Samsung's Galaxy S23 Ultra is a worthy heir to the Note
- Reference: 1684209554
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/05/16/samsung_galaxy_s23_ultra_review/
- Source link:
Samsung's Galaxy S23 Ultra has me tempted.
It's been years since I unboxed a handset and felt it catch my eye. The S23 Ultra did so quickly – it resembles a cross section of a fantasy sword's blade, with serious (but not threateningly sharp) edges, sharp charcoal gray tones, and a sturdy cross-section.
[1]
The machine is the successor, in all but name, to the Galaxy Note – the product Samsung pioneered as a halfway house between a tablet and a phone. At 163.4 x 78.1 x 8.9mm it's close to unwieldy in one hand, but compensating for that bulk is a 3088 x 1440, 6.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED display. That makes it worth getting a grip on because colors pop, video flows, and gaming action is smooth.
[2]
[3]
The octa-core processor can hit 3.3GHz, and the machine always felt fast in use. The CPU was also kind to the battery, which sipped just three percent of capacity per hour when using the GPS-intensive Strava exercise-tracking app – a task I usually find drains more power than almost any other.
I used Strava while cycling on a humid morning, during which the Galaxy was just a strip of lycra away from my sweaty skin. The phone emerged utterly unscathed.
[4]
Samsung's S-Pen is present, and is easier to grip than its predecessors, and nicely responsive. But I've never really found a use for it – while the S23 Ultra is large, it's not big enough to offer a canvas for meaningful amounts of handwriting. That makes the pen's qualities moot.
It doesn't help that Samsung keeps making the mistake of putting the pen's housing on the left of the phone. As a right-hander I tend to hold a handset in my left paw and operate it with my right. Putting the S-Pen in the left means it's hidden beneath the heel of the palm, making it hard to access without some contortions. This arrangement also means the pen is usually invisible – out of sight and mind.
[5]
Galaxy S23 Ultra – Click to enlarge
I set the Ultra next to an iPhone 14 and ran the Otter real time transcription tool on both during the same speech. The Samsung machine slightly outpaced the Apple, and also appears to have a superior microphone as text output was more accurate.
The camera produced mixed results. I gave it the nasty job of shooting a panorama from a balcony with a curved handrail and it couldn't cope.
[6]
This fence confused the S23 when shooting a panorama. But the phone did well on the evening sky. Click to enlarge
It did better with an iron front fence in my neighborhood, picking out the texture of nearly a century's rust and reapplied layers of paint.
[7]
I think the camera did well on color and shading, and detail on the fence. However focusing on the grass seems an odd choice. Click to enlarge
The zoom is very impressive. Here it is inside a football stadium, shooting from one end to the other.
[8]
Galaxy S23 Ultra at its maximum 10x zoom, picking out stadium seats at a range of ~150 meters – Click to enlarge
I find that, where iOS fits the devices on which it runs like skin, Android feels more like clothing. The S23 Ultra retains that feeling because there are moments when you feel like you're in Google's world – not Samsung's – and get tossed between the two.
Overall, however, the S23 Ultra appears to offer everything one should expect from a premium handset in terms of amenity and performance. And it just looks great, too – a factor I found surprisingly alluring after years of anonymous rounded rectangles.
The one thing holding me back from adopting it is the $1,200 price tag – a figure that exceeds the price of both my somewhat posh Italian bicycle and my work laptop. It's a big sum to carve out of a personal budget, in this or any other economy. Even on a plan, the device isn't cheap now that carriers are less generous with their handset subsidies.
[9]
Not helping matters at all is a recent advert in my local paper for Samsung's S21 at the same price as its latest midrange handset - a price that feels more than fair for a two-year-old device that won't be markedly worse than this year's model. With the prospect of big savings if I wait, and the the prospect of migrating my mobile life being utterly loathsome, I'm therefore willing to hold off on the S23 Ultra.
