The brand new Samsung Galaxy S23 Extremely seems precisely the identical as 2022’s Galaxy S22 Extremely. Take a look at the picture above and try to spot the variations.
It is because it’s virtually the identical telephone. Samsung can’t even be bothered to try to disguise it.
How can it when squared off corners with the identical measurement display screen home a telephone with an S-Pen stylus and 5 round digital camera lower outs on the again? Put the 2 telephones aspect by aspect and also you’ll wrestle to inform them aside.
The S23 Extremely will get the newest 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 a better 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 collection if you wish to know all of the specs, and we’re rounding up one of the best pre-order offers if you’re nonetheless tempted to seize one.
However these specs present that the brand new costly smartphones available on the market aren’t that totally different from those that got here a yr prior, and it doesn’t seem like that can change any time quickly.
It’s not simply Samsung. Apple couldn’t be bothered to cover the truth that the iPhone 14 seems equivalent to the iPhone 13 and is virtually the identical telephone. 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 equivalent to the S22 collection. After you’ve caught an S23 in a case, it seems like an S22, which seemed like an S21.
And sure, the 200Mp sensor on the S23 Extremely will take excellent photographs as a result of it’s doing intelligent pixel binning and bettering low mild 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 must attempt anymore. They will launch the identical telephone with the identical design and get the identical or higher gross sales figures, the identical constructive model advertising and marketing, and the identical 4 or 5 star critiques from tech journalists and YouTubers.
The latter is after all all the way down to websites like this one, Tech Advisor. We attempt to assessment smartphones pretty and on the deserves of the product moderately than countless comparability – I selected to not mark down the wonderful iPhone 14 in my assessment simply because it’s the identical because the iPhone 13. However it’s best to nonetheless, right this moment, purchase an iPhone 13 and save your self some cash, and I stated within the assessment that you simply 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. Choose up an S22 Extremely at a reduction in case you actually just like the design, S-Pen stylus, and versatile cell 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, except you a lot want this yr’s up to date design. Apple and Samsung help their prime telephones with a minimum of 4 years of software program updates, greater than ok for a telephone that you simply’re shopping for one yr after its launch.
It’s simple to get caught up within the shiny new telephone buzz, however gone are the times of the monumental design leaps: glass iPhone 4 to bigger steel iPhone 5, plastic Galaxy S5 to modern glass Galaxy S6.
Even the Galaxy S21 Extremely was an excellent design leap forward of the ugly S20 Extremely simply two years in the past.
However on current proof, Apple and Samsung can wait a complete yr and put out the very same telephone and promote it as a brand new one.
There’s a distinction in technique between the businesses – you possibly can 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 counsel given the relentless annual cycle of smartphone releases, however what if Apple and Samsung didn’t launch a brand new flagship telephone 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 parts constructed from 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 moderately promote the S22 collection for longer and higher help companies akin to battery replacements which means folks don’t improve to a brand new telephone 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 suppose we’d like a brand new telephone when the one in our pocket is already positive.
The one you have got 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 telephone in case you want one, but it surely’s simple that Samsung has accomplished nothing new of word this yr with the S23 collection. The corporate ought to personal the actual fact smartphone evolution has crawled to a halt by making fewer telephones moderately than chasing earnings that drive completely first rate telephones into desk drawers and landfill lengthy earlier than their time.