Galaxy S23 and other flagships to gain AI smarts with One UI 6.1 update

Photo: Samsung

Great news for owners of recent Samsung flagships! The Galaxy AI features that debuted with the Galaxy S24 lineup are rolling out to select phones starting this week. Samsung's promised One UI 6.1 update, bringing Galaxy AI to the forefront, arrives on Thursday, March 28. Included are last year's Galaxy S23 series (S23, S23 Plus, S23 Ultra, and S23 FE), the new Galaxy Z Fold5 and Z Flip5 foldables, and the Galaxy Tab S9 tablets (Ultra, Plus, and Wi-Fi).

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Samsung Galaxy S23 photos need Adobe Lightroom for RAW photo editing

Photo: PC Mag

When Samsung launched the Galaxy S23 series, one of the camera features it wanted to highlight was the Expert RAW photo file format available on the new phones. It's Samsung's answer to Apple's ProRAW format, which combines raw image data with the computational photo capabilities of the phone's processor. But for this kind of format, you'll typically need a separate app for it. In Samsung's case, it needs the Expert RAW app, which also lets you tinker with photo settings like ISO, white balance, shutter speed, and exposure value (EV). And this time, Samsung partnered with Adobe to become the "exclusive photo editor for RAW photos taken with the Expert RAW app."

So, if you take RAW photos on the new S23 phones, you'll need to use Lightroom, which the companies integrated into the app. But we don't know for now how much the subscription will cost. The Adobe Lightroom Mobile app is free to download, but this only gives you access to basic image tools. You can't sync images across devices, which Samsung was touting with the new phones and its Galaxy PC range. Samsung gave away a free two-month trial with the Galaxy S22 series, but we don't know if there are special deals. After the trial, you'll need to pay a US$10 monthly subscription fee (around CA$13).

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Samsung Galaxy S23, S23+ get new looks, bigger batteries

Photo: Samsung

Samsung might not have made any drastic changes to the Galaxy S23 Ultra, but it did for the Galaxy S23 and S23+. The two phones inherit the S23 Ultra's floating camera design, meaning it loses that Phantom of the Opera-esque camera cutout. These new S23 phones all come with the same colour options: Phantom Black, Cream, Green, and Lavender. There are also exclusive Samsung online-only colours in Lime, Graphite, Sky Blue, and Red.

If you want a phone on the smaller side, the Samsung Galaxy 23 still sports a 6.1-inch AMOLED screen. Meanwhile, the Galaxy S23+ has a 6.6-inch display. Both are protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 and have 120Hz refresh rates. Samsung boasts about the increased use of post-consumer recycled materials in this series.

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Samsung Galaxy S23 base model will reportedly feature slower storage

We're days away from the Samsung Galaxy S23 series launch, but the leaks aren't stopping. Frequent Samsung leaker Ice Universe claims the company will feature older, slower storage as an option. The base S23's 128GB variant will supposedly use a UFS 3.1 chip instead of Samsung's UFS 4.0 standard. If you want the newer storage tech, you'll need to shell out for the 256GB option. According to Ice, the reason for this change is that Samsung doesn't produce a 128GB UFS 4.0 chip.

According to the company, the UFS 4.0 standard boasts speeds that are twice as fast as the UFS 3.1 memory. It offers sequential read and write speeds of up to 4,200MB/s and 2,800MB/s, respectively. And this new silicon is 46 percent more power efficient, which should help improve the battery life on your phone. Of course, we have to remind you that this is a rumour and should still be taken with a grain of salt. We'll hear more about the Samsung Galaxy S23 series during Samsung's Unpacked launch this February 1.

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