Despite being many months away, we've finally started hearing Samsung Galaxy S23 leaks, and one of the first major ones suggests that the selfie camera will be getting an upgrade.
This comes from the Samsung news site GalaxyClub - apparently, Samsung will bump the resolution on the front-facing camera up to 12MP, marking the first resolution increase since 2019 when the Galaxy S10 was granted a 10MP snapper.
This relates to the standard and Plus Samsung Galaxy S23 models - the Ultra phone has always had a high-res front camera.
A selfie camera resolution increase wouldn't just mean that your face would have more pixels when you snap it - 12MP would facilitate 4K video recording on the front-facing camera, letting you take better-looking films using this snapper. Lots of premium phones already offer 4K selfie recording, and it seems Samsung is finally following suit.
Saying that, a 12MP camera doesn't guarantee that Samsung will allow for 4K video recording - it already has some budget phones with higher-res front cameras, like the Galaxy A53 with its 32MP snapper, but doesn't offer the option for high-res video in its software.
So we'll have to see what Samsung ends up doing - and whether this upgrade comes to pass at all - but we're hopeful.
Analysis: not exactly a selfie champion though
Even if the Samsung Galaxy S23 does get a 12MP front-facing camera, it's not exactly going to become a selfie powerhouse, because there are lots of phones out there nowadays that use self portrait photography as a key selling feature.
One such example is the Vivo V23, which has a 44MP front-facing camera as well as a secondary depth snapper to take great-looking snaps.
Another, which only went on sale in China, is the Moto Edge X30 - it had a 60MP selfie snapper, and in certain models of the phone, the lens was placed under the display.
Given how popular social media apps like TikTok and Instagram are, lots of people use their phones' front-facing cameras more than the rear ones, and so it makes sense for companies to focus on this feature for certain buyers.
A 12MP selfie camera in a Samsung phone won't exactly blow this target market away. But given that its Galaxy A series is the one targeted towards the social-media-savvy younger demographic, in terms of selfie capability the company's next device doesn't need to turn heads - it only needs to stay in line with the other rest of the best smartphones on the market.
