Samsung’s been on a tear releasing great smartphones this year. But they’ve all been plagued with one big mistake that’s hard to overlook.
This summer’s Galaxy Unpacked event was the usual great fun. We got a new Galaxy Z Fold 5 with an improved hinge and more powerful chip, plus the Galaxy Z Flip 5 with a cover screen that’s large enough to see what’s going on. These were joined by the return of a much-loved design in the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, with some refinements to make it even more classy, plus a standard Galaxy Watch 6 and a full new lineup of Samsung tablets.
However, Samsung’s latest product lineup also confirms the road I’ve feared the South Korean gadget maker has been on for at least a few months now. Samsung is getting more serious and less fun and whimsical in its product designs, especially when it comes to color choices.
I’m hoping that 2023 is simply an aberration and Samsung has chosen to be a bit conservative in its color choices. However, there’s no arguing that the entire year has been about subtler and more muted colors across its smartphone, tablet, and wearable lineups. And it’s been pretty disappointing to see.It began with the Galaxy S23 series
The first hint of this came with the February launch of the Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23 Plus, and Galaxy S23 Ultra. Samsung packed a lot of powerful technology under the hood of its latest flagships, including an amazingly powerful bespoke Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, but the outer shells lost a bit of their wow factor.
The 2022 Galaxy S22 lineup had come in a series of dark, bold, and saturated finishes. The standard options were Phantom Black, Phantom White, green, and burgundy, and while I’ll be the first to admit that Phantom Black isn’t much to write home about, the others were quite fetching.
The Phantom White was bright and pure, the green was deep and rich, and the burgundy was one of the loveliest colors I’ve ever seen on a smartphone. Samsung also offered three exclusive colors — graphite, Sky Blue, and red — and while one could argue the red leaned a bit more toward orange, both it and the Sky Blue had a certain depth to them, accented by a bit of a nice metallic sheen.
By contrast, this year’s Galaxy S23 Ultra color selection was a bit of a disappointment. Obviously, Samsung was trying to go for serious colors for a serious smartphone, but I don’t think anybody would have accused the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s array of richer colors to be in any way unprofessional.
Nevertheless, February saw only Phantom Black return for a proper encore. The other off-the-shelf colors were green, lavender, and cream. However, the green was nowhere near the same as we saw on the S22. It was drab and uninspired by comparison, perhaps suitable only for those looking to take their S23 out on a military field exercise.
Similarly, lavender was pale enough to be mistaken for dusty pink, while cream was exactly what you’d expect from a color with that name; less stark than the Phantom White and a nice neutral, inoffensive alternative to Phantom Black.
