Samsung Has Big Upgrade Plans For The Galaxy S24's Telephoto Camera

Samsung will likely announce its next-generation flagship phones from the Galaxy S23 series in the next few weeks. While the company has yet to announce the date of its next "Unpacked" event, early indications are that the company intends to launch the S23 lineup on February 1. This would also mean that the Galaxy S23 line will launch a week earlier compared to the S22 lineup in 2022. Besides the probable launch date for the S23 series, we also have a fair idea of what to expect from the Galaxy S23 this year.

For starters, the entire lineup is expected to use Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip — even on the European (and some Asian) variants that have traditionally used Samsung's own Exynos chips. Leaked renders of the S23 lineup also indicate that the devices may lose the famed Contour Cut design for the camera housing. In addition to a handful of cosmetic changes, the S23 Ultra is also rumored to feature a 200MP primary camera, as opposed to the existing 108MP sensor on the S22 Ultra.

Given that there's barely a month left before the probable launch of the Galaxy S23 lineup, we expect more details surrounding the new phones to leak in the coming days. Interestingly, even before the launch of the Galaxy S23 series, noted tipster IceUniverse shared an interesting tidbit in connection to the Galaxy S24 series. These devices, in case you aren't aware, aren't due until February 2024 — well over a year away from now — and will succeed the Galaxy S23 series, due for launch in February 2023.

A recent tweet by noted leaker IceUniverse indicates that the top-tier Galaxy S24 Ultra could come with a major upgrade in the camera department. Given that the S23 Ultra is likely to retain the same telephoto camera configuration (3x and 10x periscope), the S24 lineup will be in dire need of an upgrade in this department anyway.

According to IceUniverse, Samsung will entirely replace the existing telephoto camera solution — including the sensor — in favor of a new, revamped setup. Unfortunately, he stopped short of sharing specific details about the updated telephoto camera on the S24 Ultra. In addition to sharing information on the telephoto camera, IceUniverse added that Samsung isn't expected to make too many changes to the primary camera on the S24 lineup.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra is expected to replace the telephoto sensor and adopt a new solution. I think the main camera will remain the same or be slightly changed.

— Ice universe (@UniverseIce) December 28, 2022

While IceUniverse has been pretty accurate with his past predictions, we advise taking these reports with a pinch of salt. Given that Samsung has yet to launch the Galaxy S23 first, it is way too early to talk about the probable hardware specs of its successor, which isn't due until February 2024. We expect more details of the Galaxy S24 lineup to start trickling in by mid-2023, as the announcement window of the devices come closer.