I’m Skipping the Samsung Galaxy S23 because its missing this key feature

• Specious Coda-Bishop
• 2 years ago

Launch week is always fun for anyone who is interested in the bleeding edge of technology. As a phone nerd my entire life, new releases are always exciting for me. There is nothing quite like the feeling of the experience you get unboxing things and figuring out all the fancy features that come with your new device. And it’s looking like the new Samsung Galaxy S23 will be no exception to this rule. We get all the juiciest takes coming for you this week, so be sure to keep an eye out on Phandroid.com for all of the team takes on the latest release.

For me though, I will be skipping this year’s Galaxy S23. There are two words that cover the reason why: Note and Fold.

Life on the Bleeding Edge

I’ve always been one of those Samsung owners who loved their fringe, completely out there, bananas stuff. I’ve been interested in that sort of tech my entire life. So I have always been a Note user. I remember opening up my Note 3 and laughing about just how comically big it was in comparison to everything else around it. 

I remember the first time I saw a real unit of the Samsung Galaxy Mega with a whopping 6.3-inch screen on it and balking at the size of it. While it may seem very mainstream and popular now, it wasn’t common at all that phones would be as big as they are now. Samsung was very much pioneering and paving the way for bigger phone screens and bigger handheld experiences. 

Work and Play

These were behemoths in comparison to everything else around it for their time. I was using a Samsung Galaxy Chat B5330 paired with an original Sony MN2 Smartwatch when I was in college and running Leaguepedia (an enthusiast website for League of Legends) at the same time. Which had a basically microscopic three-inch screen on it. Primarily being used for skype calls and messages, it was the perfect companion for those needs. It was a perfect place to host my professional life and keep it separate from my private life.

It’s what I’ve always loved about Samsung and their product lines, and that is the LG and Nokia-esqe days of old where you just threw stuff at the wall and saw what stuck. For me, the Galaxy S lineup simply doesn’t have that sparkle for me anymore. Its sparkle first resided in its Note lineup, with its feature-rich suite dedicated to people who were on the go or artists.

It was one of the first bits of consumer technology that I ever saw that allowed you to take photos of documents and it would copy the text on the page. Revolutionary at the time, and for someone who was in college – an essential tool in my arsenal. It wouldn’t be hyperbolic to say that Samsungs evolutions in the mid-2010s were essential for me, and my life would have been made an awful lot harder if I wasn’t using these tools. I don’t know how I would have done the things that I had done without them.

The Future Folds

These days, I find the spark renewed in the Galaxy Fold and Flip line. I knew as soon as I laid eyes on the Galaxy Fold in some briefings that I had to have one. And indeed, I did manage to get my hands on one. It wasn’t being sold in Ireland at the time, but another tech reviewer who got their hands on one and didn’t like it – passed it on to me for the standard price. I was elated. I was so elated, I took photos of the phone as I was sitting in the car after collecting it. Yes, that is me, in the car, in the rain, holding my new Galaxy Fold like a newborn baby. 

There is a utility here for folding phones that you just can’t get with slab-based phones. Regardless of if you’re reading a book on the likes of Amazon Kindle or simply catching up on your favorite Phandroid Videos, bigger is better. Then there is the sheer novelty of being able to transform it in an instant. This is something you have to experience for yourself to realize just how it can change the way you think of your devices and the other devices around you.

Suddenly, I found my kindle and iPad redundant. All I had to do was open my phone and bam! All the content I could ever want. Let’s not even get into how good of an experience emulators was on the Galaxy Fold. It truly became an all-in-one device for me.

Final Thoughts

For me, the S line has just become so ordinary. Especially when you consider the competition that surrounds it and even in the wake of its own lineup. It doesn’t quite reach for the stars in the same way that the line used to. This is a shame, but for some people, especially people who aren’t sold on the fold, it makes a lot of sense to hang on tight till the iterations and “first-gen problems” become less and less apparent. But with the cost of foldable coming down in price, and the premiere flagships still reaching comparative levels it feels like only a matter of time before the Galaxy too, starts to burn out.