So, Samsung’s S series smartphone is always the FIRST flagship smartphone to be released every year, which means that other brands have plenty of time to beat the S series, but still, nothing could come close to beating the overall performance and the experience of the S22 Ultra up until now.
So would it be the same for the new S23 Ultra with its 200-Megapixel camera? Well, here is my first hands-on experience with the phone.
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Design & Build Quality
First, let’s talk about the phone’s design; when I first held the S22 Ultra last year, I mentioned that it is one of the best smartphone finishes, and I loved the no camera bump, clean, and overall minimalistic design. And I am super glad that Samsung has decided to follow the same design and build quality as last year’s model.
But sticking to the same design may attract some critics who may complain about why they didn’t change it. Well, frankly I am with Samsung on this because that seems to be the case for other smartphone manufacturers too anyways, because in my humble opinion, why “fix” something that is practically perfect right?
However, there was a very slight difference in the curvature of the display’s edge, which is only apparent if you have the S22 Ultra and also the S23 Ultra next to each other, as the new S23 creates a slightly larger flat surface area too.
Then, to further enhance the durability, again, Samsung became the very first smartphone to introduce the latest Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protection for their phones.
Another thing that I really appreciated, and I am sure you would too, is how they are using even more recyclable materials, which is up to 12 internal and external components compared to 6 on the S22 Ultra, which includes recycled glass for the front and back cover, aluminum for the SIM tray, side keys and volume keys and the plastics as well, for the S Pen’s inner cover, the bottom speaker module and more.
Then as for the color options, there are four colors to choose from, where the one that I am having is in Green. And it is available in other colors such as Cream, Lavender, and Phantom Black. So yes, this means there is no White for this year’s S23 series *sad*
As for the phone’s ports and buttons, it is as similar to last year’s placements, and of course, there is the return of the S Pen once again, which is stored inside of the phone as well, which I am glad that it wasn’t a one-off thing for last year’s model, so it’s super nice that the S Pen is here to stay.
Display
Next, for the phone’s display, it has a massive 6.8-inch 2x AMOLED display, with up to 120Hz dynamic refresh rate and 1750 nits of peak brightness, where the overall specs and resolution are the same as the S22 Ultra.
However, there is a new feature called Vision Booster which dynamically maps the ideal tone of an image by maximizing the color contrast based on the surrounding environment and the content of the image. So whether or not you are outside in a bright daylight or right here in the studio, or even in a low light area, it will intelligently adjust accordingly to ensure the best visibility for our human eye.
And not only are Samsung displays the best on a smartphone as usual, but their Automatic brightness has always been one of the best to adapt according to the lighting conditions compared to any other smartphones that I have reviewed.
Cameras
As for the phone’s cameras, here is where you will see a massive change over here as the main camera comes with a huge 200-Megapixel main lens, which is the first on a Samsung smartphone, which is a HUGE leap compared to last year’s 108-Megapixel sensor on the S22 Ultra.
Then there is:
- a 12-Megapixel F 2.2 ultrawide lens,
- a 10-Megapixel F 2.4 telephoto camera with up to 3x Optical Zoom,
- and another 10-Megapixel lens but a periscope telephoto lens that can go up to 10x Optical Zoom and 100x Digital Zoom
However, the front camera is a 12-Megapixel camera instead of a 40-Megapixel last year; not sure why it is different but I shall see how it compares to last year’s model.
During my first impressions, after taking some quick shots, as predicted, the image quality remains to be top flagship level with impressive dynamic range, and even for the supposedly lower megapixel count for the front camera, to me, it still looked amazing.
Then, of course, I did take some shots on the 200-Megapixel mode, which also showed excellent results with this adaptive pixel sensor that combines into one large pixel; hence you will get even more brighter and even more detailed shots, especially in low lighting environments.
Therefore, it will be so much better when it comes to enhancing the night shots, also known as Samsung’s Nightography, where this Nightography mode is definitely one of the best that I have tested on the S22 Ultra, which I am eager to test out this low light camera performance even further when I get my hands on a review unit.
So this 200-Megapixel sensor is not for the sake of numbers because, there is also the enhanced Auto Focus, as it now uses a Super Quad Pixel, which are 4 adjacent pixels to detect differences from top to bottom, left and right to ensure the best and super fast focus since there are more points of reference.
And with the overall image processing of the front camera, it will also apparently give improvements to the Night Selfie. And here is where I would love to test this out since it has a smaller megapixel count than last year.
As for the video, it records up to 8K as usual, and yes, although I say “as usual”, because at this point of time, many smartphones are really struggling with this; and although some have the same recording resolution. This time around, Samsung has unlocked the recording frame rate up to 30 frames per second compared to only 24 fps for last year’s model, and I have said it before, and I will say it again that 30 frames per second is the RIGHT frame rate, OK?
Apparently, the video stabilization will be even better at night, where it uses the Adaptive VDIS and has 2-times wider OIS compared to last year’s S22 Ultra and this is great because while many smartphones have great stabilization during the day, but it doesn’t do a very good job at night, especially with this very jittery image or even quite noisy image, so I am also eager to test this video quality during at night.
Then finally, there are some enhanced software features too, like Astrophoto and Multiple Exposures through the Expert RAW camera app.
Specs
Then the other additional specs of the phone that you need to know is the fact that the phone comes with the 4nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset. Yes, here in Malaysia too!
And as usual, there will be options from 12GB of RAM and storage options from 256GB to 1TB.
As for the phone’s battery, just like last year, it has a huge 5000 mAh of battery that can support fast charging up to 45 watts, where you will need to purchase the 45-watt charger separately; it also comes with 15 watts of fast wireless charging; and reverse wireless charging up to 4.5 watts.
Next, as for the phone’s software, it comes shipped with Android 13, with One UI 5.1, and it’s so lovely to see how One UI keeps getting better and better with the right updates, not only from a stability standpoint but also with new features like Modes and Routines for Exercise, Work, Driving, Sleep and more depending on timing and your activity as well.
Then there is also Bixby Text Calls to respond to incoming calls with a text, which I definitely would love to try, and thanks to the continued collaboration with Google; you can even co-edit documents in Samsung Notes when you are online using apps like Google Meet as well.
Now, if you think that I have forgotten about the S Pen, I didn’t, because it is here to stay, as mentioned. And here is where it is another situation where Samsung knows they have the best pen experience on any other smartphone, to the point that nobody else can beat their 2.8 milliseconds response time of last year’s model and the overall S Pen features like turning the handwriting to text and using it as a Bluetooth remote is still the BEST in the business.
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I have yet to get the official price and availability here in Malaysia, so I’ll update the price in the pinned comment of my YouTube video as soon as the video is released, and I’ll mention it during my full video review as well.
Speaking of which, do let me know what you would like to specifically know about this new Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra in the comments section of my YouTube video, and I will be answering them when I do a full video review of the phone!
Price Info:-
The Galaxy S23 Ultra retails from RM5,699 (USD1,335)
For more information:-
https://www.samsung.com/my/smartphones/galaxy-s23-ultra/buy/
