The Galaxy S23 brings a better chipset, battery life and much more!!
The Galaxy S series lineup has been the most successful smartphone segment globally as you get all the cutting-edge technologies and you get improvements with each of its iterations. This year we have the Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23+ and the massive Galaxy S23 Ultra. Recently we reviewed the Galaxy S23 Ultra (Review) which proves to be a true flagship with all the best specifications in a smartphone to date.
But other than this you also get the compact Galaxy S23+ and the Galaxy S23 which are one of the best compact flagships that one can buy. Talking about the Galaxy S23, this year Samsung has changed a few things and made some improvements over the Galaxy S22. The Galaxy S23 sports a newer design, a better chipset for performance and gaming, and also now you get a larger battery with better battery life.
So can the Galaxy S23 make a statement for itself in the compact flagship segment where we have stiff competition from Pixels, iPhones, etc. and do these small improvements make it worth the upgrade over the Galaxy S22 or should you still consider the Galaxy S22 (Review)? Let’s find out in the full review.
Samsung Galaxy S23 Deisgn:
The design of the Galaxy S23 and the Galaxy S23+ are almost the same except that the latter is slightly bigger in size. At the back, there is no counter cut for the cameras as present on the Galaxy S22 and instead, you are getting a plain look at the back with three cameras placed vertically and surrounding those are the metal rings that look amazing. Accompanied by the cameras is also a single LED flashlight.
Since the back does not have any particular camera module, it does not wobble when kept on a flat surface. Unlike the Galaxy S23 Ultra which has slightly curved panels, the Galaxy S23 continues to provide flat panels both at the front as well as the back. The back has a smooth matte finish that feels premium and does not catch many fingerprints.
Around the sides, there is an Armor Aluminum frame that feels sturdy and looks premium and this remains carried forward from the Galaxy S22 and the Galaxy S21. On the right side, there are a power button and volume buttons whereas, on the left side, it is completely clean. To the bottom, there is a USB Type-C port, a dual SIM card slot, primary and secondary microphones and a loudspeaker grille.
The top only houses a microphone. The Galaxy S23 weighs around 168 grams which is similar to that of the Galaxy S22 and also it has an IP68 rating which means it can survive under fresh water for 30 minutes in a depth of 1.5 metres and also it is dust resistant. The display of the Galaxy S23 is similar to that of the Galaxy S22 with a flat panel and punch-hole located at the top in the centre.
Overall, the build and design feel premium and look good.
Samsung Galaxy S23 Display:
The Galaxy S23 sports a similar sized 6.1-inches Full HD+ (1080×2400 pixels) 2X Dynamic AMOLED display with a screen-to-body ratio of 19.5:9 and since it is Samsung’s AMOLED display, the viewing angles and colour reproduction is very good and the best in class. This display as well as the back are protected by the newer Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2.
Here there is the 120Hz refresh rate and also combined with it is the 240Hz touch sampling rate for faster touch responses during multitasking. There are two different options for refresh rate to choose from – Standard and Adaptive. Like the Galaxy S22, setting it to Adaptive provides a variable refresh rate where the display can scale between – 10Hz, 24Hz, 30Hz, 48Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz and 120Hz.
This is similar to the LTPO display found on the Galaxy S22 where the display scales as low as 10Hz when you are viewing an image in the gallery, while watching a 24fps video, the display scales to 24Hz or 30Hz and while playing games or scrolling through webpages, the display scales as high as 120Hz. However, setting to the Standard mode, the display scales between 24Hz, 30Hz or 60Hz depending on the content on the display.
In terms of brightness, the display of the Galaxy S23 can now reach a peak brightness of 1750nits which is similar to the brightness levels of the Galaxy S23+ and the Galaxy S23 Ultra. Also, it is slightly higher than the 1300 units of peak brightness on the Galaxy S22. The display of the Galaxy S23 has good visibility under direct sunlight.
The display has two different colour modes to choose from – Natural and Vivid where Natural mode provides slightly realistic colours and covers the sRGB colour space whereas the Vivid mode provides punchier colours and covers the DCI-P3 colour gamut. You can also set the display to a warmer or a cooler tone by using the temperature slider.
Like the Galaxy S22, there is an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner that works accurately but could have been slightly faster. There is support for Widevine L1 so you can stream HDR content on OTT platforms and also there is support for HDR streaming on YouTube. Overall, the display is great for media consumption.
