We’re finally here, after more than two weeks in his company and after taking you a few days ago “a day with” around Rome, today we finally talk about Galaxy S23 in the round. I’ll tell you right away: I had a great time and it was the Android I’ve been waiting for for a long time. A compact, complete and reliable smartphone on the autonomy side, but let’s not waste time and start talking about it right away.
I remind you that the biggest news hides inside with the SOC switch from Exynos to the brand new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 but the introductions don’t stop there, as the S23 also has a slightly improved display, 3900mAh battery and a new selfie camera with focus. Instead, the more than minimal sales package remains without the charger inside.
- DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION QUALITY
- DISPLAY
- SOFTWARE
- DATA SHEET
- USER EXPERIENCE
- PHOTO AND VIDEO
- CONCLUSIONS
- PROS, CONS AND FINAL VOTE
CONSTRUCTION QUALITY AND DESIGN
Galaxy S23 is available in six colors Cream, Phantom Black, Green, Lavender, Graphite and Lime of which the last two are exclusive to the Samsung Shop. We are testing the Green which I consider to be one of the best as it is the right mix of sobriety and style. I appreciated the treatment of the opaque glass which holds few fingerprints as well as offering a good grip. The dimensions are very small, 146mm in height and 7.6mm in thickness make this S23 one of the most comfortable smartphones I’ve ever used. The frame is well made and welcomes the Type-C 3.2, three microphones, the main speaker, the power button, the volume rocker and the trolley for the two sims.
Aesthetics aside, you have the impression of having a well-built, solid smartphone in your hands. Not having curved edges allows you to be more relaxed by allowing you to apply glass or films that completely cover the front surface and have a more solid grip on the frame. Speaking of glass, here too there was an upgrade to the new Gorilla Glass Victus 2 !
DISPLAY
To unlock the S23 we can use the fingerprint recognition sensor integrated under the display, in an excellent position and with good responsiveness. Only on rare occasions did it give me some trouble but in those cases there is still an excellent 2D unlock with the face to help. I point out that both with the film and glass applied, I had no problems using the fingerprint sensor.
Once unlocked we are faced with one of the best displays on the market, albeit lower than that of the S23 Ultra, mainly due to the refresh rate which stops at a minimum of 48Hz compared to Ultra’s 1Hz. Let’s be clear: in everyday life, an AMOLED with FHD+ resolution, 1080 x 2340 pixels, 422ppi and 1750Nits of peak brightness are more than enough . The panel can be seen crystal clear even in direct sunlight and I personally used the AOD that can be woken up by touch in order to save more battery life when not in use, but also eliminating any doubts about the possible battery saving with the 1Hz mode of the Ultra. In the daily use of social apps but also during game sessions, you will hardly be able to notice differences between this panel and the best in its category.
Finally, I mention the HDR support also in third-party applications such as Netflix where we obviously find the Widevine L1 certifications for correct viewing in maximum quality (FHD in this case). Mention for the brightness sensor which works very well but outdoors it could sometimes exaggerate with the amount of brightness supplied, consuming excess battery. Also considering the increase in nits compared to S22, it would not be necessary.
SOFTWARE
Samsung S23 is based on Android 13 with One Ui 5.1 user interface. The security patches have currently been updated in February 2023, demonstrating that Samsung is currently the only one, together with Google, which, in addition to promising 4 years of updates to new Android versions and 5 years of security patches, is also timely with the release , well indeed very well. However, the software remains the classic Samsung, very rich in functions and certainly not very light, it reports 29GB occupied at the time of the review.
The strong point is certainly the ability to meet both a general public and those looking for something more such as DeX, Smartview, Smartswitch and a series of functions such as Floating Apps and Screen Division among the most optimized in the Android panorama, you can even use a floating app in split screen, although obviously the size of the display is not very accustomed to this use.
