making it more practical to grip, not slip.

This absolute monster is also carrying the company's new flagship 200MP ISOCELL HP2 sensor and is pairing it with ultra-fast laser autofocus technology plus optical image stabilization applied to double the angles of the S22 Ultra. In addition to the 3x zoom lens, there's also a 10x zoom lens, opening up the range to a stunning 100x digitally-enhanced product.

Software-wise, One UI 5.1 and Android 13 serve as the starting point while carry-through comes with the promise of four OS upgrades and five years of security updates.

Preorders are running now through February 16 — we have a rundown of specific Galaxy S23 deals you'll find at your retailer of choice, but the major one on offer is a free storage tier upgrade.

On Samsung.com, a preorder will get you $100 of in-store credit on an additional purchase and the option of exclusive colors of Graphite, Lime, Red, and Sky Blue in addition to the standard and, by now, familiar choices of Cream, Green, Lavender, and Phantom Black. I'll leave the color logic to one of my esteemed colleagues.

A short sidecar here to note that you'll also find Samsung selling its Galaxy Book 3 series of Windows laptops from today featuring 13th-gen Intel Core processors and large AMOLED displays. The Book 3 Ultra will also be able to carry a discrete Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU. The range starts at $1,450 with the Galaxy Book 3 Pro and heads well north of $2,400 with the Ultra.

Meanwhile, the 128GB Galaxy S23 will retail at $800, the 256GB Galaxy S23+ is to go for $1,000, and the starting price for a Galaxy S23 Ultra is $1,200.

Samsung hopes the S23 series puts it in direct contention against iPhones of all sorts as this year's upgraders make tough decisions on where to cut back in their budgets. The sheer fact that it's offering improvements on paper without a face-value price spike should help it immensely. What remains to be seen is how much better it can really get on the Galaxy side of the fence.

Jules joined the Android Police team in 2019. He currently contributes art for our stories and edits our podcast. Before that, he was managed weekend news and wrote AP's newsletter.Jules also contributes to our sister sites XDA-Developers and Pocket-lint. He also was editor at our now-sister site, Pocketnow.