Hey everyone! Today we are going to be talking about the S23 Ultra which has been the topic of many conversations in the past few months! But now the hype is over, how is the S23 Ultra holding up…
Screen
Amazing! There is no other word that I can think of to describe the S23 Ultras' display. I would go so far to say that its probably my favourite part of the phone. Spec wise, it rocks a 6.8” AMOLED 120hz display with 1750 nits of brightness. I can’t lie, watching Netflix or a YouTube video on this is just next level.
Battery life and charging
Coming from the S22 Ultra, this was a huge upgrade. I really loved the S22 Ultra but it was lacking in the battery department due to the Exynos chipset but with this new Snapdragon chip inside of the S23 Ultra, the battery is on par with the top battery phones on the market currently! I never had any issues getting through the day with high usage, I'd usually end the day with 40% like I used to with the iPhone 13 Pro Max. Another cool thing is that this phone chargers really quickly, and it supports usb c which is a big W in my book, cough cough Apple. I got to the point with this phone that 30 mins of charging it in the morning would get me through each day with no issues at all, which is very impressive.
Vs iPhone 14 pro max
So I've been using the iPhone 14 pro max for a fair few months now as my main device, and don’t get me wrong, I love it, but for the most part the S23 Ultra is an arguably better device all round. The screen on the S23 Ultra is better and bigger, it has more zoom on the cameras, a better battery life, it's more comfortable to hold and it has the S pen. Yes the iPhone does have some advantages too, the display goes brighter and the speakers sound nicer, but that’s about it to be honest! I'd say photography wise, the S23 Ultra definitely has a lot more options than the iPhone but it all comes down to how you like your photos to look, I personally prefer the consistency of the iPhone but I can’t deny how good the zoom is on the Samsung. Having up to 30X optical zoom is just wild, the iPhone can't even do that digitally. of course a lot of the time the decision between these two phones will come down to if you prefer iOS or Android which is a personal preference.
Camera samples!
I wont spend too much time going on about how cool the camera is, I'll just upload some samples for you all too have a gander at! I’ve had a lot of fun using the 200mp sensor on the S23 Ultra and the incredible zoom.
(More samples can be found on the highlights section of my Instagram page)
S pen
“Who needs a stylus” well I can’t say I’m an avid S pen user but I do think its actually pretty handy to have, just for taking notes, signing documents and all that jazz, the kinda stuff I use my Apple Pencil for on my iPad. My only wish was that the S pen matched the colour of the phone, for some reason I got the black s pen with my purple phone. In terms of using it, it's really responsive and feels like a premium experience, the only issues I had with it, was the occasional connection issue which meant I couldn’t use air gestures without putting it back into the slot and then taking it back out to reconnect it, which was a pain but I'm sure that it can be fixed with a software update if it hasn't already. Also, my partner uses it for sudoku so at least he has a use case for it 😂
Should you upgrade?
If you’ve read any of my other reviews, you probably know what I’m going to say next. It completely depends on on factor, you. Do you really need a new phone? What’s wrong with your current phone? What do you use your phone for? If you answer those questions and you think that the S23 Ultra is the phone for you, then I'd say go for it! It's an amazing device, one of the best you can actually buy right now, and that is no over statement. You would definitely enjoy using it!
My final thoughts
I've really enjoyed using the S23 Ultra, it's a complete power house. But now I’m curious to see how Samsung can further improve it with the S24 Ultra and beyond...
Thank you for reading everyone!