My unofficial beat at Mashable complains about the colors of Apple’s phone. The “deep purple” iPhone wasn’t purple enough for me, and I’m still waiting for the hot pink Barbie iPhone of my dreams.
Today, Samsung entered the ring. Leaks of its new Samsung Galaxy S23 lineup have speculated four new colors:(Opens in a new window) Phantom Black, Botanical Green, Cotton Blossom and Misty Lilac. And those are the kind of names that come to play. Just by reading them, I have a pretty good idea of what they look like. Plus, they make me feel valued as a consumer because I know someone took at least a minute to think about what to call them.
The Galaxy S23 range: green, lavender, phantom black and cream
Turns out I trust too easily because today Samsung released the official color names and they are Phantom Black, Cream, Green and Lavender. I may not be a color expert, but I am a color keenand I have feedback.
The Phantom Black and Cream are pretty accurate, but Lavender and Green have it coming.
Let’s first look at “lavender”, which is more pink than purple and more lilac than lavender (lilac flowers are softer and rosier(Opens in a new window) than lavender flowers which are more of a true purple). I tried to match the Pantone colors to the official photo of the S23 and found that, in its lightest version, Samsung’s idea of ”Lavender” was a little gray. In its darkest form, it’s what Pantone calls “Orchid Ice.” Samsung, I can’t accept this.
Lavender has basically been glazed over with this shade.
“Green” is medium, way too broad a color category. And remarkably, even though the color green applies to at least a hundred shades, it barely applies to this one. Grey? Coal? May be. The Pantone color I found to match the top is called “Sedona Sage”, which I think is overkill but would be a major improvement over “green”. Someone at Samsung was asleep at the wheel during this conference call. Another L for Samsung.
Schmage wise. It’s gray.
I’m picky about color but I have the numbers on my side. A Forbes Title(Opens in a new window) read “Samsung Galaxy S23 series looks gorgeous, despite its muted colors” and a Twitter user racked up over 3,500 likes lamenting Samsung’s perception of color and lame names. Well, there’s always next year.
The tweet may have been deleted
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