Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra review

11 February 2023


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  • C
  • Carlos
  • mQm
  • 13 Feb 2023

I'm missing a section for pets and childrens on the camera section. One of the best things on Pixel it's to take a picture of a dancing children and have a nice face, and not a blurry one.

Daytime pictures are great on all high end phones, but for many people, those daily shoots with family and friends, make the difference!

    • ?
    • Anonymous
    • nyc
    • 13 Feb 2023

    I think Samsung has put itself in kind of a difficult position with this masterpiece.
    This is basically a smartphone solved entirely and peaked.
    So when it comes to classic form factors, they will have a very tough task to entice customers again..save for the punch hole, there's just nothing left that can be improved noticeably.

    I think the S23 series will mark a turning point for Samsung's business..a point beyond a shift to foldables will start to take place.

      • Y
      • Yo
      • iEH
      • 13 Feb 2023

      What's the difference between an Ultra review and a regular review?

        AcademicBarzo, 13 Feb 2023Premium wireless headphones are one of the biggest growth a... morewhy is the basic aptx not good enough tho like is it because of the bitrate or because of the connection problems/latency?

          jiyen235, 13 Feb 2023tbh not many headphones are there that properly use those c... morePremium wireless headphones are one of the biggest growth areas in the last few years, with virtually every manufacturer producing headphones with aptx adaptive. Few include LDAC.

          For example:
          Sennheiser Momentum 4 and True Wireless 3 earbuds
          Bowers & Wilkins PX7 S2, PX8, Pi7 S2
          Focal Bathys
          Beyerdynamic Amiron Wireless (apt-x hd only)
          B&O H9

          The list goes on. Point is these are more premium options, which Samsung's flagship hobbles in use by only providing basic apt-x support. That's just not good enough, especially when cheap as chips phones from Motorola and others have aptx adaptive support.

            • f
            • fro0st
            • nyf
            • 13 Feb 2023

            Why GsmArena doest measure the PWM in the Display test, very sad. :(

              RayVone, 13 Feb 2023No cons? - Very high price - The smartphone is big and h... moreThe phone being big and heavy is the point lol, also samsung's one handed mode is killer and i use it a lot. Dunno about the sound tho, best to hear it in person and then judge it I'd say. The photos aren't bad in daytime. Idk what you'd consider as good then. The photos are indeed overprocessed tho, and samsung does a very weird thing by always going for a higher iso than needed, resulting in very coarse noise. Then they use aggressive noise reduction and then use aggressive amounts of sharpening to "attempt" to get back the detail. HOWEVER, they do deserve some props for allowing you to reduce the sharpening in the Camera Assistant app. I'm just mad they didn't at all improve their other 3 lens in the back. The part about SD card is indeed frustrating and makes me think that naming this an "ultra" phone which is basically like a note now, is an insult to its legacy. The reviewer could have also talked about the increased prices in regions other than the US for a phone that's not a HUGE upgrade. Mid phone but tbh all other phones are also kinda mid as well so it's like choose the lesser evil

                • K
                • Kontol
                • tZk
                • 13 Feb 2023

                Good

                  dazed1, 13 Feb 2023Have you seen this "8bit display" in person, espe... moreIf you don't understand the difference between these premium features then why get the ultra/defend it? I mean if you're just a normal user get a normal midrange phone then. This phone costs 1200 dollars and much more in other regions. It doesn't even have dolby vision and its display is 8 bit which is less than chinese mid rangers. Gradients would look much worse especially in movies that are in 10 bit containers, unless you apply debanding which can and most likely WILL scrub away details.

                    • ?
                    • Anonymous
                    • t7X
                    • 13 Feb 2023

                    I find gsmarena's review of the S23 Ultra 'interesting' to say the least. It seems the review was 'sanitized' or 'euphemized' to avoid any clear mention of the S23 Ultra's glaring faults or weaknesses.

