Early next year, Samsung will unveil the Galaxy S23 series, its latest flagship smartphones that will bring improvements and upgrades over 2022's Galaxy S22 series. Naturally, with flagship phones as good as they are now, there isn't a lot that Samsung can do to lure customers into buying the new handsets. It will mostly be those who own a Galaxy S21 Ultra or older flagship who will be enticed by the Galaxy S23 lineup.
An upgrade to a 200MP main camera from a 108MP camera for the Galaxy S23 Ultra will be one of the biggest changes, but it might also turn out to be one of the most unnecessary changes for many users. What I'm really looking forward to, and what prospective customers might want to think about, is the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip that is expected to power the Galaxy S23 series in virtually all markets around the world.
Samsung adopting the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip for the Galaxy S22 series in most parts of the world was one of its most welcome features. However, the stars were not in our favor. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 wasn’t exactly as good as we had hoped, because of the fact that it was manufactured by Samsung’s foundries instead of TSMC, meaning it didn’t live up to its full potential.
It was the TSMC-manufactured Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, which powered 2022's Galaxy foldables, that showed us what the chip is really capable of. Despite not-so-big batteries, both the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and the Galaxy Z Flip 4 have excellent efficiency. They also perform well and tend to have good thermals when forced to do some heavy-lifting.
Galaxy S23's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip is what I'm most looking forward to
And with TSMC set to manufacture the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 next year, it's no wonder that the Galaxy S23 series' processor has me most excited. Technically, even my near-three-year-old Galaxy S20 Ultra still runs great, especially on Android 13. But if the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 is anything to go by, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 will make for impressive performance and battery life on the Galaxy S23 models.
European users should be excited, as well. Rumor has it that Samsung will use the Snapdragon chip in the region for the Galaxy S23, S23+, and S23 Ultra. That will hopefully mean European customers won't have to face the kind of issues that plagued the Galaxy S22 lineup.
Until Samsung's rumored in-house Exynos chip (manufactured by its new chip development division instead of Samsung Semiconductors) makes landfall, the Korean giant should stick to Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips and let TSMC manufacture them.
Because clearly, Samsung falls behind in both making its own smartphone chips at the moment and manufacturing them for others. And it may be time for the company to accept those shortcomings and keep Exynos chips away from customers until it develops a really solid version it can be proud of.
