So the Galaxy S23 Ultra will have a great advantage over other Android phones with the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip because Samsung has struck a deal with Qualcomm that allows them to use a better version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 with a faster CPU, faster GPU and more. A few weeks ago we get to know what Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 would bring to the table compared to the 8 Gen 1. To put it in short, it’s 35% more powerful in CPU, and 25% in GPU. But Samsung is using a special version of Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for the S23 lineup so the numbers for the S23 Ultra should ideally be better than other devices using the 8 Gen 2 chip. And that is what’s going to happen.
For the first time, we have a leak of what kind of performance improvement we can expect from the Galaxy S23 lineup. And as you can see, compared to the 8 Gen 1 on the S22, the S23 is going to be 36% better in CPU, a massive 48% in GPU, and 60% better in NPU. NPU is a chip that handles machine learning and AI. So side by side, we can see the huge difference in GPU performance that gives a massive edge to S23 devices compared to the competition in 2023. And not only that Samsung has also improved the cooling solution for better performance under sustained loads.
I asked Ahmed for more context on his tweet and he said, the cooling system on the S23 Ultra is 2.3 times better than the S22 Ultra which is a huge number. The S23+ is seeing the biggest improvement in cooling year over year. So coupled with a more efficient chip and data shows that it actually draws less power and produces better results, the S23 lineup will not only run faster but there will be a noticeable improvement in battery life and at the same time it will run cooler than its predecessor. Also, Ice Universe is confirming that the rumors of Samsung foundry making the overclocked 8 Gen 2 is false because Samsung foundry’s 4nm nodes cannot run at such high frequencies.
He also shared this image where you can see the S23 Ultra will no longer have that red dot in its lense. Does it mean Samsung is switching back to a time of flight sensor from a laser sensor for autofocus? We don’t know yet but hopefully, this doesn’t mess up the autofocusing on the S23 Ultra. Now, there’s almost a month left for the S23 Ultra’s launch event but we are already getting information about its successor the S24 Ultra. Ice Universe says we won’t see a big upgrade in the main camera of the S24 Ultra but what we will see is a new telephoto camera and a better zoom mechanism.
He didn’t provide more info but if I were to guess it should be the continuous zoom camera that Samsung is rumored to adopt for quite some time. You see even though Samsung provides the best zoom on any phone at the moment but you can only take sharp and the best zoom photos at native zoom levels which are 3x and 10X. Anything in between the quality suffers. We won’t have that problem with a continuous zoom camera because it works just like DSLRs because the lens actually moves inside. Interestingly LG just showcased such a lens that offers a continuous zoom range from 4x to 9x. So it will be interesting if this lens actually ends up on the S24 Ultra.