For a while. I think. Possibly. ®
Bootnote: As it happens, I've just got my hands on Samsung’s latest midrange: the A54. In a few weeks I'll compare it to the S23. ®
Get our [10]Tech Resources
[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZGNUQl6LK941jazNDklt0QAAAAI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZGNUQl6LK941jazNDklt0QAAAAI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZGNUQl6LK941jazNDklt0QAAAAI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZGNUQl6LK941jazNDklt0QAAAAI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://regmedia.co.uk/2023/05/16/supplied_galaxy_s23_ultra.jpg
[6] https://regmedia.co.uk/2023/05/04/galaxys23ultra_sky.jpg
[7] https://regmedia.co.uk/2023/05/04/galaxys23ultra_garden.jpg
[8] https://regmedia.co.uk/2023/05/04/galaxys23ultra_max_zoom.jpg
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZGNUQl6LK941jazNDklt0QAAAAI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Too powerful ?
Personally I have given up on the flag ships, their power, memory cameras etc are only marginally better than the mid range models.
A 10% processor boost is meaningless when you see how much today's mid range procs can already do. 5 extra mega pixels is already above what any actually needs for an image that will probably never get seen for a smartphone pic.
Flag ships are now just a status thing, they gave no actual benefits other than an extremely fleeting ego booster. Everyone loves a new toy but the feeling wears off quickly.(
It's been a along time in our office since anyone even asked what model someone recently acquired .
I would go so far as to state that at a distance most models can't even be distinguishe apart, everyone wraps up their device in the same black plastic casing anyway.
I did like the article even though as it reminded me just how over powerfull smartphones have become. Yes there are tiny percentage of users that might require this power, but they are very rare. We have gone above and beyond even what the Trekkies expected.
Re: Too powerful ?
Much like laptops, mobile's became good enough for most people, almost all done the time, years ago.
I don't know anyone who upgrades for any reason other than breakage anymore
What's the result
if you try and take apicture of the moon?
Re: What's the result
An indecent exposure charge?
The title is no longer required.
It has no iris scanner, and face unlock is terrible. A month in, and it seems like a step back from my Note 9 so far.
Shrug….
I’m surprised anyone can get even vaguely excited (or even just vaguely interested) in a phone these days.
Re: Shrug….
Came here to say something similar. Apart from a Fairphone (which is expensive partly for [1]reasons other than being "flagship" ) I've never bought a phone more expensive than about £160* until last week when I bought a second-hand phone at £300 which originally had a price tag of around £700 I think.
There is very, very little to choose between my expensive phone and the cheaper ones. It has a slightly better camera setup (a fixed 5x zoom for example) but for general use I'm all "meh".
There may be certain use-cases for ultra fast processors, ultra high-resolution screens, ultra-megapixel cameras, but if I want a mini laptop I'd rather shell out for something from [2]Planet Computers which has a keyboard, or (if they can sort the software out) a Pinephone with a [3]snap-on keyboard back which also happens to double the battery capacity.
I'm bloomin' nervous even carrying a second-hand phone around given how often I tend to drop the things. The Pinephone and the Fairphone both have reasonably-priced and user-fittable spare parts. My last phone did me for just over 9 years (could really have replaced it from about year 7 onwards but didn't have the cash back then) so we'll see how this one gets on...
M.
*I don't buy a lot of phones for myself (hence the 9-year-old one), but family do tend to ask me to buy for them, so in the last five or six years I've bought and set up six (I think) smart phones (that's not counting the non-smart phones), one of which was a Fairphone but the others all under £160 IIRC. Given that many of these people are teenagers who tend to hammer their phones (though they're not into gaming other than a bit of [4]Super Tux Kart ) I've had absolutely no complaints about storage capacity, camera quality, device speed, battery life or any of the other things ("do my mates think it's ok?") that are supposedly "better" the more you pay for a phone.
[1] https://www.fairphone.com/en/story/
[2] https://store.planetcom.co.uk/
[3] https://pine64.com/product/pinephone-pinephone-pro-keyboard-case/
[4] https://supertuxkart.net/Main_Page
"Football"
These aren't the goals you're looking for
No expandable storage, no deal
I used Galaxy devices from the S2 to the Note 9 but I travel for work a lot and not being able to carry a nice media library for when I'm stuck somewhere is an absolute deal breaker.