The future's bright if you want a Samsung Galaxy S23

The Samsung Galaxy S23 is already shaping up to be one of the best phones of 2023, and a new report says it's getting an unexpected bonus upgrade that brings its specification closer to its siblings, the Galaxy S23+ and S23 Ultra.

According to tipster Roland Quandt, who specialises in "retail intelligence", the peak brightness rating of all three Samsung Galaxy S23 models is 1,750 nits. As SamMobile points out, that means there's now very little difference between the Galaxy S23 and the Galaxy S23+.

Why brighter is better

Peak brightness isn't a big deal for me because I live in Scotland, a dark and gloomy place where the sun is treated with great suspicion. But in brighter bits of the world, sunshine can be a pain for phone users because it can make your display really hard to read. The brighter that display can go, the easier it is to read in direct sunlight.

Peak brightness figures are a bit misleading, because they only apply to small sections of the display; overall brightness is a better measure, and on the Samsungs you're looking at around 1,200 nits for that. For the base model that's a very big improvement: until now there's been a significant brightness gap between the standard Galaxy phone and the more premium models.

Samsung hasn't erased every difference between the standard Galaxy S23 and the other models, though. The Plus variant still offers a bigger screen and battery, faster charging and ultrawideband, although the cameras are the same in both models.

There's not long to wait now: the launch of the new Samsung Galaxy S23 range is on 1 February.