DATA SHEET
- display: AMOLED 6,1″ FHD+, update frequency 48-120Hz, 422ppi, 1750nit, Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2
- processore: Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Qualcomm SM8550-AB 1x 3.2 GHz Cortex-X3 + 2x 2.8 GHz Cortex-A715 + 2x 2.8 GHz Cortex-A710 + 3x 2.0 GHz Cortex-A510
- GPU: Adreno 740
- memory
- 8 of LPDDR4x RAM
- 128GB UFS 3.1/256GB UFS 4.0 internal non-expandable
- fingerprint sensor: integrated in the display
- connectivity: 5G (SA/NSA), WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.3 LE, NFC, USB-C 3.2, GPS,
- OS: OneUI 5.1 con Android 13
- cameras:
- anteriore: 12MP, Autofocus, ฦ/2.2
- posteriori:
- 50MP 1/1.56โณ , 1.0 ฮผm , f/1.8, PDAF, OIS
- 12MP 1/2.55โณ , 1.4ยตm , f/2.2, Super Steady Video
- 10MP 1/3.94โณ , 1.0ยตm, f/2.4, PDAF, OIS
- battery: 3900mAh with charging up to 25W cable, 15W wireless
- dimensions and weight: 146.3 x 70.9 x 7.6 mm for 168 grams
PERFORMANCE
Galaxy S23 has an important data sheet to be a compact camera considering that we have the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 slightly overclocked for Samsung compared to the standard, 8GB of LPDDR5x 16Bit quad-channel ram and 128GB of storage and that I remind you to be in this memory cut UFS 3.1. In short, there are no sacrifices compared to the Ultra and the other top of the range. Ok, an advanced dissipation system is missing, but the temperatures are still quite under control; only in gaming use or 5g pushed outdoors is a little heat felt in the central part of the back. The new SOC allows you to run smoothly within the OneUI, never a lag, never an afterthought, never rubberiness in the animations, in short, not only brute power has been added but optimization.ย
It goes without saying that you can play games at the highest quality for a very long time never risking thermal throttling with most games, but where the difference compared to the previous Exynos of S22 is most felt is in daily use where a mild use and a lot of standby now they drain very little autonomy. I mention the presence of the “Light” mode to save even more battery by only decreasing the clock of the cpu / gpu, I have used it often and I can confirm that there is practically no difference on the performance side but the consumption benefits.
AUTONOMY AND RECHARGE
The 3900mAh battery almost always allows you to arrive in the evening without a hitch, only on days with the possible assiduous use of Maps, cell changes, lots of 5G and displays often at maximum brightness will it be necessary to recharge by 15-30%. On average I did 5H/5H30 with 4H/4H30 on the heaviest days but it must be considered that our trial version is UK/CA therefore with a data network that is not optimized for our operators and this leads to higher consumption under 4G /5G causes unoptimized band aggregation.
There is wireless charging which stops at 15W while cable charging stops at 25W, too little in 2023 where we are now moving towards 80/100/120W top-ups
AUDIO E MULTIMEDIA
Samsung S23 has a stereo audio system that remains unbalanced towards the lower main speaker but still returns a pleasant and top-level listening experience. To assist there is Dolby Atmos and Dolby Atmos for Games , I have personally kept both active and in intelligent mode in order to configure themselves automatically based on the use I am making. The Bluetooth 5.3 helps in case we go to use tws bluetooth headphones.
TELEPHONE PART AND CONNECTIVITY
Calling with the S23 is a pleasure as regards the audio heard on the speakerphone and in the capsule but also for the microphones that perfectly capture our voice with noise cancellation that is not too aggressive in modifying our tone. I also emphasize at this point the quality of the microphones in voice notes and video recording where in addition to the digital zoom we also have an audio zoom function.
PHOTO AND VIDEO
As always, Samsung focuses a lot on the photographic sector without however needing to show high-sounding partnerships. At this time we actually have no hardware news on the basic model except in the renewed front camera . The major change also in this case derives from the Snapdragon SOC which allows us to finally reach that level of detail, color management and white temperature that we found on American Samsungs.
