samsung galaxy s23 ultra

Galaxy S23 Ultra

                      Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra long-term review

         1.Introduction

         

         The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is the embodiment of the Ultra phone and it's easily Samsung's most popular phone on the market. While some might think the design is a bit stale at this point, it's undoubtedly a case of form following function. The rectangular body is ideally suited to carry a big four-camera island, a potent chipset with its accompanying cooling, a large 5,000mAh battery, and a stylus. Not to mention the biggest display you can find on a phone that doesn't fold.

Now in its fourth generation, the Galaxy Ultra has embraced its S Pen-carrying identity, solidifying another feature that only the Galaxy Ultra has. Samsung made sure the Galaxy S23 Ultra has another ultra-worthy feature added in the form of the new 200MP camera.

But let's come back to that word, "stale". Looking at the Galaxy S23 Ultra, very little has changed compared to its predecessor. While the Galaxy S22 Ultra was somewhat of a paradigm shift from the S21 Ultra, the S23 Ultra is a subtle evolution. The S Pen is not news anymore, the rest of the cameras, the display, and the battery are practically the same, as is the design and build, for the most part. The biggest changes are the move to Qualcomm's silicon and the new 200MP image - changes that likely didn't motivate most S22 Ultra users to upgrade.

Ultimately, the Galaxy S23 Ultra is a safe space for Galaxy Ultra (and the old Galaxy Note) loyalists who want a familiar do-it-all big Samsung. It's an important device for Samsung and the company painstakingly keeps true to its roots. It's a situation not unlike that of the iPhone Pro Max - people want this package year after year.

So now that the Galaxy S23 Ultra has been dutifully serving as the best smartphone money can buy for about 8 months, it's time to see how it's held up and what, if anything, has changed.

        2. Design and handling

Samsung has kept the overall look of the Galaxy S22 Ultra but improved on a few things. The display and rear glass panel curves were significantly reduced, and the frame became wider at the sides. These changes transformed a hard-to-pick-up and slippery S22 Ultra into a comfortable-to-handle S23 Ultra. Those alterations were also a godsend for people who use their phones naked.

The S23 Ultra handles as well as a phone its size can. That's assuming you have fairly average-sized hands - people with smaller hands may find the Galaxy S23 Ultra too cumbersome.

Samsung uses the full girth of the back panel for the phone's internals. Because of this, the four camera rings, the LED flash, and the laser autofocus module simply float inside the flat surface. This embedded camera island is unique to Samsung and looks good. It doesn't mean the phone doesn't wobble when used on its back on a flat surface.

          3.Biometrics

The fingerprint scanner on the Galaxy S23 Ultra is excellent. It's seemingly the same one from the Galaxy S22 Ultra, which was also excellent. It's as fast today as it was on Day 1 and no amount of smudges interferes with its accuracy and immediacy - that's the great thing about ultrasonic fingerprint scanners. We'd be ever so lucky to have another one of the same tech on the next Galaxy S Ultra.

           

           4.Display and speakers

The Galaxy S23 Ultra has one of the best displays on a smartphone. In fact, max brightness aside, it's the nicest display on a conventional smartphone - it's bigger than any market rival's, it's very color accurate without sacrificing viewing quality, and it can double as a canvas for writing or drawing.

Auto brightness is handled up to Samsung's usual excellent standard. The phone is never too bright or too dim in relation to your environment. It's just right if you'd pardon the Goldilocks pun. You can push it up or down, and it will stay like that for a while unless you move and the light changes drastically.

The display can also get pretty dim when you need it to - if you're using the phone to read a book at night, for example.

Speaking of using your phone before bed, the display's blue light will keep you awake and by extension mess with your sleep quality. Samsung has a sophisticated blue light filtering system in place. You can set a color temperature you're happy with or leave the phone to adaptively change it, depending on the light around you. You can even have the phone adjust the tones and contrast.

The Always On Display is also excellent on the Galaxy S23 Ultra. It's set to show up when you get a notification or tap on the screen once and it will stay on for 6 seconds, saving battery. You can have it on all the time, set it to follow a specific schedule, or only show up for notifications. You can choose the design of the clock, the color, or choose a widget.

The speakers on the Galaxy S23 Ultra are excellent. Despite this being a hybrid arrangement with one speaker tucked into the earpiece, it doesn't sound lesser than the dedicated one on the bottom. Sound comes out full and rich and there's volume to spare.

           5.Performance

The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is a solid performer thanks to Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, one of the most capable processor on market right now, and Sansung stable software.

We haven't had any issues with interruptions, force closes, crashes, or unexpected restarts. The Galaxy S23 Ultra has been as solid as a phone could be during our long-term testing.

The phone can get very warm while streaming high-res videos during the hot summer days, but it didn't seem to hurt performance, only battery life.

