Galaxy S23 Ultra May Be Mostly Unchanged Except For One Big Feature

Now that this year's Samsung flagships have all been revealed, attention will start to focus on next year's early star. Of course, speculation about the Galaxy S23 kicked off a while back, but we can now expect that these details will flow more steadily. Given the large changes that were made to this year's Galaxy S flagship series, it is perhaps unsurprising that there aren't that many rumors yet about the Galaxy S23. In fact, it seems we shouldn't expect too many rumors to surface, or at least ones about big changes, as the Galaxy S23 — particularly the Galaxy S23 Ultra — could greatly resemble its predecessor except in one special way.

The Galaxy S22 Ultra earlier this year was a huge leap for Samsung. Instead of just being the largest of the batch, it carried on the spirit and the design of the Galaxy Note series. It was more rectangular in form and had a built-in silo for the S-Pen, exactly like the Galaxy Note. It paved the way for Samsung to replace the Galaxy Note with the Galaxy Z foldable phones and safely retire the much-loved product line.

Given this, it wouldn't be surprising if we learn that Samsung isn't too keen on changing things up again this soon. According to @Iceuniverse, the external design of the Galaxy S23 Ultra scheduled for release next year will remain largely unchanged compared to its predecessor. It sounds like the model will be a rather boring release, but there is one detail that could make the early 2023 flagship a little more interesting.

It seems that we have entered an era in which smartphone cameras have surpassed yesterday's ludicrous numbers. It wasn't too long ago when 64MP was seen as excessive, but now we have smartphones with 200MP cameras. As one of the first to actually announce a 200MP imaging sensor, Samsung won't remain standing behind Xiaomi and Motorola in releasing its own phone sporting such a high-resolution camera.

According to ETNews, the company has already made those intentions known to its camera partners. What isn't known at this point is which 200MP sensor will be used in the Galaxy S23 Ultra. Samsung has two 200MP sensors, including the ISOCELL HP1 found on the Motorola X30 Pro. The ISOCELL HP3, on the other hand, is a mid-range option that will not meet flagship standards. There have been rumors about a new 200MP camera sensor to be announced later this year, one that would compete with Sony's 1-inch 200MP IMX989 used in the Xiaomi 12S Ultra, so we'll have to see how that plays out.

As for the Galaxy S23 Ultra's other leaked specs, those include the same 6.8-inch 3088x1440 Super AMOLED display and the same 5,000 mAh battery found on the Galaxy S22 Ultra. The only slight difference is reportedly in the dimensions, but even that is said to be negligible. Other than internal upgrades like the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and this rumored 200MP camera, it sounds like hardly anyone will notice the Galaxy S23 Ultra unless they pay attention to the specs and features inside.