Hardware side so I remind you that we have a 50MP 1/1.56″ main camera and f/1.8 aperture, a 12MP 1/2.55″ ultrawide and f/2.2 aperture and finally we find a 10MP 3X telephoto lens with sensor size 1/ 3.94 “and aperture f / 2.4, PDAF, also optically stabilized. The new selfie camera instead is 12MP and has a new autofocus system which, together with the portrait mode, in video allows you to obtain results almost on par with the cinema mode of iPhones.ย
TELEPHONE 3X
Let’s start with the 3X lens that satisfied me: the photos are never too noisy, the focus is very precise and although the OIS is not the most stable, it is still an added value that allows you to lower exposure times and therefore noise. This is the lens that 90% of the time you will also use to make portraits which are not too artifacts with a level cut-off even if in low light situations they suffer a lot from noise and the detail is clearly lost.
TELEPHONE 3X
Even the main lens defends itself very well, the colors are almost identical to the 3X and this allows for greater consistency when we go to take sequences of photos with various focal lengths. The photos in this case are at the top of the category in every context , both day and night and by viewing the photos on the smartphone display quite a few times the people I asked for an opinion chose the S23 photo over the exact same one taken from iPhone 14 Pro.
In fact, Samsung’s colors always remain vivid, sometimes even too artificial and artificial for my personal taste, and are often preferred at first glance. The only comment I can make is that on some occasions what we observe in the camera app is different from the final result which is much better or slightly different in color and exposure. HDR works well automatically but as with standard photos, it is noted that there is greater aggressiveness than other software.
The ultrawide camera is the one that suffers a little more of the three. The colors are slightly different, especially in video, and the absence of autofocus begins to be a limitation by losing the macro function which is starting to become a standard of the top of the range. All in all, however, the results are good and although there is no optical stabilization, the digital one in the videos does an excellent job during the day.ย
ULTRAWIDE
Although minimally already mentioned, let’s also talk about the videos because they are of an excellent level and more than anything else in 4K 30FPS we can switch super easily between all three cameras without infinite waiting times or clear cuts. The autofocus is perfect while occasionally, especially at night, the videos are slightly underexposed. Optical stabilization isn’t on par with the S23 Ultra or iPhone 14 Pro but it still holds up well. Also present is the 8K which I have practically never used especially considering the weight of the files.
The selfie camera was a revelation! In fact, I didn’t think the autofocus was so powerful and allows us to obtain incredible results especially in video and video portrait mode. The only limitation of this new selfie camera are low light conditions where digital noise is abundant.
SELFIE PORTRAIT
CONCLUSIONS
The conclusions are quite simple and obvious: if you need a compact smartphone but without hardware sacrifices, updated for a long time and with a finally reliable battery, this S23 is the perfect smartphone . A year and a half ago I was “forced” to switch to iPhone 13 Pro precisely due to the absence of a smartphone like this S23 but today I would think more than once about going back to Android.
The list price is certainly high: โฌ979 for this 8/128GB version but there are already many offers and the price is only destined to drop in the coming months. The only criticism I can make of Samsung is the charging, almost unacceptable in 2023 to still have cable charging limited to only 25W.
Hardware7.7
Quality Price
Samsung Galaxy S23
Phoneshock
โฌ 719
Samsung Galaxy S23 Green 128GB Memoria 8GB Ram Display 6.1″ Verde 5G DS Sm s911
eBay
โฌ 797
SAMSUNG S911B DS Galaxy S23 5G, Dual, 256GB 8GB RAM, Phantom Black
Amazon Marketplace
โฌ 831
TOP HARDWARE IN SIZE MINI CAMERA COMPLETE BATTERY SATISFACTORY BUILD QUALITY
RECHARGE 25W UFS 3.1 IN THE 128GB VERSION
VOTE: 8.9
PANZERGLASS PRODUCTS FOR S23:
- TEMPERED GLASS
- MATRIX FILM
- SHOP PANZERGLASS
Samsung Galaxy S23 is available online from Phoneshock for 719 euros or from eBay for 797 euros . The value for money is good . There are 14 top models. To see the other 138 offers click here. (updated February 24, 2023, 10.15 pm)
