Samsung Galaxy S23: Where to find the best pre-order deals

Samsung has just announced its new lineup of flagship phones for 2023. After weeks of rumours, the Galaxy S23, S23 Plus and S23 Ultra were officially unveiled at the company’s Unpacked event on 1 February.

The fresh-faced Galaxy S23 series arrives in stores and online from 17 February in the UK. From 1 February until then, pre-orders for all three phones are available directly from Samsung.

So, what’s new this year? The S23 Ultra – now the most powerful phone Samsung makes – is getting the biggest upgrade of the three. It features a new 200MP camera sensor with pixel-binning tech, enabling it to take much higher-quality photographs when zoomed in and in low-light conditions.

Otherwise, there are just a few minor upgrades to the lineup, which we’ll get into below. All three phones come in four new colours: green, lavender, cream and black. Exclusively available to those who pre-order will be four additional colours: graphite, red, lime and sky blue.

Read more: Samsung Galaxy S22 ultra review

The Galaxy S23, S23 Plus and S23 Ultra are all available to pre-order directly from Samsung, as well as the following retailers and carriers. Our full review will appear once we’ve had more time with the device.

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Samsung is offering free extra onboard storage to anyone who pre-orders the Galaxy S23 before 17 February, meaning you get twice the capacity for the same price. That’s effectively a discount of £150 on the 512GB S23 Ultra, £100 on the 512GB Galaxy S23 Plus, and £50 on the 512GB Galaxy S23. The offer doesn’t apply to the 1TB version of the S23 Ultra, which costs £1,599.

This deal comes straight from Samsung, but every carrier and retailer is passing the offer on to customers, so you’ll be able to take advantage of it no matter where you buy the phone.

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This £59 per month plan with Carphone Warehouse bags you 250GB of 5G data. Over the course of the 24 month term you end up paying £1,525 in total. Throw in the double storage Samsung offer and you’re getting a great value phone contract with plenty of data for most.

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EE has a relatively low upfront fee compared to rivals, after which you’re paying £84 per month for the S23 Ultra with 512GB of storage. Over the course of your 24 month term that works out to just over £30 per month for your unlimited 5G data plan, which you can easily beat with a challenger SIM card from Smarty, or giffgaff, if you’re not married to your network.

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Here’s a good contract deal on the Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus at Three. Choose a 24 month contract and you’ll get six months airtime for free, which, when you add on the double storage bonus from Samsung, ends up being excellent value for a £1,049 phone.

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Over at Vodafone you can grab the S23 Ultra for £63 per month after a £49 upfront fee. The device is paid off over 36 months, and actually works out a little cheaper than if you bought the phone SIM free. Vodafone makes up the difference by charging you slightly more than you’d expect for an unlimited data plan. The airtime side of the 24 month contract works out at around £28 per month – a pay-monthly SIM can be found for half that price.

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O2 is offering the S23 Ultra with 150GB of data for £64.86 per month after a £30 upfront fee. It’s not the cheapest deal you’ll find on this page, but if you consider O2’s offer of discounted airtime for the first three months as well as the carrier’s Plus Plan benefit of being able to switch phones at any point in your contract, it could be right for you.

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Here’s a low-data plan for people who don’t wander too far from a wi-fi connection. Sky has a double-data offer that will take its 3GB data plan up to 6GB for just £7 per month when you sign up for three years. After two years it drops back down to 3GB (which won’t be practical in 2025, even for those who don’t use much). Still, your total spend over the contract term is £1,380, which once you’ve paid off the phone works out at about £3.60 a month for data.

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Here’s the basic Samsung Galaxy S23 at Amazon for £849. If you’re able to buy the phone outright and pick up a cheap pay-as-you-go SIM card (£14 per month for 200GB, Smarty.co.uk) you can beat even the best phone plans we’ve listed above. Of course, if you’re an existing customer with a major carrier, it’s always worth asking them for a better deal before you leave.

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And here’s the S23 Ultra at Currys, if you’d rather go for the most powerful phone Samsung makes. If you’d rather spread the cost of the device over 24 months, we recommend avoiding Currys and heading straight to Samsung, where you can take advantage of the manufacturer’s 0% finance offer.

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On the outside, the biggest changes have been made to the design of the camera arrays on the back of the S23 and S23 Plus. Both of the smaller phones drop the corner bump in favour of three-ringed lenses, giving the rear of the phone a less cluttered appearance and bringing them in line with the design of the Ultra.

The S23 Ultra continues to look to carry the torch for the now-retired Galaxy Note range. The curved display and squared-off corners are back, and the S-Pen stylus is secured in a hidey-hole on the device’s bottom edge. Meanwhile, the smaller S23 and S23 Plus phones get more rounded edges.

And there’s good news for Samsung fans in the UK. Unlike in previous years, the Galaxy S series will use the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor across the globe, which offers slightly improved performance over the Exynos chips Samsung had been using in Europe.

All three phones are more expensive than their S22 counterparts, owing to increased production costs and the pressures of global inflation. Compared with last year’s phones at launch, the Galaxy S23 is £80 more expensive, while the S23 Plus and S23 Ultra are both £100 more expensive.

Read more: Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus review

All three phones will launch in the UK on 17 February, when they’ll be available to buy in store and online.

Announced on 1 February at the annual Samsung Unpacked event, the S23, S23 Plus and S23 Ultra are available to pre-order in the weeks running up to their official release date.

Trying to wrap your head around the differences between the S23, S23 Plus and S23 Ultra? Here are the official specifications from Samsung.

For the latest offers on mobile phone contracts, try the links below:

Find the best Samsung mobile deals at Independent compare

Fancy a Google phone instead? We reviewed the latest Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro handsets, to see how they stack up