Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra review: A big-screen phone that's overkill in all the right ways

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• The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is one of the most souped-up smartphones you can buy in the US.
• But starting at $1,200, it's also the most expensive premium flagship phone from any maker.
• The S23 Ultra is highly recommended, but there are other compelling phones with lower price tags.

The Galaxy S23 Ultra represents the apex of Samsung's offerings, and the pinnacle of Android phones you can buy in the US when it comes to design, performance, and features. That's all well and good, but it's also the most expensive non-foldable phone. 

Starting at $1,200, the Galaxy S23 Ultra is $100 more than the iPhone 14 Pro Max, $300 more than Google's Pixel 7 Pro, and $500 more than the OnePlus 11. To be worthy of consideration, the S23 Ultra needs to make an attractive proposition.

Overall, it achieves that proposition. Samsung has graced the Galaxy S23 Ultra with features  and attributes that exceed those found on the competition, like a large screen, four highly capable cameras, an S Pen stylus, and an optimized processor for superlative performance.

A refinement on Samsung's ultra-premium design

The Galaxy S23 Ultra is immediately recognizable if you've been keeping up with Samsung's high-end phones. It's nearly identical to the previous Galaxy S22 Ultra, but the edges are now flatter. Apart from that, there's little here to surprise you. 

Still, all around, this is one classy, high-end device. 

The S23 Ultra's sharper corners impart a classier vibe than phones with rounded corners, like the standard S23 and S23 Plus' and even the iPhone 14 lineup. The minimalist rear camera design is also sophisticated in its simplicity. 

The borders around the display are as thin as can be for that all-screen experience. Samsung is also finally realizing that curved screen edges are gimmicks that distort what you see on the screen edges, as the curve on S23 Ultra screen's edges is the least pronounced and least distorting in recent memory on Galaxy S Ultra phones.

Speedy performance and improved battery life delivered by a custom Snapdragon processor

Most high-end Android phones in the US in a given year run on the same Qualcomm Snapdragon processor — the most powerful mobile processor available to them — which means most of these phones have nearly identical, excellent performance.

However, Samsung says its Galaxy S23 lineup runs on a version of 2023's top Android processor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, that's optimized specially for Galaxy phones for extra performance.

That much seems true in benchmark results compared to the OnePlus 11, which runs on a standard version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, but only ever-so-slightly. In real-life usage, the S23 Ultra occasionally opens an app faster than the OnePlus 11, but the difference is minimal, and OnePlus 11 owners won't feel like their phone is slow. 

As for battery, the S23 Ultra has the same huge 5,000 mAh capacity as the S22 Ultra, but advancements to its processor's efficiency leads to longer battery life. 

To test the battery, I streamed a video for two hours, streamed music while connected to Bluetooth headphones for one hour, two runs of the intensive 20-minute 3DMark Wild Life Stress Test, and five runs with the Geekbench 5 CPU test.

The S23 Ultra ended my battery test with 61% remaining, which is a good result. It beat out the Google Pixel 7 Pro's 57% result, but not the iPhone 14 Pro Max's 67%, or the iPhone 14 Plus' 73% — the gold standard for battery life. 

The S23 Ultra supports up to 45W fast charging, as long as you have a charger that supports 45W or more. Samsung doesn't include a charger in the box, so you'll have to buy your own 45W-plus charger if you don't already own one. 

Wireless charging tops out at 15W, which is fine and expected for lengthy charging periods, like overnight or at your desk during a work day. 

The S23 Ultra offers one of the most advanced camera systems of any smartphone

The Galaxy S23 Ultra comes with some of the wildest camera specs you'll find on a phone in the US — it has a 200-megapixel main camera when most phones have around 50-megapixel cameras. It even beats last year's S22 Ultra's main camera, which has 108 megapixels. 

Samsung has a strong pedigree when it comes to taking high-quality photos, and the S23 Ultra continues that tradition. Still, despite the new 200 megapixel camera, the S23 Ultra doesn't appear like much of an upgrade over the previous generation, and it doesn't offer appreciably better photo quality than other premium phones in 2023 with lower resolution cameras.

Nonetheless, the S23 Ultra's 200 megapixel camera offers flexibility that other phones simply can't duplicate. The phone gives the option to take photos in both 50 and 200 megapixels to capture finer details that would look blurry if you cropped into a standard 12 megapixel photo after it's taken. 

If you're simply looking at the photo without peeping for detail, high-resolution 50 or 200-megapixel photos look similar to 12-megapixel variants, and they aren't necessarily a good option for everyday shooting. Crisp, sharp results are dependent on good lightning, and that's especially true for the 200-megapixel option. They're better options for "special" photos where there's more detail than usual you'd actively like to capture, like a stunning view on a bright day.

Plus, a 50-megapixel photo can take up to 50 megabytes (MB), and a 200-megapixel photo can take up to 200 MB, which will eat up your storage, whether on the phone or in the cloud.