           6.Battery life and charging

This generation of Galaxy S devices made the major shift to only using Qualcomm's chipsets, which pleased casual fans and those in the know equally. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 improved efficiency over the notorious Exynos 2200 - and our review battery test confirmed what we expected- The S23 Ultra scored 5 and a half hours more in video playback and 4 hours more in browsing than its predecessor. The new Snapdragon chip and its TSMC architecture could manage the 5,000mAh battery better than the old Exynos ever could.

That solid endurance has, for the most part, kept up through our time with the phone. When summer set in and the weather grew hot, so did the Galaxy S23 Ultra, and screen times got diminished. An hour-long navigation session in the car took a few more percent out of the phone than it had just a few months ago.

 The Galaxy S23 Ultra has excellent charging control - you can disable fast wired or fast wireless charging independently. We have it set to normal wireless charging for those overnight sessions and fast wired charging for the occasional daily top-up. It's smart enough to learn when you take it off the charger in the morning and trickle charge to 100% right before, theoretically stressing the battery less.

If you want to further protect the battery, you could limit the maximum charge to 85% - it will reduce the overall cycles you do and won't stress the cells as much.

            7.Software

One UI is a known quantity at this point. It's a solid and feature-rich operating system that Samsung owners have loved and relied on for years. But as one of those long-term One UI users, this reviewer thinks the OS could do with a facelift or at least a refresh.

One UI is one of the most capable operating systems in the world. It has a specific skill set that's hard to match outside of full-on desktop OSes. Samsung's system apps are one of the best in each category - My Files is a fully-featured file manager that can connect to OneDrive, Google Drive, and Network storage, and has a helpful breakdown of file categories like images, videos, audio files, documents, downloads, and APKs. And it's one of the few apps that has zero issues reading an external USB storage.

Samsung's Galaxy store is another example. First of all, it opens with an unavoidable full-screen ad. Then, it's mostly full of junk like paid fonts, wallpapers, or themes, but it's where you update your system apps - something which, for some reason, can't be done without user input. The silver lining is that the Galaxy store is also where you find Samsung's must-have Good lock service

             8.S Pen

he S Pen is an exclusive Samsung strength and has been for years. At this point, it's a very refined tool that's deeply integrated with the Galaxy S23 Ultra.

Annotating screenshots, signing the occasional embargo agreement (or any other type of document), drawing car directions on a map, using the Galaxy S23 Ultra as a scoring sheet, or just entertaining a child (or your friends on a long flight) by giving them something to draw on - the S Pen is a great thing to have!

              9.Camera

There are four cameras on the back of the phone and a good 12-megapixel selfie camera at the top of the screen.

As with the previous two Ultra generations, the four-camera array includes 3x and 10x optical zoom telephoto 10MP modules, which are excellent and allow a far greater range of zoom than any rival. Images up to 30x zoom look as good as most other phones manage at less than 10x. The 12MP ultrawide produces excellent landscape and architecture shots and is used for Samsung’s very good macrophotography mode when up close.

New for this year is a 200MP main camera, which uses the first of a new generation of sensors with just under double the pixel count of previous models. By default it uses the data from all the pixels to increase captured light and detail, producing 12MP images that are some of the very best available across a range of light levels. The phone can also shoot at 50MP or the full 200MP, the latter producing huge image files with an amazing amount of detail in bright light. They lack the dynamic range of 12MP shots, however, as they lose some of the advanced processing.

Low-light mode is slightly better overall and produces generally well exposed images, though is needed less as the camera gathers more light to start with. The camera app is packed with advanced and fun features, including a full RAW shooting experience for those looking to do their own editing and the most capable video on Android.

Samsung’s portrait photography, particularly at its 3x zoom, is class-leading on natural look and fine details such as flyaway hairs.

Compared with the S21 and S22 Ultra from the last two years, the S23 Ultra offers only incremental upgrades across the entire camera system. But that has kept it the most capable camera on any smartphone available, and is about the only one I would consider to be able to replace the utility of a dSLR or equivalent with its full range of optical zoom.

              10.Conclusion

The Galaxy S23 Ultra is a true do-it-all tool. It combines a huge display, an S Pen, 256GB of storage 12GB of RAM, the fastest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Processor, and a 5,000mAh battery that can go all day. Not to mention a camera system that's just as uniquely versatile three years into its tenure. And outside of the sheer impressiveness of the Galaxy S23 Ultra's specs sheet, it's competent, and that induces confidence.It is without doubt the best Android phone available. Whether that’s enough to be a hit at this price any more, I’m not sure.

Pros: very big 120Hz screen, brilliantly capable camera with 3x and 10x optical zoom, good software with five years support, faster fingerprint scanner, S Pen stylus, top performance, very long battery life, contains recycled materials.

Cons: huge, heavy, extremely expensive, S Pen may be superfluous feature for many.

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