Unless you're the world's most devoted Samsung fan or you continue to use, say, an ancient Galaxy S9 that you're fully determined to upgrade to a new flagship next spring no matter what, odds are the latest rumors around the Galaxy S23 family left you feeling rather underwhelmed (at best).
There are now multiple stories and reliable sources pointing to a completely unchanged design for the vanilla S23 and the S23+ (at the very least) compared to their respective predecessors, but what you may not have realized until today is that a lack of external alterations might actually prove to be a good thing.
Beautiful on the outside, powerful on the inside
They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but in an age of (far too) similar high-end smartphones, the Galaxy S22, S22+, and S22 Ultra objectively feel both familiar and special enough to make a visual impression on (nearly) anyone.
Not too heavy and certainly not too thick, the 6.6-inch metal-and-glass S22 Plus, for instance, manages to pack a reasonably hefty 4,500mAh battery as well, (almost) perfectly blending beauty and power. Of course, there's always room for improvement in the battery endurance department, especially as far as Android flagships are concerned, and that's precisely what Samsung is expected to do with the Galaxy S23 Plus.
The S23+ could look an awful lot like the S22+ (pictured here), at least on the surface.
If The Elec's inside information proves accurate, which has happened many times in the past for many unreleased Galaxy devices, the S23+ will upgrade the aforementioned cell capacity of its 2022 forerunner by around 5 percent.
That may not sound like much, but it would be a pretty impressive feat on Samsung's part if a 4,700mAh battery were squeezed into an unchanged plus-sized body of a Galaxy high-ender. The current plan is definitely to (more or less) retain the 7.6mm thickness and 195-gram weight of the S22+, mind you, which is something that could purportedly be achieved with the help of so-called "stacking" technology.
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The inner material of the battery would be stacked "layer by layer like a staircase" to ensure that it doesn't occupy too much space inside the Galaxy S23+, allowing the phone to remain relatively svelte. That sounds like a lot of engineering work for a 5 percent battery capacity increase, but if the end result is even just one or two hours of extra life between charges out in the real world, we're fairly certain a lot of users will appreciate the otherwise seemingly modest upgrade.
No news on the S23 and S23 Ultra fronts... yet
While this latest Elec report (translated here) doesn't spell things out for us, its timing definitely suggests the 4,700mAh info is somehow connected to the recent battery certification that left the capacity number up in the air. Although no similar documents have been discovered for the other two members of the upcoming Galaxy S23 family to date, those should also come fairly soon.
Until then, we probably won't know if the "regular" Galaxy S23 and S23 Ultra models have similar battery size upgrades in the pipeline compared to the S22 and S22 Ultra. But that's not going to stop us from speculating that Samsung is indeed planning to improve this area across the lineup.
The S22 Ultra packs a hefty 5,000mAh battery.
After all, the Galaxy S22+ scored the highest battery life test results in our in-depth reviews of the three S22-series devices, so it wouldn't make a great deal of sense to upgrade the S23+ and not upgrade the S23 and S23 Ultra as well in this always important department.
If we were to venture a couple of (semi-educated) guesses, we'd expect the base Galaxy S23 version to pack at least a 3,800mAh or so battery while the S23 Ultra could probably go all the way up to around 5,300mAh juice. If you also add the widely speculated energy efficiency enhancements of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor to the equation, you can expect the entire S23 family to absolutely crush its precursor in our battery endurance tests next year.
Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.
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