digest
Short Summary
Main recommendation: The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is a meaningful upgrade over the S22 Ultra despite looking nearly identical, mainly because of its new chip and its camera stabilization and battery gains. The reviewer calls it the best big phone available and says it sets a high standard across the board, even if it feels understated.
Key Points
- The design is nearly unchanged from the S22 Ultra; the main differences are squared-off side radii, slightly larger camera rings, and Gorilla Glass Victus 2 instead of Victus Plus.
- The phone uses a customized Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy, with a higher performance-core clock (3.36GHz vs. 3.2GHz) and GPU clock (719MHz vs. 680MHz), and every S23 Ultra ships with this Qualcomm chip rather than Exynos.
- Battery life is a major improvement: the reviewer reports about 8.5 hours of screen-on time over two days of heavy use at 120Hz but 1080p, with only a short wireless charge in the car.
- The new 200-megapixel primary sensor's optical image stabilization doubles to correct up to 3 degrees of shake, versus 1.5 degrees before, which matters more than the resolution itself.
- Video improves across the board, with stabilization that works in varied lighting and usable 8K/30 recording.
- The reviewer's main complaint is persistent shutter lag, which is worse in the high-resolution modes.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions: After taking the phone out of the box, switch the display from 1080p to 1440p. The reviewer says the battery lasts long enough that this is worth it, and that the phone can be charged from 0 to 100% in about an hour with 45-watt wired charging.
- Concrete instructions: For most shots, use the standard binned mode (about 12.5 megapixels) because it works best in most conditions. Use the 50-megapixel mode when you want more detail with less noise and less shutter lag than the 200-megapixel mode, and reserve 200-megapixel mode for excellent lighting and still subjects such as landscapes, since it produces files around 40 to 50 MB and noticeable lag.
- Concrete instructions: For zoom, the phone performs best past 10X, where it outperforms competitors according to the reviewer.
- The new 12-megapixel selfie camera is described as sharper and better than the previous 40-megapixel one, showing that megapixel count alone does not determine quality.
- Base storage increases from 128GB to 256GB, with faster UFS 4.0 storage, and the S Pen stylus remains a key differentiator.
Bottom Line
The S23 Ultra is less a radical redesign than a well-rounded refinement, with the chip, battery, and camera stabilization upgrades making it a strong choice for a large premium phone despite its understated look.
