Galaxy S23, S23 Plus owners report a frustrating camera blur issue

Update, June 2: Samsung has finally addressed this issue. Read our dedicated post for more info.

The Samsung Galaxy S23 and S23 Plus bring a few software-driven camera improvements. However, it looks like some owners of these handsets have noticed a rather annoying issue.

Some Galaxy S23 and S23 Plus users on Reddit, Samsung’s EU Community, and the Android-Hilfe forum (h/t: Notebook Check) have reported a permanently out-of-focus area in photos taken with the primary camera.

This doesn’t appear to simply be a depth-of-field effect, where subjects/objects in the distance are blurred. Instead, we’re seeing a banana- or ring-shaped blurry area emerging when taking photos of documents and text on a screen. The issue isn’t restricted to photos of documents and text, either. Check out image samples highlighting the problem below.

It’s believed that the issue could be related to the Galaxy S23 and S23 Plus camera lenses. It’s not uncommon to see blur with some wide and ultrawide cameras. However, this softness is usually confined to the corners of the image as light is effectively bended by the lens at the edges to capture the entire scene.

So what’s the remedy, then? Well, it seems like you might want to swap your device or have the camera lenses replaced if your phone has the issue. But some forum-goers have reported that their devices are working just fine. This suggests that we could be looking at a manufacturing issue confined to certain factories/suppliers rather than a software problem.

In any event, we’ve contacted Samsung representatives for comment regarding the issue and potential remedies. We’ll update the article if/when the company has an answer for us.