Samsung Galaxy S23 Performance:
Like the Galaxy S23 Ultra, the Galaxy S23 is also powered by this year’s flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset so the general performance and heavy multi-tasking are handled easily. Unlike the previous Samsung S series smartphones which are either powered by the Exynos or the Snapdragon chipset, all the Galaxy S23 series smartphones are powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset only.
Here also Samsung together with Qualcomm has customized the chipset where it has overclocked the CPU and GPU speeds of the chipset and optimised it very well for improved performance in all tasks as well as gaming. In terms of gaming, the smartphone can handle all the heavy games like Apex Legends, BGMI, etc. and BGMI could easily run at HDR graphics with Extreme frame rates without any frame drops.
Since the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is based on the TSMC’s 4nm process, it does not overheat or feel warmer whether you are playing games for 3-4 hours or doing heavy multitasking. Now there is also a vapour cooling chamber which is now slightly bigger than the one on the Galaxy S22 so it does dissipate heat faster. In benchmarks, the scores come out very good and are best in class.
In the CPU throttling test, the Galaxy S23 could maintain a sustained performance of around 80-85 per cent which is very good and far better than that of the Galaxy S22 which throttles a lot due to the overheating of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset. In terms of network connectivity, you get support for good carrier aggregation and have support for 13 bands of 5G.
The Galaxy S23 is available in two different variants – 8GB LPDDR5 RAM with 128GB storage which has UFS 3.1 speeds and the 8GB LPDDR5 RAM with 256GB storage which is having slightly faster UFS 4.0 speeds. Overall, the performance remains the best and now it is also a true gaming smartphone.
Samsung Galaxy S23 Software:
The Galaxy S23 is powered by the latest OneUI 5.1 based on Android 13 out of the box. OneUI 5.1 brings some improvements like slightly better optimizations in transitions and animations throughout the user interface and there are improvements in the gallery application, Samsung DeX as well as in network connectivity.
You get a lot of customizations where you change icon shape and size and have different styles for Always-On Display and with OneUI 5.1, there are newer wallpapers and themes. The colour palette is also improved as it now supports more colour combinations that get applied to the icons and some parts of the user interface depending on the wallpaper being used on the display.
Also, the widget can be stacked now and you can between widgets by swiping. Samsung has also introduced different Modes and Routines where you can set up different modes – Theatre, Sleep, Driving and Exercise and depending on the mode, the wallpaper also changes. There is also the Game Booster and also other features like Samsung DeX which allows connecting Samsung devices with PC wirelessly.
There is also the Privacy Dashboard which shows which applications are using the microphone, camera and location also. In the Gallery, there is a new AI Image Clip option where you can select, tap and hold an object from the image and save it or move to some other place or can send it in messages also. There is also the Expert RAW mode for the camera and also other features like Edge Panels are present.
However, though the software experience is very good there is a considerable amount of bloatware present. These can be uninstalled but still, this is not expected in a premium flagship smartphone. In terms of software updates, the Galaxy S23 is yet to receive another four years of AndroidOS updates and five years of security patches.
Samsung Galaxy S23 Cameras:
The Galaxy S23 has a similar camera setup as that of the Galaxy S22 i.e. 50MP f/1.8 main camera with OIS, a 10MP f/2.4 telephoto camera which provides 3x optical zoom and OIS, a 12MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera with a 120-degree field of view. However, the selfie camera is newer as you are getting a 12MP f/2.2 camera instead of a 10MP selfie camera on the Galaxy S22.
The images from the main camera come out with details that look sharper and the dynamic range comes out very well. The colours look punchier and also you get good contrast with less noise in the background. All these images are saved in 12MP by default and there is also the 50MP mode where using it takes sharper images with good dynamic range but there is slightly more noise compared to the shots using the 12MP mode.
At night, the images come out with details that look sharper, have good contrast and dynamic range, exposure is well under-control and noise is also very less in the background. All these results are using the Auto Night Mode which triggers automatically and if you switch to manual Night Mode, the images have much better dynamic range and blown-away highlights are restored but the noise is slightly higher.
The 12MP ultrawide camera does a good job in terms of images that have sharper details and the dynamic range is very good. The colours in the images do look oversaturated but still, there is no overprocessing and also the noise is less in the background without any distortion around the edges. At night, with the Auto Night Mode, the images come out with sharper details and good dynamic range.
