The first photo taken by the Samsung Galaxy S23 may have leaked
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We’re expecting the Samsung Galaxy S23 to arrive around February, with a slew of camera upgrades – upgrades shown in what could be the first phone-shot image we’ve seen.
This photo comes from well-known tipster Ice Universe on the Chinese social media site Weibo (opens in new tab) (through Galaxy Club (opens in new tab) and GSMArena (opens in new tab)). It’s hard to say what it represents, but what we do know is that it was taken at 16x magnification and then cropped.
The photo taken with a 200MP camera sensor (tipped to appear in the Galaxy S23 Ultra) is compared to a photo taken with a 108MP camera sensor (which we know is mounted on the Galaxy S22 Ultra) – and you can see clearly how much sharper the 200MP version is.
Snap happy
This should be taken in the context of some tweets we saw yesterday from Ice Universe detailing improvements to low-light shooting and increased telephoto capabilities that are expected to come with the Galaxy S23 Ultra phone next year.
Add this image and it seems likely that the tipster managed to get hold of a prototype unit, or at least talk to someone who has. The verdict is: that this is “the biggest improvement to Samsung’s flagship mobile phone in five years” – at least in terms of its camera capabilities.
However, we may not get such a promising upgrade on the stock Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 Plus handsets. From what we’ve heard so far, the rear cameras on those phones are likely to be a close match to those on current models.
Analysis: the numbers game
Based on this admittedly very limited look at the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra’s camera capabilities, it looks like it’s going beyond what the Galaxy S22 Ultra can do – and the current phone is already very impressive when it comes to the images and videos. who can capture it.
If the Galaxy S23 Ultra does indeed make the jump to a 200MP main camera sensor, as rumored, then that’s to be welcomed. As we’ve written before, megapixel count is by no means the only factor to consider when considering how good a smartphone camera actually is.
The size of those pixels — how much light they can let in — is also crucial, as is the AI processing applied to the captured images and clips (Ice Universe says AI processing was turned off for the image posted to Weibo) .
The Google Pixel phones are known for excelling in image processing – remember that the Google Pixel 7 has ‘only’ a 50MP main camera sensor, but can still take excellent photos. In other words, wait until you see real image and video previews before reviewing a particular phone’s camera performance.