Report: the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is getting a serious camera boost

If you thought the S22 Ultra was good in the dark, you ain't seen nothing yet

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra review
(Image credit: Samsung)

The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is a brilliant phone with excellent low-light capabilities, but according to a leaker with a good track record the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is going to be even better. The leaker, UniverseIce, has shared images claimed to be from Samsung's next generation flagship, and they're very impressive indeed.

According to the leaker, "ultra night photography and night video have been greatly improved... it's the biggest improvement of Samsung's flagship mobile phone in five years."

What improvements are coming to the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra?

The leak says that the S23 Ultra will be getting a main sensor upgrade, up from 108MP to a whopping 200MP with "unparalleled analytical power" – although at the moment it isn't capable of using pixel binning to produce super-crisp 50MP shots. That appears to be a software problem rather than a hardware issue, so it's not likely to be a problem for long.

Apparently the zoom capabilities will be unchanged at 3x and 10x zoom, but the results will still be better thanks to improved AI algorithms and colour processing. 

It sounds like Samsung's focus – pun fully intended – is very much on making this device a class leader in photography; the Galaxy S22 Ultra is already one of the best phones for images, and the S23 could well leapfrog Apple's impressive iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max. It's not so much about the megapixels – on paper the S22 absolutely spanks the iPhone 14 Pro with almost double the pixel count – but about the sensor and processing too, and it sounds like Samsung is taking an already spectacular camera system to a whole new level. I can't wait to see it.

Carrie Marshall

Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series. When she’s not scribbling, she’s the singer in Glaswegian rock band HAVR (havrmusic.com).