The newly-launched Samsung Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23+ have a weird camera focusing issue. The phones are struggling to keep the entire scene in focus and are capturing photos with patches of blurriness. The Galaxy S23 Ultra seemingly doesn’t have this problem, which users have named “blurred banana.”
Over the past few days, several Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23+ have complained about inconsistent focusing with the 50MP primary rear camera of their phones. There doesn’t seem to be a specific pattern but the blurriness usually doesn’t appear at the center or edges. Instead, the camera doesn’t focus properly on areas just around the center. Notebookcheck could find many examples of the problem shared by users across various online forums. You can check some of those below.
This issue seems to be fairly widespread and affecting Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23+ units in several markets. While most affected users say their unit is manufactured in Vietnam, the problem exists on devices manufactured in India as well. The blurriness is more prominent or consistent in photos of text or documents.
Some users have noticed similar blurry patches in outdoor photos as well. No Galaxy S23 Ultra user has reported this problem yet. As of this writing, Samsung hasn’t officially acknowledged or commented on the matter.
An upcoming update should fix this focusing problem with the Galaxy S23 duo
The Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23+ feature the same camera hardware on the back as the Galaxy S22 and Galaxy S22+ last year. There’s a 50MP primary shooter, 12MP ultrawide lens, and 10MP 3X optical zoom camera.
The Galaxy S23 Ultra, on the other hand, features a massive 200MP primary camera and also adds a 10X periscope optical zoom camera. Since this focusing problem doesn’t exist on the Ultra model, it seems to be stemming from the hardware on the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23+.
Thankfully, a fix doesn’t seem to be too far away. While Samsung hasn’t officially announced a fix or even acknowledged the problem yet, industry insiders claim that the company is working on a major update for the Galaxy S23 series with a focus (no pun intended) on camera performance improvement.
The said update may also iron out other bugs on the phones. There have been a few reports about issues with the S Pen on the Ultra model. The update will reportedly arrive in late March, so in about two weeks. We will let you know when the rollout begins.
