12 hours with the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra: the camera is really fantastic
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12 hours with the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra: the camera is really fantastic

Imagine the scene: After watching the Galaxy Unpacked event broadcast live from the comfort of a Vue cinema seat in Westfield, I was handed a bag – a bag with a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra inside.

I rushed home with as much excitement as Charlie when he found his Golden Ticket, ready to check out the new high-end Galaxy S23 Ultra. Within half an hour my data had been transferred, my SIM card was installed and I was good to go.

Of course, it's far too early to give a final verdict on the new flagship, but here's what I've noticed so far after about 12 hours of use.

It's definitely a big phone

First of all, I forgot how much the newer Ultra models have to hold up. You see the 6,8-inch screen size and think "oh that's not much bigger than the iPhone 14 Pro Max", but reader, let me tell you, it really is. In fact, the naked Galaxy S23 Ultra is both taller and wider than an iPhone 14 Pro Max with a case.

It's down to aspect ratio, with the Ultra opting for a larger display than most large smartphones in a bid to get the most out of the S Pen stylus. It makes sense in terms of productivity, and I've appreciated the extra screen real estate on offer so far, but blimey it's hard to use one-handed - and that's coming from someone which doesn't complain about using most large-screen phones.

Moving on to the size of the phone, the first thing I noticed was the flatter screen compared to the S22 Ultra. Again, this was done with the aim of maximizing productivity, giving users a slightly more usable screen and less subtle display curvature around the edges.

The latter is a plus for me personally, as I'm not a big fan of extremely curved screens, especially when (usually) paired with sub-par palm rejection technology. That shouldn't be as much of a problem here as it has been in the past.

The camera module of the Galaxy S23 Ultra

Battery life could be an issue

It's also incredibly detailed in its full WQHD+ resolution, although you'll have to manually enable it in the phone's settings menu – it'll run in Full HD+ out of the box. There's a good reason for that, as I've discovered: full resolution absolutely drains the 5000mAh battery.

I'm not out of charge yet after draining it to 100% at 23pm last night, although I noticed the battery indicator counting down pretty quickly when scrolling through TikTok with WQHD+ resolution enabled compared to using it at FullHD+.

This leads me to believe that while it's nice to have the extra resolution, it's only really worth enabling if you're watching 4K content through YouTube and Netflix. For most things, including games, Full HD+ resolution is more than enough.

Performance has been solid so far, but that's no surprise considering it packs an exclusive chipset dubbed Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy that has a faster CPU and more powerful and fuel-efficient GPU. in energy than even the usual high-end 8 Gen 2. near-instant from swiping through the various app menus to playing casual games like Survivor.io on the train, and I'm confident it'll generate some of the best benchmarking scores for a phone once I will have put it to the test in the days to come.

The camera is the key

Of course, it all depends on the camera setup with the Ultra models, and the S200 Ultra's new 23MP really doesn't disappoint. I've only had limited photo opportunities – there's not much of interest in my daily subway commute – but the photos I've taken so far have impressed me greatly.

The 200MP snapper really captures a great amount of detail, and unlike the S22 Ultra, it doesn't look over-processed.

There's phenomenal low-light performance too, as evidenced by the following shots taken on my lit road late last night. Not only are the light levels impressive, but the colors are accurate and there's plenty of detail, even when zoomed in.

It takes me very excited to put the camera through its paces. I'll be interested to see how it performs in tougher scenarios, but for now it looks like it could be a real winner.

I also enjoy Samsung's OneUI more than I thought, as I tend to prefer something as close to Android as possible. Sure, there are UI quirks that I'm not a big fan of — like the bulk shape of notifications in the notification shade — but overall Samsung is doing a good job of improving the Android experience already offered.

This includes a number of shortcuts available in the notification shade not available on most competitors, a Settings app that makes sense (I'm looking at you, Xiaomi) and small tweaks that make the experience a little smoother in the app. 'together.

Of course, the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra has a very Top-end pricing starts at £1 with 249GB of storage, but from what I've seen so far it might actually justify the cost.

I'll be working on my full Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra review in the coming days, so keep an eye out for my final thoughts soon.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★