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| Roh Tae-moon, president and head of MX Business at Samsung Electronics, poses with the company's Galaxy S23 smartphones during a press conference at Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco, Thursday. Courtesy of Samsung Electronics |
S23 offers improved camera, gaming experiences
By Baek Byung-yeul
Samsung Electronics unveiled the Galaxy S23 smartphone, Thursday, which offers enhanced camera functions and game playing experiences, reflecting the tech giant's intention to boost its presence in the premium smartphone market.
The company held the Galaxy Unpacked event in San Francisco to introduce this year's flagship smartphones. It said the Galaxy S23 is available in three different variants ― a 6.1-inch screen Galaxy S23, a 6.6-inch Galaxy S23 Plus and the 6.8-inch Galaxy S23 Ultra. The largest model comes with the S Pen stylus.
"I can say that the Galaxy S23 series redefines the standard of premium smartphone performance and gives consumers confidence that it is the best Galaxy S series in both performance and quality," Roh Tae-moon, president and head of MX Business at Samsung, said. "Consumers will not have to worry about choosing between performance and sustainability."
Samsung said the key feature of the S23 series is its improved camera functions. With an upgraded camera sensor and artificial intelligence (AI) technology, the smartphones are able to capture detailed and clear photos easily and quickly in any environment.
Among the three variants, the S23 Ultra has the most innovative features as it uses a camera with a 200-megapixel and 6.8-inch quad HD edge display boasting a 120 hertz refresh rate to offer users best image quality.
Equipped with Qualcomm's latest chip, Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the Galaxy S23 offers a more powerful mobile game playing experience, the company added.
Its graphic processing unit (GPU) has 41 percent improved speed compared to the previous one to offer faster response speeds. Also, the devices adopt larger vapor chambers more efficient cooling.
The S23 series will be rolled out globally, including the Korean market, on Feb. 17. The S23 Ultra will come in two versions ― 256GB and 512GB models ― with price tags of 1.59 million won ($1293) and 1.72 million won. The S23 and the S23 Plus are priced between 1.15 million won and 1.47 million won.
At the Galaxy Unpacked event, the company also introduced new laptop lineups ― the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra, the Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 and the Galaxy Book 3 Pro. Samsung said the latest Galaxy Book 3 series enables users to complete their work faster and offers better game playing experiences by featuring the latest Intel chip and Nvidia's graphic chip.
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| Seen are Samsung Electronics' Galaxy S23 Ultra smartphones in various colors. Courtesy of Samsung Electronics |
Achieving sustainability with technology
Samsung emphasized that the new Galaxy S23 variants have become more eco-friendly as the company expanded the use of recycled materials for the components of the devices and even its packaging.
The company said the Galaxy S23 Ultra has a total of 12 components made using recycled materials, while the S23 Plus and the S23 use 11 components, respectively.
The figures are increased from the previous S22 series that featured 6 components made with recycled materials. This is the first time that Samsung used recycled materials for the exterior of the device.
"The Galaxy S23 Ultra applied recycled plastic from abandoned fishing nets and water bottles, aluminum and glass," Samsung said.
The company added recycled plastics from fishing nets are applied to the S Pen stylus and speaker module of the smartphones. Through this, Samsung expects to contribute to recycling more than 15 tons of abandoned fishing nets in 2023. For the package box of the S23 series, Samsung utilized recycled paper.
Since 2017, Samsung has been working on reducing the use of disposable plastics in the packaging of its flagship Galaxy smartphones. It added there will be no disposable plastics to be used in the package box by 2025.
Consumers will be able to receive an upgrade in the operating system four times and security software updates for five years to ensure longer device usage periods.
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