Samsung has been teasing a lot about the upcoming Galaxy S23 series. And when you look at the marketing materials of Samsung, it becomes quite clear that Samsung is going all out on the camera experience. Also, it’s pretty evident that Samsung is putting the most effort into the top-end model, just like the previous Galaxy S series.
Now, in case you missed it, the high-end Galaxy S23 Ultra model will be the first Samsung phone with a 200MP primary camera. It will be the first phone of the year with an extremely high megapixel count. And that will certainly offer huge benefits in the camera department. But the zoom cameras are still the same as the S22 series. So, why is Samsung making such a big deal about the zoom feature?
Zoom on Galaxy Series Is Already Great; Why Spotlight Galaxy S23?
It goes without saying that the 200MP camera of the Galaxy S23 Ultra will be able to zoom better. At least, better than the 108MP primary sensor found on Galaxy S22 Ultra. However, that sensor is not really meant for super zooms. The ones that are meant for zooming close in, the telephoto sensors, are still the same. Yes, they are the same sensors as last year!
Another thing that you need to consider is that the standard Galaxy S23 and S23 Plus are not getting any rear camera upgrades. The highlight is only the 200MP sensor of the Ultra model.
The 200MP sensor may indeed enable you to get better noise-free magnification. But the default shooting mode will offer great 50MP photos at best as the sensor utilizes pixel binning. And you can confidently say that most of the Galaxy S23 Ultra will not bother going past the default camera settings.
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So, does that mean Samsung is planning to integrate better computational photography skills into the Galaxy S23 series? If not, there is really no point in marketing the zoom feature so much. And if Samsung does not actually make any changes in the AI or underlying algorithm, it is giving customers false hope!
On the other hand, if Samsung really wants to deliver what it is promising, it has to ensure that the zoom cameras do better this time. Whether it is through amped-up AI or underlying algorithms, if it offers the same zoom as the S22 Ultra, the Galaxy S23 Ultra will not get a good image from the reviewers. And that would eventually result in poor sale performance.
Give the Customers What You Are Promising Samsung!
Misleading advertising or advertisements that oversell a particular feature is common in the industry. But considering that the Ultra flagships of Samsung have already been amazing in the past three years, it is not clear what Samsung is planning to do with the Galaxy S23 Ultra.
Maybe Samsung is aiming for a magnification between 4x and 10x, which is what the 10MP 3x telephoto camera has to pull the weight at the moment. But how much of an improvement can the 3x telephoto camera actually offer? Without better computational photography, the differences will be very hard to notice.
That said, we do have high hopes for Samsung. Perhaps it will prove us wrong when it unveils the Galaxy S23 series on February 1. And considering that the Galaxy Unpacked event is not that far away, we will soon know whether Samsung has been misleading people with its marketing materials.
Also, we will surely cover any details we find about the camera performance of the new lineup. So, stay tuned to learn more about the devices before it officially comes out.