Opinion post by

C. Scott Brown

Ten years ago, a new smartphone release was incredibly exciting. Technology moved so fast back then that every new smartphone seemed to come with a feature we had never seen before. Today, though, phone launches are increasingly, well, boring with each passing year. The Samsung Galaxy S23 is no exception.

“Boring” might seem like a strong word, but I’ve seen it thrown around quite a bit this launch. It’s easy to see why. If you just glanced at these phones, you’d say that there are some cosmetic changes, a few minor upgrades under the hood, and a handful of new software features. Hardly exciting. When Samsung spends a lot of its launch event talking about the environmental impact of its products and how it’s making two short films with big-name directors, you know it doesn’t have much to say about the phones either.