Samsung Galaxy S23+ review

A gorgeous 6.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display

Samsung is second to none when it comes to mobile display tech. As an industry leader, expecting the best panels in their flagship devices is only natural. This is definitely the case with the Galaxy S23 generation, even though the display tech doesn't appear to feature any major changes from last year. Even so, Samsung's Dynamic AMOLED 2X is all-around excellent in every way. Plus, all of the odd miscommunication regarding the adaptive refresh rate from the S22 generation has now been cleared up for the S23 line.

Let's start with brightness first. Some of you might remember the 1,750 nits of advertised peak brightness from last year's Galaxy S22 line. Well, it's back for the S23 generation, and this time around, all three of the phones should be able to achieve that frankly insane number. This is obviously not achievable while the entire display is shining white. That's just how OLED panels work in general.

Also here to shay is the "Extra brightness" toggle originally introduced last year with the S22 line. It is different from the absolute maximum brightness achievable in sunlight and only works with auto-brightness turned off. It is meant to unlock some extra "manual brightness" on the slider.

Extra brightness toggle in settings

First, we measured just under 471 nits in Vivid mode on the slider. Turning on Extra brightness mode results in a max of just over 768 nits. That is already quite impressive. Turning Extra brightness off and auto-brightness back on and then maxing out the reading on the light sensor of the S23+ allowed us to actually measure the whopping 1,205 nits of absolute maximum brightness. This is nothing short of a chart-topping result. Well, sans for the current iPhone. We are also happy to see that the numbers align with those from the Galaxy S22+.

Mind you, our testing methodology is standardized for comparability and differs from Samsung's own. We have no doubt that the advertised 1,750 nits figure is achievable when the brightness output is measured with a smaller active screen area.

But simply shining brighter is just part of the battle to make the display more legible under bright sunlight. Samsung also aims to deliver the best possible picture in terms of contrast and colors. For this, the S22 family debuted a technology called Vision Booster. It is also present on the S23 line and has expanded functionality with three different levels of brightness and color adjustment.

Vision Booster uses data from the phone's light sensor to determine the properties of the surrounding ambient light and then does per-pixel tone mapping to get the best possible picture. Said picture will, by definition, be extremely distorted color and contrast-wise in absolute terms, but the goal is to counteract the ambient light in any way possible.

It is hard to judge just how effective Vision Booster is in absolute terms. Samsung phones have always gone above and beyond to ensure good visibility, even in harsh lighting conditions. This is just an admirable next step to that same effort.

On the subject of colors, we expect nothing short of excellence from Samsung's flagships and, for the most part, were not disappointed by the Galaxy S23+. Well, aside from the fact it is still stuck with 8-bit color, while competitors offer 10 and even 12-bit.

The S23+ has two color modes in typical Samsung fashion - Vivid and Natural. The first aims for the DCI-P3 color space and gets close to what we consider color-accurate. The color volume is there, but the default palette is just a bit too cold. Using the manual slider to warm up the colors by one move on the slider results in deviation within what we would consider color accurate (DCI-P3).

Display color settings

Then there is the natural mode, which aims for sRGB and basically nails that on the head with max deltaE values of just 2.8. The S23+ is very color-accurate against sRGB.

While on the topic of colors, the S23+ has industry-leading HDR support, arguably second only to the S23 Ultra. The S23+ reports HDR10, HDR10+ and HLG support in software. The only standard that is missing is Dolby Vision. Naturally, it also has Google's highest Widevine L1 DRM certification, allowing it to stream high-definition video from services like Netflix.

HDR support • Widevine DRM • Netflix playback capabilities

Netflix was more than happy to serve us the maximum 1080p resolution needed to saturate the native 1080p+ resolution of the S23+ in gorgeous HDR, which, as you can imagine, really pops thanks to the incredible maximum brightness of its panel.

