What to expect from Samsung in 2023

Good riddance 2022, you were rubbish. But is 2023 going to be any better? Based on 50% leaked information and 50% what we’d like to see Samsung do, let’s take a look at a few things this tech giant may have planned for 2023.

We’ll dig into what’s coming up for the next Galaxy phones, how Samsung could make its top TVs even better. And how Samsung’s foldable tech is set to branch out further. In more than one sense.

It all starts in early February

While the CES expo in January officially kicks off the tech calendar, Samsung’s first big bang happens in February, with Samsung Unpacked. Serial leaker-tweeter Ice Universe reckons it will take place on the first of February, a week earlier than in 2022.

This is arguably Samsung’s most important event of the year. It’s where we get to meet the Samsung Galaxy S series phones. And in 2023 that is likely to mean the Samsung Galaxy S23, the Galaxy S23 Plus and Galaxy S23 Ultra.

We may also get to see a new Tab S9 tablet family — mirroring what happened in 2022.

Snapdragon CPUs for UK flagships

Samsung splits up its top phones. Some get Samsung Exynos processors, others Qualcomm Snapdragon ones. It all rests on where you live. We in the UK always get the Exynos version.

It’s about time Samsung gave use a taste of Snapdragon in the UK, or used Qualcomm chipsets globally.

This may seem unlikely from some angles. If Samsung doesn’t use its own chips its own top phones, where the hell is it going to do so? However, Qualcomm’s CFO Akash Palkhiwala seemed to all but confirm the company’s chipsets will be used globally in the Galaxy S23 range.

Why care? Qualcomm versions of Samsung phones usually have better gaming performance, and slightly better camera processing results. Old generations of Exynos Samsungs also had significantly worse battery life.

A foldable phone without compromise

No other company has gone as hard on foldable phones as Samsung. However, it still holds back, just a touch.

The Samsung Galaxy Fold 4 does not have quite as hot cameras hardware or charging tech as the Galaxy S22 Ultra. With each year the little compromises have fallen away, presumably as Samsung gradually learns how to make these phones more efficiently.

There are suggestions 2023 is when Samsung folding phones take over as the true Samsung flagships of the year, meaning the next Fold may get an awesome ultra-zoom 10x camera like the Galaxy S22/S23 Ultra.

A QD-OLED Odyssey monitor

It’s not often the release of a computer monitor makes a big splash, but Samsung managed just that in 2020. The Samsung Odyssey G9 monitor felt like a levelling up of consumer-grade, mainstream gaming monitors.

However, it’s time for another level-up. The original Odyssey G9 has a traditional VA screen panel, the G9 Neo a miniLED and the most recent G8 Neo an OLED. However, we think the next step should be, and probably will be, a monitor with a QD-OLED screen. This is Samsung’s latest, greatest OLED display tech.

The question is whether it’s going to be a relatively ordinary shape, like the G8 Neo, or a wild ultra-wide like the original Odyssey G9. We want the latter, obviously.

QD-OLED TV with Dolby Vision

Samsung makes some of the best TVs available. And unlike a few years ago, it doesn’t rely entirely on LCD tech. After ditching OLED TVs a decade ago after 2013’s KN55S9C it jumped back in with QD-OLED in 2022. These panels combine the super-high brightness of a great LCD panel with the perfect blacks of an OLED TV.

However, none of therm support Dolby Vision, which is technically the best consumer HDR standard around. Why not? Samsung is one of the parents of HDR10+, Dolby Vision’s nemesis. It’s a standard Samsung devised with Amazon, strange as that may sound.

Perhaps it’s time for Samsung to suck up its pride and do a deal with Dolby. Netflix and Disney+ sided with Dolby Vision, more-or-less signalling Samsung has lost this particular fight. With these services Samsung’s TVs currently have to revert to using standard HDR10.

This format is “real” HDR still, but it does not use dynamic metadata, so the picture is calibrated per movie, not per scene.

Samsung OLEDs that look good during the day

We have a lot of love in our hearts for Samsung QD-OLED TVs. They are the sets to beat in some ways. But there’s a weird flip-reverse thing going on here, between the current models and the old super-bright LCD ones from 2021 and earlier.

Back then we’d have told you to buy a top Samsung TV if you want a set that looks great in a bright room. These exact conditions bring out Samsung QD-OLED’s biggest weakness, that blacks turn a bit grey when there’s a lot of ambient light.

It reminds us of the plasma and CRT TVs we used decades ago – sure, the blacks are awesome, but in a lot of situations, they really wouldn’t look that great. This is because Samsung QD-OLED TVs do not have a polariser layer, which stops ambient light from bouncing off the back of the TV panel, spoiling those blacks.

We want to see some solution of improvement in 2023, even if it’s not adding the polariser layer seen in other manufacturers’ TVs. That would affect brightness and colour reproduction, and both are QD-OLED calling cards. According to ETnews we’re going to get just that, possibly with tech dubbed “Samsung TrueBlack”.

A foldable laptop

Samsung is the master of foldable phones, but laptops? Asus beat it to the punch with the Zenbook Fold 17, a super-expensive foldable OLED laptop you can buy right now.

However, Samsung is set to catch up in 2023. The company showed off a foldable laptop concept design way back in 2021 at the Display Week trade show, giving us a hint at what the company may be planning.

The rumour mill suggests it may be called the Samsung Galaxy Book Fold 17, and it may look similar to the Asus model, but hopefully more sleek. Don’t come expecting a giant 17-inch laptop, though, as that’s the size of the unfolded display. You can use it like that at home, a non-widescreen display, but for the laptop-like experience it gets folded in half.