Galaxy S23 will reportedly improve on iPhone 14’s satellite connectivity, upgrade fingerprint sensor

Ben Schoon | Nov 24 2022 - 9:57 am PT

Samsung is just a few months out from debuting the Galaxy S23 series, and rumor has it the company’s next-gen flagship will take a note from the iPhone 14’s satellite connectivity, as well as upgrading its fingerprint sensor.

In its latest iPhone 14 series, Apple introduced support for satelliteconnectivity. The feature just went live for users this month and allows for worldwide access to satellites for emergency situations when cellular networks are unavailable or unreliable.

The Elec reports that Samsung is looking to also include satellite connectivity in the Galaxy S23.

Apparently, Samsung’s take on this feature will be powered through a partner, Iridium. The company was first reported to be in a development deal with smartphone makers earlier this year with its 66 low-orbit communication satellites.

Apple’s satellite connection runs through Globalstar and the two companies have a near-exclusivity deal.

Samsung apparently wants to use the satellite connection in the Galaxy S23 series for more than Apple’s emergency situations, though, with “the goal of transmitting data such as text messages and low-capacity images at hundreds of kbps.” This is reportedly possible due to overcoming the technical limitations of including an antenna that can handle these communications.

Huawei was the first to include satellite connectivity on an Android phone, but Samsung’s efforts will obviously be available to many more people considering Huawei’s ongoing situation.

Meanwhile, Samsung’s Galaxy S23 Ultra is also rumored to be adopting a new fingerprint sensor. @RGCloudS on Twitter claims that Samsung will adopt Qualcomm’s latest 3D ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, the third generation of the product. It’s unclear what improvements this will bring to the table, but presumably, we’ll see better speed and accuracy. Perhaps this version may also adopt the larger scannable area of the 3D Sonic Max sensor that is sparsely used.

The Galaxy S23 series is expected to arrive in February of next year, packing Android 13 out of the box with new camera sensors on the Ultra model, and a mostly familiar design across the entire family, as well as the lessened use of Exynos chips with more Snapdragon chips instead.