This year's top traditional candy bar phone from Samsung makes the already great S22 Ultra even better -- by giving you a way snappier camera, improved computing capabilities for better gaming experience and AI assists, along with much better battery life that manages to rival the best iPhone.
The top-end Samsung S series is known for providing the best zoom capability of any smartphone in the world, and indeed the new S23 Ultra is extraordinary in this regard. The phone can zoom onto subjects several hundreds of metres away, far beyond what a person's unaided vision can pinpoint, and still produce usable pictures. Zooming to that kind of distance may not be a requirement for many users, but being able to get a picture of, say, a sign showing the price of food from the shop across the road can be a real benefit to some.
Camera speed likewise is much improved this year -- snapping photos and videos has very little shutter lag. And picture and video results are sharp with eye-pleasing colours for images that are well beyond social-media posting standards. The phone can take photos at 200MP in one second (unlike the two to three seconds required by any of last year's phones).
This is one of the best phones for taking night photos and videos. In fact, in 2022 a new business linked to the music concert industry popped up -- renting S22 Ultra devices to do video recording. It's not surprising as Samsung's top phone from last year captures great images in low-light situations while also retaining ample zoom capability, allowing many concertgoers renting S22 Ultras to capture their musical experiences. The S23 follows suit and goes a notch beyond its predecessor by capturing even more light and sound.
Samsung says it has co-operated closely with live-video posting service providers such as Instagram Stories, TikTok and Twitch, which should help with the streaming video smoothness and quality, a subpar factor with Samsung devices compared to what the top iPhones have been capable of. Live videos have been a bane for Android devices for years due to unoptimised streaming apps that couldn't cope with the sheer number of camera configurations of Android phones and tablets on the market. From my testing, yes, video streaming has improved in quality but is still not on par with the iPhone. To redress this shortcoming, I recommend not doing live videos but instead posting them after the fact; the result will be much better, maybe even better than an iPhone recording. This trick, by the way, can be achieved with any Android phone.
This is also the first time a top-of-the-line Samsung is faster than the current top iPhone, and is so on nearly any task you throw at the S23 Ultra: apps open quicker, file transfer is much faster, the user interface is snappier. No more can iPhone users talk down to an S Series user about how much slower the Samsung phone feels.
This phone also runs the most demanding Android game, Genshin Impact, at max settings with ease. The game is notorious for being too much for most phones to handle and makes most devices too hot to hold after more than 15 minutes of play, and when phones get hot, throttling switches on and slows things down. Yes, the phone does get warm after more than 20 minutes of play but it's not going to singe your fingers, and crucially there's no performance throttling.
I also found the battery lasted much longer than any previous Samsung. As a mobile gamer, I generally need to charge my phone about twice a day. But for the S23, three to four hours of serious gaming resulted in around 45% of battery lost, which is approximately twice as good as the Galaxy Z Fold 3 I'm currently using.
Samsung continues to favour a curved screen for their top phones. Granted, it makes the phone look nice and gives the illusion of a larger screen, but the far edges don't register touches. Luckily, the curves on the sides of this phone are very subtle, making it nice to grip and giving you a bit more surface to write on if you're an S Pen stylus fan.
Yes, the S Pen is still here. Tucked away in the bottom left of the phone, ready for drawing art, taking notes, signing documents, doing AR doodles and much more. It's a nice extra but can be indispensable for users who work on documents regularly.
The phone is good-looking on the outside with a matte finish on the back that minimises fingerprints. As for the display, it's what you'd expect from an S Series phone. It's just gorgeous with plenty of brightness and a resolution up to 3,088 x 1,440 pixels while supporting all current display standards the world can throw at you. Among other components, the on-screen fingerprint sensor is much easier to use now since it covers a larger area, giving much more leeway on the exact spot to place your thumb to log on.
The phone has a great pair of loud and bassy stereo speakers, although the bottom one is placed slightly off to the left so can easily get blocked by the user's right hand during gaming sessions.
Now for the major downsides of the S23 Ultra. I find the design a bit too minimal and too similar to last year's S22 Ultra. And having five bumps on the phone's back is a little lacking in the design department. I think the S21 Ultra's design with an elevated zone for the cameras and sensors was much better.
I also found that the sharp edges on the bottom and top of the phone make it a little uncomfortable to hold during long gaming sessions.
Moreover, this year's colour options are far too dull for my taste. I personally prefer bright colours which you can only get if you buy an S23 Ultra on the samsung.com website. But, if you're the kind of person who prefers dark and moody colours, you'll like what Samsung gives you this year.
As a large 6.8-inch screen device, the phone is a bit too big and a little too heavy to operate with one hand. I nearly dropped it several times while doing one-hand gymnastics just to navigate points on the screen due to the side curves and slick matte finish on the back
Another negative, the phone still charges at 45W. Compared to my other recent gaming phones and Chinese phones that can do 65W-120W, this charging speed is pretty slow. But, if you're used to charging before going to bed or have been using an iPhone, this relatively slow speed won't be a problem because it'll be full by the time you wake up in the morning.
Most top phones from Apple and Samsung are very pricy and will set you back more than 50,000 baht. Not a small sum of money. Luckily Samsung offers good discounts as well as trade-ins that can reduce the price by as much as half.
SPECS
- Screen: 6.8-inch 120Hz (3088 x 1440)
- Camera: 12MP (frontal), 200MP (main) + 12MP (ultrawide) + 10MP (zoom)
- Battery: 5,000mAh
- Chipset: Snapdragon® 8 Gen 2 Mobile
- RAM: 8-12GB
- Memory: 256GB to 1TB
- Colour variations: Black, dark green, pink, cream, light green, light blue, grey, red
- Other: IP68 water resistance, 5G, S Pen
- Price: 43,900-59,900 baht
