👋 Good morning! Our country’s tourism department apparently wants to sponsor English football team Tottenham Hotspur to the tune of almost ~$58 million. Needless to say, people are extremely angry. Anyway, we’ve got plenty of news to cover today, so let’s get on with it.

The Galaxy S23 series is finally official

I was admittedly getting real tired of the rumors and leaks this week, but Samsung thankfully launched the Galaxy S23 series of phones in San Francisco yesterday. So what should you know about these phones?

The key details

• The three phones (Galaxy S23, S23 Plus, S23 Ultra) share a number of features, such as an IP68 rating and wireless charging, for starters.
• All three are powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy SoC, which features a mild CPU and GPU speed upgrade over the vanilla chipset.
• There’s no Exynos variant this time, meaning everyone gets the Snapdragon version around the world.
• These devices also share a 12MP ultrawide rear camera, a 10MP 3x telephoto camera, and a 12MP selfie shooter.
• Finally, all three nab four OS updates and five years of security patches, making it one of the best update policies around.
• The Ultra is the top dog thanks to a curved 6.8-inch QHD+ screen, a 5,000mAh battery with 45W wired charging, and an S Pen slot.
• But the Ultra’s biggest upgrade is the 200MP main camera, while the 10MP 10x periscope camera returns as well.
• Meanwhile, the Galaxy S23 and S23 Plus share the same camera system (50MP+12MP+10MP), but differ in several key areas.
• The Galaxy S23 Plus features a flat 6.5-inch FHD+ screen, 4,700mAh battery, 45W wired charging, 256GB of base storage, and UWB.
• Meanwhile, the S23 features a flat 6.1-inch screen, 3,900mAh battery, 25W wired charging, 128GB of base storage, and no UWB.
• You can view our dedicated versus article for a full rundown of the differences.

What about pricing?

• That’s the most important question, isn’t it?
• The good news for US customers is that pricing is the same as the S22 series.
• That means $799 for the S23, $999 for the S23 Plus, and $1,199 for the S23 Ultra.
• Unfortunately, Europeans and customers in the UK will be paying a higher price for the most part.
• In fact, the phones are more expensive than the S22 range in the likes of India and South Africa too.
• It feels like global markets are subsidizing the US prices.
• Will the new phones be worth it? Stay tuned for our reviews, but our S23 series hands-on suggests refinement more than revolution.
• You’re still good with the S22 series, then. But this is obviously a more attractive proposition if you’ve got an older handset.
• Speaking of the S22, US customers will also see a permanent price cut for the base S22, down to $699. No cuts for other models though.

What else did Samsung announce?

• There was more to the Galaxy Unpacked event than smartphones.
• True to leaks, the company also announced the Galaxy Book 3 series of laptops.
• This consists of the 14-inch and 16-inch Galaxy Book 3 Pro, 360 and Pro 360 convertibles, and an Ultra model.
• All models feature 512GB to 1TB NVMe storage, 3K AMOLED screens, and AKG quad speakers.
• All models bar the Ultra will receive a 13th gen Core i7 CPU and Intel Iris Xe graphics.
• Expect the Ultra to be the star of the show though, packing extras like a Core i9 CPU and RTX graphics.
• In saying so, the Pro 360 convertible does have a few Ultra features, such as more RAM and a 120Hz refresh rate.
• You’ll be paying $1,299.99 to $2,199.99 for the new laptops.
• Samsung also announced that it plans to start working on extended reality (e.g. virtual/augmented/mixed reality) products.
• The company will be working with the likes of Google, Qualcomm, Meta, and Microsoft in this regard.
• There weren’t many more details but you can expect Qualcomm to provide the chip and Google to offer the platform.
• Of course, Samsung has previously offered its Gear VR headsets as well as Odyssey headsets for PC.

Roundup

⌚ Garmin’s newest hybrid smartwatch is right on trend (Android Authority).

🖼️ Wallpaper Wednesday is here again: Get some new wallpapers courtesy of readers and the AA team (Android Authority).

🧲 This small magnetic power bank from Anker is a game changer (Android Authority).

💰 Meta is spending more than $1 billion a month on the metaverse (Gizmodo).

😴 How I fixed my sleep and wake-up pattern with Hue’s hidden automations (Android Authority).

🎮 Sony’s PlayStation Plus Collection for PS5 is coming to an end in May: Grab those 20 PS4 games now (Polygon).

🔉 There’s a major Pixel Buds A-Series pairing bug, but a fix is coming next week (Android Authority).

✂️ EA has canceled a new single-player game set in the Titanfall and Apex Legends universe: As someone who absolutely loved Titanfall 2, this is very disappointing (Bloomberg).

📱 Six Galaxy S23 alternatives worth considering: Like the idea of the Galaxy S23 but wondering what else is out there? We’ve got you covered (Android Authority).

🍏 Apple should be required to let iPhone users sideload apps, Biden admin says (Ars Technica).

Thursday Thing

The teams behind nature documentaries go to some crazy lengths to get amazing footage. But how about using animatronics to get up close and personal? That’s exactly the premise of BBC’s Spy in the Wild series.

This clip (h/t: Boing Boing) shows an animatronic beaver successfully fooling real beavers, with the real animals even getting close to the animatronic animal’s “eyes” (fisheye lenses). Also, how cute is the relationship between beavers and muskrats?

Have a gnawesome day!
Hadlee Simons, Editor.