High refresh rate handling

The Galaxy S23+ has a Dynamic AMOLED 2x display that can refresh at up to 120Hz. There is also automatic refresh rate switching. Both parts were true for the entire Galaxy S22 lineup as well and are being carried forward. As we mentioned, Samsung had some issues properly communicating the adaptive refresh rate behavior for its S22 line, including the S22+. This has since been cleared up, and we are happy to report that the S23+ shares the same smarts when it comes to refresh rate switching.

In order to properly explain our findings, we need to make a distinction between screen refresh rate and UI rendering or framerate. Checking the Android 12 support APIs on the S22+ reveals that its panel can refresh in one of the following modes: 10Hz, 24Hz, 30Hz, 48Hz, 60Hz, 96Hz and 120Hz. The actual fps the UI is being rendered at is not the same figure as the ones quoted above. In order to monitor that, Samsung has included a nifty tool in the Developer menu called GPU Watch, which exposes an overlay for what the Android SurfaceFlinger is outputting to the graphical buffer. In other words, this is an fps counter rather than a refresh rate setting for the display.

Supported refresh rates • GPU Watch

The Galaxy S23+ has a very smart and efficient way of managing both its refresh rate and render frame rate. Unlike its bigger brother - the S23 Ultra, its display lacks an LTPO substrate and is instead using the simpler LTPS technology. This somewhat limits it in terms of how dynamically it can switch refresh rates. Even so, it does an excellent job.

The basic logic is that the refresh rate is kept at 120Hz while interacting with the display and then drops down to 24Hz when nothing is happening on screen. We never saw it drop down to the advertised 10Hz. In these cases, the rendering frame rate can drop to 1fps as well to save power. However, the S23+ is smart enough to detect what is happening on-screen during these idling portions. If a given app is rendering at 60fps during its idle cycle, then the refresh rate will drop to 60Hz to accommodate that.

The same behavior is also observed while playing back video, either locally or streamed. The phone will actually detect the video's frame rate and match the display refresh rate accordingly. Play a 24 fps clip - the S23+ is smart enough to run its display at 24Hz. 30fps results in 30Hz, and 60fps does 60Hz - you get the point. We only rarely managed to trip up this logic. It works impressively well.

One exception to the norm we noticed was related to HDR video playback in particular. Once HDR gets actually triggered and the display enters "HDR mode," its refresh rate gets locked to 120Hz regardless of the fps of the HDR content being played. This is not ideal for battery savings, and the S23 Ultra maintains its refresh rate switching logic during HDR playback. This, however, is a case of the S23 Ultra excelling at what it does rather than a deficiency to attribute to the S23+.

Unfortunately, there is no way for us to screenshot and show you this refresh rate and frame rate behavior since the instant you go in to get a screenshot refresh rate jumps up to 120Hz. You'll just have to trust our observations when we say that the S23+ has excellent refresh rate handling all around.

Naturally, we tried playing a few games that we know can render at over 60fps as well, and most of these worked great on the S23+, making proper use of its 120Hz display.

High refresh rate gaming

Battery life

This year, Samsung managed to cram a slightly bigger battery inside the Galaxy S23+. The pack is now rated for 4,700mAh of usual capacity, up from 4,500 mAh in last year's model. The change is not a major one. The swap to a Qualcomm chipset will arguably make more of a difference to battery life on European units like ours this generation. Gone is Samsung's own Exynos chip, and every S23 model and unit this year is equipped with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 - Qualcomm's latest and greatest. At 4nm, we expect nothing short of excellent efficiency from the chipset.

The Galaxy S23+ does not disappoint in the battery department. It managed an excellent Active Use Score of almost 14 hours. It did great in both off-screen and on-screen tests.

Charging speed

Samsung has been working hard to streamline its charging technology for a few years of models now and, for the large part, succeeding in the process. The name of the game for Samsung charging has been standardization and not just internal, but rather adopting forward-thinking and futureproof industry-charging standards, namely Power Delivery 3.0 with PPS (Programmable Power Supply) support.

While a move to industry standards is generally a great thing, Samsung has admittedly been struggling a bit with its adoption, particularly when it comes to wattage ratings. After oscillating between 25W and 45W for a few generations, for better or worse, Samsung is still stuck on the same charging rates as before. Namely, the S23+ and Ultra support 45W charging, whereas the vanilla S23 is rated for 25W.

