Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra review • TechCrunch

samsung Big and best. A big, sassy, ​​bold, kitchen-sink phone. The company, which brought phablets to the mainstream 12 years ago, has never given up on its big dreams for big phones. Last year, the company took a risk — discontinuing its beloved Note line. While I stand by my initial assessment that the Samsung Galaxy S22 Note served as a good branding compromise, the justification behind the move makes sense.

For one, there was barely any sunlight left between the lines of the Galaxy S and Note. From a design standpoint, it became increasingly difficult to distinguish between the two. The idea of ​​a big phone is more normal than novel these days, and the addition of S Pen functionality to the former was the final straw. It was also a logical move to combine two similar premium his lines, also due to the simple fact that people aren’t buying phones like they used to.

All of this allowed Samsung to put its money where its mouth used to be when it comes to foldables. I admit I had some doubts when the company declared the Galaxy Z Fold its flagship. I was. Analysts estimate Samsung’s shipments of foldables so far at around 10 million units in the middle of last year. That’s not a problem, it’s a clear advantage of being the only game in a foldable town.

Samsung is far from being a mobile phone maker in the premium space, but the company continues to dominate the sales charts alongside Apple. While happily filling in the blanks, Samsung remains a premium Android smartphone.

The Galaxy S23 Ultra is, for all intents and purposes, the Galaxy Note 23. It’s not just a spiritual successor, it’s the product the device has almost certainly become. ), and it’s arguably the most premium device the company has to offer.

The good news is that swapping out a few key features could bring the S23’s starting price down to $800. This is considered a reasonable price for a flagship from one of the two major phone makers these days. ), camera and stylus features. 6.1-inch handsets are still the workhorses, and not everyone needs a 200-million-pixel camera sensor or a 6.8-inch phone.

The $1,000 Galaxy S23+ splits the difference somewhat. The 6.6-inch display and 4,700mAh battery are close to the S23 Ultra. Once again, the 200-megapixel main camera has been demoted to 50-megapixel, removing the stylus feature entirely. If you can live without these parts, it’s probably $100 more than the entry-level iPhone 14 Pro, not a particularly attractive upgrade, as is probably the majority of buyers of Samsung’s flagship products. higher.

One of the biggest drawbacks of the Galaxy S line soaking up notes is that lovers of the latter don’t have much room to move freely. This is likely due to the fact that, despite the success of the Note, mobile phones with stylus capabilities remain relatively niche. From a pure numbers standpoint, it makes sense to keep the product, but you probably won’t be able to build an entire product line.

In other words, if you need this functionality, you need all the other functionality that comes with it. Samsung has offered bespoke colors across its product lines for a while now, but bespoke features are something else entirely when it comes to mass-producing consumer electronics. It’s hard to argue that it “needs”, but many owners of premium Samsung devices have found S Pen-based note-taking to be very useful for their work, and we can’t argue with that. .

Notably, all three models feature the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor. Qualcomm’s latest flagship brings a lot when it comes to upgrades. In the meantime, network-dependent Wi-Fi 6 and 6E speeds are available.

As ever, increased processing power is the true headliner. Our S23 Ultra (with 12GB RAM and 512GB storage) scored 1434 on Geekbench 5 single core and 4787 multicore. – iPhone party silicone. The whole phone experience is smooth. Years of hardware and software evolution have produced sleek products that switch between apps, play games, and watch videos quickly, responsively, and more.

This year’s phone design has changed in a boxy direction, away from the smooth, rounded corners of previous models. It’s like a complicated blessing. Maybe it’s just me, but while the push towards perfectly sleek devices is aesthetically pleasing, they’re – literally – hard to hold on to. Those who already have trouble holding the 6.8-inch phone in one hand may find it even more difficult here. and S23+, with a more industrial and perhaps business-focused design.

The S23 line is the first manufacturer to feature Gorilla Glass Victus 2, announced late last year. That’s consolation for not being the first to feature the newer Qualcomm chipset. But just like that, you’re likely to see a few (or dozens) of systems with Corning’s latest chipsets. And why? Durability should be in the top 3 or 5 most requested features among phone buyers. The flagship was once his one of the most expensive and fragile handsets you can buy.

In addition to improved scratch resistance, the material is rated to survive a 1-meter drop on concrete and a 2-meter drop on asphalt. I hope you never have to test it on a $1,200 phone, but most of us have been there at some point. Before leaving the topic of the material, it is important to highlight Samsung’s ongoing commitment to sustainability. A little more cynically, we can say that the best way to reduce e-waste is to free the consumer from his 2 to 3 year upgrade cycle, but what doesn’t work is that we We both know. Businesses are always looking for new ways to move more trading volume.

On top of that, marketing interest aside, companies should absolutely be encouraged to repurpose material whenever possible. Much of Samsung’s efforts on that front have focused on making materials from old fishing nets, water barrels and plastic bottles. increase. Samsung also dropped a lot of the extra packaging to ship a few generations ago.

The rear camera placement remains the same. A 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera with autofocus is on top, a 200-megapixel wide-angle camera in the middle, and a 10-megapixel telephoto camera on the bottom. Another 10 megapixel lens with space zoom (3x, 10x optical) is placed to the left of the 200 million pixel lens.

As usual, the cameras are here. For years it has been a major battleground where flagship wars have been fought, Samsung has largely gone up against his Apple on that front, but in Huawei’s absence he’s faced a bitter slump with Xiaomi and other Chinese companies. There is competition. Despite having no market share, Google has also become a formidable challenger. Thanks to a brilliant combination of hardware and AI-driven computational photography.

The 200-megapixel sensor is the headline, both literally and figuratively. Interestingly, the S23 Ultra doesn’t seem to be the first smartphone with an ultra-high megapixel sensor. That honor seems to belong to the very affordable Xiaomi 12T Pro which is a big surprise as Samsung has long been one of his suppliers of the biggest components for other phones not.

I’ll be quick to point out that megapixels aren’t everything. Yes, of course, but the evolution of mobile cameras is making better use of all those pixels. In other words, it utilizes binning to combine information from multiple pixels to create a kind of larger superpixel that can collect more light and produce sharper images with less noise.

The camera array is really good. A 200 million pixel sensor feels unnecessary in most settings, but it has its moments. Most users don’t often need to shoot large files at full resolution. If you want to get the perfect professional photo, the phone can shoot in RAW and edit in Adobe Lightroom by default.

For the average user, the hardware and software combination works well out of the box. The Ultra works well in low light and the optical zoom is a lifesaver. It can be up to 100x, but I increased it to about 10x so as not to reduce the image quality. Overall, though, he’s one of the best zoom (and overall camera) experiences available on a phone in 2023.

The screen is still beautiful. The 6.8-inch AMOLED display features a resolution of 3,088 x 1,440 versus 2,340 x 1,080 on the S23 and S23+. All three have an adjustable 120Hz refresh rate. The Ultra also peaks at 1,750 nits, which is very bright. The maximum size of a mobile phone means more space for the battery. At 5,00mAh, I had no problems using it for more than a day. 45W wired charging provides quick charge when the battery is low.

The Galaxy S23 Ultra is, as expected, a great smartphone. From the big, bright screen and ample battery to the versatile camera array and S Pen features, it’s a true no-compromise Android handset. It’s a very expensive device that is the true definition of getting what you pay for.