Samsung recently pushed a massive camera update to the Galaxy S23 series, adding a few new features and fixing some bugs and performance issues. However, one major HDR-related issue remained unfixed. The new flagships still produce images with a weird halo effect around subjects. Thankfully, a fix for this problem isn’t too far off. According to renowned Samsung insider Ice Universe, the next update for the Galaxy S23 series will deal with this issue.
Galaxy S23 users have been reporting this abnormal halo effect since day one. As you can see in the image below, the plant and flowers have a light outline across the borders. The outlines are more visible in low-light images but regular daylight images have this HDR problem as well. This isn’t normal and shouldn’t be there, particularly in a phone that costs north of $1,000, even going beyond $1,500 if you want the maxed-out variant.
Samsung was expected to fix this issue with the recent update, but it didn’t. The update was huge and contained plenty of changes, including the fix for an occasional green line issue. Samsung also fixed color banding issues in high-resolution modes (50MP and 200MP) and improved the sharpness of photos and videos taken in low-light conditions. Last but not least, it improved the camera speed and autofocus and fixed a face recognition issue.
The latest Galaxy S23 update was initially released in Samsung’s homeland South Korea but has since expanded to other markets as well, including Europe and the US. Samsung pushed the April security patch to the new flagships with this camera update. The fix for the halo effect will probably arrive with the May security patch in a few weeks. We will let you know when the rollout begins.
Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23+ may have a camera hardware issue
While this abnormal halo effect is getting a fix soon, Samsung may have a bigger problem regarding the Galaxy S23 camera. Particularly the one found on the base model and the Galaxy S23+. Many users have found that these two phones can’t keep the entire scene in focus and produce images with blurry patches. This appears to be a hardware problem. The issue doesn’t exist on the Galaxy S23 Ultra.
As of this writing, Samsung hasn’t acknowledged this problem and has maintained that there’s nothing wrong with the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23+ camera hardware. But with reports mounting, the company may soon be forced to come forward and explain what is happening.
2023-04-15 15:05:46