Just to be on the safe side, we decided to test charging on the S23+ with a 25W official Samsung charger and a 65W one.

Consistency seems to be the name of the game when it comes to Samsung's charging. You can expect most of the Korean giant's recent flagships to get a full charge in around an hour, and the S23+ is no different. Just like on last year's S22+, having a 25W or a 45W or even higher wattage charger, for that matter, seems to make very little difference to both total charging time and a 30-minute charge cycle. Hence, we are once again confident in recommending a 25W charger purchase to go along with your new Galaxy S23+.

While on the topic of charging, the battery charging limit option from last year is still present in the battery settings menu, though very well hidden. It imposes an 85% charging limit. We also find the familiar toggles for turning off Fast Charging. Still, there is room for improvement in this department. We would love to see some sort of smart charging system implemented, akin to Qnovo or Apple's relatively new Optimized Battery Charging option as a way to safely overnight charge. But, we digress.

Battery charging limiter and options

One new option this year regarding battery charging is the ability to bypass charging altogether and simply power the phone via the USB port without charging the battery. This is great for gaming which is probably why the option is buried in the Samsung Game Booster settings rather than the battery menu. Still, it is greatly appreciated. Our review unit still doesn't have the option, but we read about its announcement online and are expecting it shortly.

Rounding off this section - a few quick words on chargers since there isn't one inside the box of the S23+. As we said, Samsung has adopted Power Delivery 3.0 with PPS support for its charging needs. While an established industry standard, it still has its nuances, particularly in the complexity and extent of implementation of the PPS standard.

The potential issue boils down to the fact that there is no easy way to determine if any particular third-party charger will work well with the S22+ and charge it at full speed, even if the charger is technically PD + PPS with enough wattage. This is not a new issue either. We discussed it in depth all the way back in 2019 when the Galaxy Note10+ was relevant with its 45W charging.

We recommend just sticking to Samsung's official chargers for the best possible experience. At the time of writing, Samsung.com lists a 25W unit, 45W one and potentially in the pipeline - a 65W brick with three USB outputs.

Samsung chargers: 25W • 45W • 65W

This was true for the S22+ and remains true for the S23+. If you do insist on going the third-party route, our recommendation would be to stick to reputable brands and try to find relevant reviews. The situation with PPS, in particular, has been improving, which is a plus. Ideally, once you get the charger, you want to see a "Super Fast Charging 2.0" message appear when you connect it to the S23+. That's how you know you are indeed getting the fastest possible charging speed.

Speakers

The S23+ has a hybrid stereo speaker system with an amplified earpiece acting as the second channel. This is a pretty common setup and one that is carried forward from the Galaxy S22+. In our loudness test, the S23+ managed a "GOOD" score, just narrowly missing the mark to enter into "VERY GOOD" territory.

As you can imagine, in practice, the S23+ and S22+ don't really differ in terms of loudness. The two speaker systems are also very similar in terms of frequency response. The S23+ offers a nice and tight response in the mids. The sound stage is nice and wide in general. Lows sounds, perhaps, a bit better, subjectively on the S23+ compared to the S22+.

Samsung did a decent job balancing the two speakers, but there is only so much that can be done given their major difference in size, both internally, with the earpiece barely having an echo chamber, as well as the size of their output "holes", for lack of a better term.

The bottom speaker ends up producing most of the sound and has a wider sound stage and better frequency response. Without purposefully covering any of the two, though, in practice, the setup sounds really impressive.

In terms of additional options, the S23+ is packing Dolby Atmos with general multimedia profiles, as well as a version specifically for games. Both do take away from the max loudness of the phone, though. There is also an equalizer, a UHQ upscaler and Adapt sound that lets you tune the sound to your liking or hearing needs. Separate app sound is a particularly nifty trick that lets you play the sound from just a given app on a separate audio device like a Bluetooth speaker or headset while the phone is free to play other audio.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.