The brand new Samsung Galaxy S23 Extremely appears to be like precisely the identical as 2022’s Galaxy S22 Extremely. Take a look at the picture above and try to spot the variations.
It’s 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 dimension display screen home a telephone with an S-Pen stylus and 5 round digital camera lower 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 foremost 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 customers.
My colleague Dom Preston has all the small print 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 in case you are 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 12 months prior, and it doesn’t appear to be that may change any time quickly.
It’s not simply Samsung. Apple couldn’t be bothered to cover the truth that the iPhone 14 appears to be like an identical 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 an identical to the S22 sequence. After you’ve caught an S23 in a case, it appears to be like 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 enhancing low mild efficiency. However the ultrawide and telephoto lenses are the identical as final 12 months, and after you’ve posted a compressed shot to Instagram, who is basically going to have the ability to inform the distinction?
It factors to the truth that Apple and Samsung, two of the largest smartphone producers, routinely promote their flagship smartphones in such numbers yearly that they don’t must strive 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 in fact right down to websites like this one, Tech Advisor. We attempt to assessment smartphones pretty and on the deserves of the product quite than countless comparability – I selected to not mark down the wonderful iPhone 14 in my assessment simply because it’s the similar because the iPhone 13. However it is best to nonetheless, at the moment, purchase an iPhone 13 and save your self some cash, and I stated within the assessment that you just actually 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 absolutely reviewed it. Decide up an S22 Extremely at a reduction when you actually just like the design, S-Pen stylus, and versatile cell digital camera arrange. You’re going to get the identical expertise.
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
The identical applies to the S23 and S23+ – an S22 or S22+ will serve you properly for much less cash, except you a lot desire this 12 months’s up to date design. Apple and Samsung assist their high telephones with no less than 4 years of software program updates, greater than ok for a telephone that you just’re shopping for one 12 months 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 metallic iPhone 5, plastic Galaxy S5 to glossy 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 12 months 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 recommend 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 elements constituted 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 quite promote the S22 sequence for longer and higher assist providers similar 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 high-quality.
The one you may 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 telephone when you want one, nevertheless it’s plain that Samsung has accomplished nothing new of notice this 12 months with the S23 sequence. The corporate ought to personal the actual fact smartphone evolution has crawled to a halt by making fewer telephones quite than chasing earnings that drive completely first rate telephones into desk drawers and landfill lengthy earlier than their time.