Samsung’s ‘spec monster’ Galaxy S23 Ultra features a 200 megaxpixel camera for better night photos

Technology Editor/Senior Business Writer·NZ Herald·

2 Feb, 2023 04:05 AM2 mins to read

Samsung unveiled its latest flagship Galaxy S23 series smartphones - including the S23 Ultra (above) at an event in San Francisco - its first in-person launch since 2020. Photo / Getty Images

Samsung’s new Galaxy S23 Ultra features a 200-megapixel rear camera - nearly doubling the resolution of its predecessor.

While the increase in resolution won’t be noticeable to most people, Samsung says the new camera will let in more light, meaning better night photos and videos.

And it says it will halve the time to capture a night photo from two seconds to one.

The S23 Ultra (from $2299) has the same size display as the two previous models (6.8-inches) but has a new, more angular design. Two step-down models are the 6.6-inch S23+ (from $1949) and 6.1-inch S23 (from $1599).

All three models can shoot 4K video at 60 frames per second via their front cameras, with their rear cameras able to take 8K footage at 30fps. All feature the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy processor (billed as the fastest chip ever made in the Snapdragon series, with a peak clock speed of 3.36GHz - that is, more grunt than most PCs), and all have a USB C jack, fingerprint and face recognition and wireless charging options. The S23 Ultra boasts up to 1 terabyte of storage (the other two models top out at 512GB) and adds S Pen support (see full tech specs here).

The new models can be ordered now and will ship from February 17.

They will face a tough crowd. IDC says the inflation and the global economic slowdown have dampened consumer demand. In the final quarter of 2022, all of the top five brands saw a sharp drop in shipments - albeit with market leaders Samsung and Apple feeling less pain than the rest of the pack (see tables below).

Source / IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, January 25, 2023

“What this holiday quarter tells us is that rising inflation and growing macro concerns continue to stunt consumer spending even more than expected and push out any possible recovery to the very end of 2023,” said Nabila Popal, research director with IDC’s Worldwide Tracker team.