The brand new Samsung Galaxy S23 Extremely seems precisely the identical as 2022’s Galaxy S22 Extremely. Have a look at the picture above and attempt to spot the variations.
It's because it's virtually the identical cellphone. Samsung can’t even be bothered to attempt to cover it.
How can it when squared off corners with the identical dimension display screen home a cellphone with an S-Pen stylus and 5 round digital camera minimize outs on the again? Put the 2 telephones facet by facet and also you’ll battle to inform them aside.
The S23 Extremely will get the most recent Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, a 200Mp most important digital camera, and some new software program methods, however actually that is evolution, not revolution.
Qualcomm equipping the S23 with a particular model of the 8 Gen 2, with a CPU clocked at the next peak velocity of three.36GHz, is itself proof that smartphone differentiation in 2023 is hardly accessible and clear to most shoppers.
My colleague Dom Preston has all the main points of the brand new S23 sequence if you wish to know all of the specs, and we’re rounding up the very best pre-order offers if you're nonetheless tempted to seize one.
However these specs present that the brand new costly smartphones in the marketplace aren’t that totally different from those that got here a yr prior, and it doesn’t appear like that may change any time quickly.
It’s not simply Samsung. Apple couldn’t be bothered to cover the truth that the iPhone 14 seems similar to the iPhone 13 and is virtually the identical cellphone. Ditto the Google Pixel 7 in comparison with the Pixel 6.
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
And whereas Samsung has tweaked the rear digital camera design of the brand new Galaxy S23 and S23 Plus, on paper the precise digital camera {hardware} of those fashions is similar to the S22 sequence. After you’ve caught an S23 in a case, it seems like an S22, which regarded like an S21.
And sure, the 200Mp sensor on the S23 Extremely will take very good pictures as a result of it’s doing intelligent pixel binning and bettering low gentle efficiency. However the ultrawide and telephoto lenses are the identical as final yr, and after you’ve posted a compressed shot to Instagram, who is de facto going to have the ability to inform the distinction?
It factors to the truth that Apple and Samsung, two of the most important smartphone producers, routinely promote their flagship smartphones in such numbers yearly that they don’t should attempt anymore. They'll launch the identical cellphone with the identical design and get the identical or higher gross sales figures, the identical constructive model advertising, and the identical 4 or 5 star opinions from tech journalists and YouTubers.
The latter is in fact all the way down to websites like this one, Tech Advisor. We attempt to evaluate smartphones pretty and on the deserves of the product relatively than countless comparability – I selected to not mark down the superb iPhone 14 in my evaluate simply because it's the similar because the iPhone 13. However it is best to nonetheless, at present, purchase an iPhone 13 and save your self some cash, and I mentioned within the evaluate that you just definitely shouldn’t improve from a 13 to a 14.
I predict I'll say the identical about an S23 Extremely as soon as I’ve totally reviewed it. Decide up an S22 Extremely at a reduction when you actually just like the design, S-Pen stylus, and versatile cellular digital camera arrange. You'll get the identical expertise.
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
The identical applies to the S23 and S23+ – an S22 or S22+ will serve you nicely for much less cash, until you a lot choose this yr’s up to date design. Apple and Samsung help their high telephones with no less than 4 years of software program updates, greater than adequate for a cellphone that you just’re shopping for one yr after its launch.
It’s simple to get caught up within the shiny new cellphone buzz, however gone are the times of the monumental design leaps: glass iPhone 4 to bigger steel iPhone 5, plastic Galaxy S5 to smooth glass Galaxy S6.
Even the Galaxy S21 Extremely was an outstanding design leap forward of the ugly S20 Extremely simply two years in the past.
However on current proof, Apple and Samsung can wait an entire yr and put out the very same cellphone and promote it as a brand new one.
There's a distinction in technique between the businesses – you'll be able to nonetheless purchase an iPhone 12 (launched 2020) model new from Apple whereas on the time of writing I couldn't purchase any of the S21, S21 Plus, or S21 Extremely from Samsung (launched 2021).
I’m undecided which is worse.
It appears outlandish to recommend given the relentless annual cycle of smartphone releases, however what if Apple and Samsung didn’t launch a brand new flagship cellphone line up yearly? What in the event that they adopted the lead of Fairphone?
Henry Burrell / Foundry
In a media briefing, Samsung boasted the S23 Extremely has extra elements made out of recycled supplies than the S22 Extremely. Would it not not be extra eco-friendly to not make a brand new mannequin in any respect, however relatively promote the S22 sequence for longer and higher help companies similar to battery replacements which means individuals don’t improve to a brand new cellphone earlier than they should?
The smartphone giants needs to be serving to us to maintain our telephones longer, however the onward march of their yearly launch cycle makes us assume we'd like a brand new cellphone when the one in our pocket is already high-quality.
The one you will have proper now might be functionally the identical because the shiny new iPhone 14 or Galaxy S23 Extremely.
I’m not saying don’t get a brand new cellphone when you want one, but it surely’s simple that Samsung has finished nothing new of notice this yr with the S23 sequence. The corporate ought to personal the very fact smartphone evolution has crawled to a halt by making fewer telephones relatively than chasing income that drive completely respectable telephones into desk drawers and landfill lengthy earlier than their time.