The noise is also less in the background and the colours look punchier. The manual Night Mode works really well as details look sharper with good dynamic range and exposure is under control but there is some amount of noise present in the background.
The 10MP telephoto camera takes images with sharper details and these have good contrast and dynamic range but they do have some noise in the background. Like the Galaxy S22, here also the 10MP images are upscaled to 12MP images by default. At night, the telephoto camera does a good job in terms of details that look sharper, but slightly have noise and colours look punchier.
All these results are using the Night Mode and if you do not use the Night Mode, then the images have a lot of noise and colours look slightly washed out but still you get good dynamic range. In terms of portraits, both the main and the telephoto cameras do a very good job in terms of edge detection, background blur is well implemented and also skin tones look natural and very less noise is present in the background.
The selfies from the front camera come out with sharper details and have a good dynamic range and contrast with skin tones having a natural tone as there is no oversharpening in the background. The noise is also very less in the background compared to the selfies of the Galaxy S22. Even the portrait selfies come out with proper edge detection, good dynamic range and background blur is well implemented.
In terms of videos, the main camera can record 8K videos at 30fps and all the cameras can record 4K videos at 60fps where both the main and the telephoto cameras have OIS so videos have sharper details with no noise and come with excellent dynamic range and contrast. The videos from the front camera as well as the ultrawide camera have sharper details, good dynamic range, less noise and colours that look punchier also.
Samsung Galaxy S23 Battery Life:
The Galaxy S23 sports a slightly larger 3900mAh battery which is 200mAh more in capacity compared to the 3700mAh battery on the Galaxy S22. With normal usage that includes casual web browsing, streaming social media, etc. and the display set to Adaptive, the smartphone easily lasted for two days with some charge left which is very good.
With heavy usage that includes attending calls for 7-8 hours, playing games for 3-4 hours and rendering videos, the smartphone could easily last a single day with some charge left which is very good and an improvement over the Galaxy S22. The standard screen-on time with normal usage came out around 5-6 hours which is very good considering the compact display and better compared to the Galaxy S22.
With heavy usage, the standard screen-on time came out to around 3-4 hours which is good but could have been slightly better. The efficient TSMC’s 4nm process Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 does help achieve great battery life. However, the one area where Samsung still cuts corners is in terms of charging speeds where you still have the 25W fast charging support only on the Galaxy S23.
The 45W fast charging is reserved for the Galaxy S23+ and the Galaxy S23 Ultra only. On top of it, Samsung is not providing a charger inside the box which is disappointing. However, if you use any third-party charger, the smartphone takes around 1 hour 35 minutes for a full charge from 0 to 100 per cent which is very slow compared to today’s 65/120/150W fast charging standards.
There is also support for 15W fast wireless charging and 9.5W reverse wireless charging so you can use any of the smartphones or Galaxy devices to charge when placed on the back of the Galaxy S23. Overall, the battery life is a big improvement on the Galaxy S23 compared to the Galaxy S22.
Samsung Galaxy S23 Audio Quality:
The Galaxy S23 sports a dual stereo speaker setup that sounds loud and clear with a good level of bass and the back also does vibrate when the sound is kept at its highest settings. There is no 3.5mm headphone jack but to tune the audio, there is support for Dolby Atmos that provides enhanced sound output while playing games, watching videos, listening to music, etc.
Verdict:
Overall, the Galaxy S23 is a great compact flagship smartphone which ticks all the right boxes and compared to the Galaxy S22, definitely it corrects all the flaws which were present in the Galaxy S22. It brings a newer design, the 120Hz AMOLED display with stereo speakers is great for multimedia consumption, the performance and battery life are best in class and also you get a great software experience.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset just levels it up as it provides much better performance and gaming compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset and also it does not heat as the latter one. Another reason is also the very good battery life we can see on a compact flagship smartphone. But there are a few things which Samsung could have fixed like charging speeds are still slower at 25W and a 10-bit display could have been better.
Other than these, the Galaxy S23 is a very solid smartphone and an improved version of the Galaxy S22 with improvements in battery life, display brightness, and performance. So if you are not concerned about the battery life, then still the Galaxy S22 makes sense with all the flagship specifications and now is also cheaper and can be considered.
But still, the Galaxy S23 is definitely a worthy upgrade over the Galaxy S22 and it continues to raise the bar for Samsung.