Are your Samsung Galaxy S23 photos strangely blurry? You aren’t alone
Some S23 owners are noticing blurry rings on their snaps
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If you love snapping photos with yourSamsungGalaxy S23 and S23 Plus you might want to double-check that they aren’t being ruined by some seemingly random blurred spots.
The cameras on Samsung’s S23 and S23 Plus are pretty impressive – we called them “excellent” in ourSamsung Galaxy S23 review– featuring a 50MP that trumps the snapper on the iPhone 14. However, a glitch looks to be making some S23 users’ pictures less crisp than they should be.
Initially reported byNotebookCheck, some odd blur patterns (either shaped like bananas or ring-shaped) have appeared on some images, causing areas that should be in focus to look fuzzy.
To make matters worse, the images are being taken using the S23’s raw mode – meaning the image comes straight from the sensor and hasn’t been altered by the software at all – which suggests it could be a hardware issue.
Samsung has yet to issue an official statement about the matter, but we’ve asked for comment and will update this story as soon as we hear back. In the meantime, some users have found that manually focusing their S23 cameras can ensure their pictures are free from unwanted blur (viaSammobile).
This means the problem could be resolved by a future camera software update rather than Samsung needing to manually fix the smartphones – with leakers suggesting anupdate could be coming at the end of March.
A widespread issue?
Thankfully, not every Galaxy S23 phone appears to be affected by this issue, and owners of the souped-up Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra don’t appear to be having issues either. That’s likely because the main camera on that phone uses a different 200MP lens rather than the 50MP found in the regular S23 and Plus.
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That said, we’d recommend that all Galaxy S23 owners (no matter the model) double-check their snaps before moving on from an important photo shoot. At least until Samsung issues some kind of fix for the issue.
You don’t want to think you’re safe and then find your pics are marred by the blur patterns that have been wreaking havoc for a significant minority of S23 and S23 Plus owners.
Right now, there’s no reason to suspect that this is a serious issue that affects all S23 or S23 Plus phones, and we didn’t encounter the problem during our in-depth testing for both reviews. But if you’re still considering other options, then our guide to thebest camera phonesranks all of our current favorite phones for shooting both stills and video.
Hamish is a Senior Staff Writer for TechRadar and you’ll see his name appearing on articles across nearly every topic on the site from smart home deals to speaker reviews to graphics card news and everything in between. He uses his broad range of knowledge to help explain the latest gadgets and if they’re a must-buy or a fad fueled by hype. Though his specialty is writing about everything going on in the world of virtual reality and augmented reality.
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