Technology Cameras

New Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra Leak Suggests Updated Front-Facing Camera Sensors And 4K Resolution

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Bloomberg/Getty Images
By Nadeem Sarwar/

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With just about a week left before Samsung launches the Galaxy S23 series phones at its Unpacked event, the marketing teams have upped their hype game. Leaks keep pouring in, and the latest one spoils details about the camera upgrades that are in the pipeline for the Galaxy S23 Ultra flagship. Leaker Ice Universe claims in a post on Twitter that the Galaxy S23 Ultra will ditch its predecessor's 108-megapixel primary snapper in favor of an upgraded 200-megapixel camera.

Now, Samsung is yet to officially confirm this piece of information, but it has hinted in the past few months that a Galaxy smartphone packing one of its in-house 200-megapixel ISOCELL camera sensors will be out soon. The company even printed a giant cat picture using this particular sensor (via DPR) and officially introduced it as the ISOCELL HP2 earlier this month. We are yet to see how this sensor actually performs, but pixel size gains and the accompanying software-side algorithmic upgrades being touted by Samsung definitely sound promising. 

The ultrawide camera will reportedly continue to be a 12.5-megapixel unit, but the Sony sensor underneath has been upgraded, according to the leak. However, it appears that all those camera upgrades won't come cheap. A recent leak suggests that the Galaxy S23 Ultra will cost as much as $1,400, which propels it even beyond the territory of the iPhone 14 Pro Max, and far beyond any non-foldable Android phone.

Weird downgrades for a high price

Galaxy S22 Ultra phone Framesira/Shutterstock

Interestingly, there are a couple of alleged weird downgrades that might not necessarily sit well with buyers. Samsung is allegedly going with a 12-megapixel selfie camera on the Galaxy S23 Ultra, which is a step down from the 40-megapixel sensor on its predecessor. The Galaxy S22 Ultra relied on the pixel binning tech to artificially combine four adjacent pixels into a larger superpixel for collecting more light data, ensuring that the photos are bright and saturated, especially under challenging light. As a result of 4-in-1 pixel binning, the Galaxy S22 Ultra's selfie camera produces 10-megapixel pictures by default. With a 12-megapixel camera coming into the picture for the Galaxy S23 Ultra, it appears that Samsung is rethinking how its camera-centric flagship delivers selfies.

It also appears that the two telephoto cameras on the back will remain unchanged. Just like the Galaxy S22 Ultra, its successor will also reportedly offer a pair of 10-megapixel optically-stabilized telephoto snappers. The first one will supposedly offer a 3x optical zoom range, while the second one delivers 10x lossless zoom thanks to the periscope (aka, folded lens) system that allows more space for the sensor assembly to make lens adjustments. As with the Galaxy S22 Ultra, buyers can reportedly expect around 30x hybrid zoom and roughly 100x digital zooming capability on the Galaxy S23 Ultra. We've already come across alleged press materials for the phone, revealing an almost unchanged design and Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC ticking under its Gorilla Glass Victus-protected chassis. 

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