The large sensor also helps with photo quality in low light. By binning the 200 megapixels into 12 — essentially combining around 16 individual pixels into one larger pixel — Samsung says the sensor can capture more light.

Indeed, photos taken at night with Night Mode are notably sharper than the S22 Ultra, and the S23 Ultra balances the brightness of objects and details well with the darkness of night time. It produces the best photos I've seen in dark scenarios. 

The S23 Ultra also has two dedicated zoom cameras, one with 3x optical zoom and the other with 10x optical, where most phones "only" have one between 2x and 5x optical. There's also the 12 megapixel ultrawide camera, which is common in premium phones. That brings the S23 Ultra's camera total to four when most phones have three.

The S23 Ultra's extra optical 10x zoom camera makes it the most versatile phone for taking photos, period. It lets you capture clearer, sharper photos of far-away objects or subjects than any other phone you can buy in the US. Plus, it lets you zoom even further with digital zoom while maintaining decent clarity, but anything beyond 30x zoom starts to become pretty much unusable. Still, that's a further and better quality zoom than any phone I know about.

On a negative note, the Galaxy S23 Ultra still intermittently suffers from Samsung's notorious capture lag. Sometimes photos are captured the moment you tap the shutter button, and other times there's a slight delay that could result in a blurry photo of subjects that move a lot, like kids or animals. It's worth mentioning, as I rarely experience shutter lag in other phones.

Selfies also look better and more natural than ever before. Despite a downgrade from 40 megapixels to 12, selfies look incredibly sharp. High-dynamic range (HDR) also performs admirably well by balancing brightness instead of overly brightening shaded areas to compensate for brighter ones. It's truly a step up compared to previous Galaxy S generations.

Selfie videos also got a new 60 frames-per-second (fps) option on top of the usual 30 fps for smoother selfie videos. It's a nice option to have if you like that soap opera look. 

On the topic of video, the optical image stabilization (OIS) on the rear cameras is incredible — it's almost as good as a gimbal to reduce shakes and jittery video, which tends to happen when you're moving while recording video. Anyone who takes a lot of video with their phones will certainly appreciate this, as it gives more freedom to move while capturing smooth footage. 

A stunning display you can write on

Combined with its size, Samsung's famed OLED display, and a 120Hz high refresh rate, the S23 Ultra offers a stunning visual experience for a phone. 

At 6.8-inches, the S23 Ultra's display isn't technically much bigger than other big phones, like the iPhone 14 Pro Max, Pixel 7 Pro, or OnePlus 11 with 6.7-inch displays. Even so, it appears notably larger thanks to its sharper corners compared to more rounded display corners on other phones.

Plus, that 0.1-inch difference means the S23 Ultra can make the claim for the biggest phone available in the US, aside from Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 4 with a 7.6-inch screen when unfolded. That's appealing when big screens are popular. 

The large screen is also a boon for taking notes and sketching with the S Pen stylus. It might not be the clincher for many, but if you give it a try to jot down fleeting ideas or reminders, it could become indispensable. And if you don't want to use it, you can keep it tucked away in its enclosure without ever realizing it's there.  

The phone supports a very sharp 1440p resolution, but I never felt the need to diverge from the default 1080p resolution — it's still plenty sharp, and it doesn't drain as much battery as 1440p.

Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra?

As with anything you can buy, we all want the best, but whether you want to pay more for it is up to you. 

The S23 Ultra is an excellent smartphone in every regard, and it comes easily recommended for Android users, especially those who like big screens and take lots of photos. 

Samsung is also supporting the S23 Ultra with four generations of Android operating system upgrades — an extra Android generational upgrade over Google's Pixel phones. It'll also get five years of security updates, giving it the same total lifespan as Google's recent Pixel phones. 

The only thing that deters me from recommending it outright is how much you'd spend on it. The S23 Ultra will demand more of your money regardless of whether you buy it at full price or trading in an older phone with Samsung or your carrier. 

You'll likely get the best trade-in offer from a carrier — Verizon, for example, will give you $800 credit for a phone as old as the Galaxy S7 with an eligible 5G plan, bringing down the S23 Ultra's price to $400. Samsung will only offer $100 credit for a phone as old as the Galaxy S8 Plus. Meanwhile, you can get the $900 Pixel 7 Pro for free with Verizon's offer.

You can get a premium Android phone with a large display, three excellent cameras, and comparable performance, like Samsung's S23 or S23 Plus or the Google Pixel 7 Pro, for less money than the S23 Ultra (I'm hesitant to fully compare it to the OnePlus 11, as I have yet to fully test it). But if that isn't enough, or your budget allows for something that goes beyond normal expectations, like extra screen space, the fourth 10x zoom lens, and the S Pen stylus, the S23 Ultra is for you.