                    No comment on the S23 Ultra's oversharpening and overprocessing? I'm sure the gsmarena team reviewing can see it from the photos. The S23 ultra photos look overprocessed. It's like they were edited with Google photos with the 'pop' slider moved all the way to 100% resulting in extremely dirty looking shadows that overemphasized details that are not normally seen in real life. Tree branches with white outlines / halos. Smooth textures that weirdly become rough looking due to overcooked post-processing. Plain flat uniform surfaces that suddenly acquire faux/fake textures that to the inexperienced eye looks 'lots and lots of detail' with 'added noise'. It's all clearly visible in gsmarena's photo compare tool. And after all that, no 'Cons' at all other than nothing has changed. But the fact is, Samsung's processing is a lot worse in the S23 ultra than in the S22 ultra.

                    Samsung really needs to fix this overprocessing so people won't sideload GCam and stop using the default Samsung camera. The S22 ultra photos are more pleasant and realistic and not much different from the S23 ultra in terms of detail retention.

                      • N
                      • Not sure
                      • vCL
                      • 13 Feb 2023

                      I went into a Samsung store ready to buy the new S 23 ultra and when I took about five pictures identical to ones I shot on my iPhone 13 promax the pro max left the S 23 ultra for dead.
                      It was in the Samsung store, so for example I took a photo of the new S 23 poster and the lilac phone looked like baby blue on the S23 and was blurry also. I’m not capping. I’d even picked out accessories for my new ultra.

                      Trust me I was deflated and left speechless. I really don’t know how much I believe all these “reviews”

                        AcademicBarzo, 12 Feb 2023Correct. Virtually every other Snapdragon phone has somethi... moretbh not many headphones are there that properly use those codecs and are good quality headphones. Most are just consumer oriented v-shaped ugly ahh headphones/earphones.

                          Anonymous, 13 Feb 2023Does said PC contain a sim card in it and fits into your po... moreomg bro didn't know that, thanks a lot! I know the difference between a pc and a phone now

                            McKinley, 12 Feb 2023What world are you living in where you can buy a good PC fo... moreI said "nice enough", it doesn't have to be particularly good just nice enough to run games at 1080p and have fun.

                              Anonymous, 13 Feb 2023What are you talking about? That's how adaptive 120 Hz... moreI can understand what he's trying to say. He wants the adaptive HRR feature but doesn't want the OneUI (or any other Android UI skins) to run constantly at 120Hz or higher. I second that idea since I'm using 60Hz all the time except during mobile gaming. After all, loads of mobile apps still don't have HRR support in the first place.

                                Cons: Even less curve than S22 ultra, two sides still reflect light
                                Heavy

                                  RayVone, 13 Feb 2023No cons? - Very high price - The smartphone is big and h... moreIt is also thick and chunky..but i like it it has shorter aspect ratio 19.3:9 rather than typical 20:9

                                    RayVone, 13 Feb 2023No cons? - Very high price - The smartphone is big and h... moreIt is definitely is less than honest review, I pointed this out on the so called "hot take" article but it was promptly deleted. You just know when someone tries to suppress your voice you are on the right trail for clues. ;)

                                      AnonD-1026503, 13 Feb 2023oh boohoohoo. maybe one day if you have enough money to aff... moreNope I dont waste money on depreciating items like phones/electronics/computer hardware, I always put money into ventures that gets me ROI. Simpletons like yourself will buy these I am sure.

                                        No cons?
                                        - Very high price
                                        - The smartphone is big and heavy.
                                        - Difficult to operate with one hand
                                        - Sound that pulls a little in the treble
                                        - Charging, still not very fast
                                        - Bad daytime 12MP shots.
                                        - The 200MP photos (the primary argument of the smartphone) are below 50MP, isn't that a joke?
                                        - The photos are overprocessed.
                                        - For a smartphone that takes 200mp photos and 8K videos that weighs a lot, it should have an SD slot.

                                        SO I want to know, this review was funded by Samsung? Or written by a fanboy right? GSMARENA you fall low in my esteem.

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