Samsung has officially announced the Galaxy S23 series, and as usual, the company upgraded some hardware specifications from last year's models while leaving others untouched. Wired charging capabilities fall into the latter category, so here's what you should expect from the Galaxy S23 lineup.
Same as last year, the base flagship model, i.e., the Galaxy S23, has 25W fast charging capabilities. As for the Plus and Ultra variants, it's much of the same story. They both retain 45W super-fast charging.
To meet EU regulations and for environmental purposes, none of Samsung's 2023 flagship phones ship with a wall charger. If you need one for the Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23+, or Galaxy S23 Ultra, you can buy a 25W or 45W Samsung charger separately.
Is 45W charging worth it?
Both the 25W and 45W chargers work with the flagship trio. Obviously, you won't get 45W speeds by using a 45W charger with the base Galaxy S23 model. Likewise, you can't benefit from 45W if you're using a 25W charger for the Galaxy S23+ or Galaxy S23 Ultra.
As to whether or not investing in a 45W charger for the Galaxy S23+ or Galaxy S23 Ultra is worth it, we'll have to test speeds and give you a full review soon. But for what it's worth, our previous tests, featuring the Galaxy S22 Ultra and S21 Ultra, have shown little improvement when using a 45W charger instead of a 25W unit. We also previously tested the Galaxy S22+ battery at 45W and 25W to surprising results. Check out our videos below for more details.
Unless Samsung changed something about its power management system for the Galaxy S23 series running Android 13 and One UI 5.1, you probably won't lose out on a lot of speed if you're limiting yourself to 25W. You may want to pick a 45W charger if you want to squeeze out every bit of performance from the Galaxy S23+ or Galaxy S23 Ultra, but if you don't feel like spending extra on a 45W charger, you probably won't lose much by sticking to 25W.
It's worth keeping in mind that the Galaxy S23 and S23+ have bigger batteries than the Galaxy S22 and S22+, respectively, so, results may vary compared to last year.We'll share more details once we get to test the Galaxy S23 series.
And on a final note, all three models unveiled this year were downgraded from 15W wireless charging to 10W.
SamsungGalaxy S23
SamsungGalaxy S23 Plus
