Samsung Galaxy S23 Review: Plenty of smartphone in a pocket-sized package

The Samsung Galaxy S23 on display

The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra made its debut back in February with some solid upgrades over its predecessor. In our Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra review, we noted that the device was the best Android smartphone money could buy so far, performing excellent across the board.

But while the S23 Ultra (Review) got solid upgrades, the vanilla Galaxy S23 offers minor tweaks over its predecessor. The vanilla Galaxy S22 (Review) was almost the perfect compact smartphone, although it was far from perfect. So can the Galaxy S23 right the wrongs of its predecessor and deliver the best compact smartphone experience? Let’s find out!

Design

Samsung hasn’t made any major transformational changes in terms of the Galaxy S23’s design. The Galaxy S23 doesn’t have the contour cut but instead has three individual camera modules on the back, similar to the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. Samsung has opted for a box-shaped design with rounded edges and sides, making it comfortable to grip. Couple that with a compact form factor and you have a phone that feels great in the hand.

Samsung has also retained the flat screen from the Galaxy S22. Apart from the design, the Galaxy S23 comes in Cream, Phantom Black, Green, and Lavender colours. Our model arrived with the matte white (Cream) back panel that is resistant to fingerprints and smudges. But looks aren't the only thing going for the Galaxy S23. It is also one of the toughest smartphones around with new and improved Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protection on the front and back.

The frame is made from Armor Aluminium with a glossy finish. Moreover, there’s an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance. The button and port placement on the S23 are standard with volume and power buttons on the right side, while a USB Type-C port, speaker grille, and SIM tray sit on the bottom. ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ that seems to be formula with the Galaxy S23’s design, while upping the build quality.

Display

The pocket-friendly Galaxy S23 sports a 6.1-inch FHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2x display with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio. The screen uses LTPO technology to switch the refresh rate between 48Hz to 120Hz to save battery life, which is not quite on the level of the S23 Ultra that can go from 1Hz to 120Hz. The panel features HDR10+, improving dynamic range in supported content. Samsung claims the screen features a maximum brightness of 1,250 nits and a peak brightness of 1,750 nits, which makes the phone easy to use under direct sunlight.

Content on the screen looks vivid and detailed, while the FHD+ resolution doesn’t feel like much of a downgrade given the size of the screen. Additionally, the in-display fingerprint reader also works pretty well, although I’ve yet to test a phone that has a snappier and more responsive fingerprint reader like the Vivo X80 Pro (Review). The display also boasts features like an Eye Comfort Shield and Vision Booster technology. The Galaxy S23 is also equipped with stereo speakers that deliver high-quality audio with no distortion at maximum volume. However, the bass wasn’t quite as powerful as that on the iPhone 14 (Review).

Performance

The Samsung Galaxy S23 is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC paired with the Adreno 740 GPU. Additionally, the phone also comes with 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM and up to 256GB of UFS 4.0 storage. So how does that translate to real-world results? For one, the Galaxy S23 was pretty capable, scoring 1721 points in Geekbench 6’s single-core test and 4811 points in the multi-core test. The scores are in-line with that of the Galaxy S23 Ultra and iQOO 11 5G, which suggests that performance on the phone is up to the mark.

Additionally, the Galaxy S23 did well while navigating through apps and multitasking. Moreover, the smartphone is capable of gaming, running Call of Duty Mobile, Apex Legends Mobile, and Need for Speed No Limits with the settings maxed out. I also ran Call of Duty Mobile for 40 straight minutes on the Galaxy S23 without the phone overheating or drop in frames. Despite its compact size, the Galaxy S23 can cut it with the best flagships in the market.

Cameras

For optics, the Samsung Galaxy S23 gets a triple-camera setup on the back with a 50 MP primary sensor with an f/1.8 aperture, dual pixel PDAF, and OIS. The main camera is paired with a 12 MP ultrawide unit with an f/2.2. aperture and a telephoto shooter with OIS, 3x optical zoom, and an f/2.4 aperture. Up front, there’s a new 12 MP selfie camera from the Galaxy S23 Ultra. Let’s take a look at some real-world results on the vanilla Galaxy S23.

In daylight, the Galaxy S23 is as good as any flagship on the market, if not better. Dynamic range was excellent, while the main camera captures plenty of detail. Photos did appear to look more oversaturated and over-sharpened, although they appear to be more preferrable for social media. Moreover, the main camera also captured accurate colours during the day, which leaned more towards vibrancy with contrast tuned up, although this does come at the expense of realism at times. The S23 also takes full 50 MP shots that capture more detail at the expensive of dynamic range.

The 12 MP ultrawide camera maintains colour consistency with the main camera, although there’s a slight lack of detail here with a generally softer image. However, in most instances the ultrawide camera comes in clutch with good dynamic range and is can certainly keep pace with Samsung’s competitors. The 10 MP telephoto camera here takes crisp photos and does a good job of maintaining colour consistency, even when getting up-close to subjects. You can go all the way to 30x magnification, although, apart from the moon, images look blurry at that range. Beyond 10x zoom, photos look like a blurry mess, although that’s a lot better than most phones in the range can do.

You can take portrait shots on both the main and telephoto camera, the latter better tailored towards snapping portraits of smaller subjects. 3x portrait shots taken from the telephoto camera are detailed with just the right amount of sharpness with accurate colours. Additionally, the Expert Raw mode is now part of the camera app and must be downloaded to access. It is supported on both the rear and front cameras. Expert Raw lets you capture shots in 12 MP or 50 MP RAW files and later edit them on a PC or the phone itself. Other features include Single Take, Portrait Video, Director’s View, and more.

In low light, the S23’s auto Night mode (Nightography) kicks in with good results. Using the low light auto mode takes a second or two with good ambient light, providing good exposure and dynamic range. The algorithm also cleans up any noise, while brightening up the image and adding more detail to the shot. While the phone maintains good colour consistency between the main, telephoto, and ultrawide cameras using night mode, noise tends to creep in, and images tend to look soft with slightly less detail when shooting with the ultrawide and telephoto cameras. Zoom quality wasn’t up to the mark in low light as well and you require a fair bit of ambient light to go beyond 3x zoom.

The new 12 MP selfie camera handles dynamic range excellently, while the skin tones look natural with good noise reduction. The camera also captures a fair bit of detail, a bit too much in some instances for my liking. Portrait selfies offer good edge detection and perfectly separate the subject from the background. The Galaxy S23 also stood out with night selfies taken using the phone’s flash, although using night mode wasn’t quite as impressive.

Moving on to video!

The Galaxy S22 can take 4K video at 60fps on all three rear cameras and the front camera. However, only the main camera can take 8K video and you’ll have to stick to 4K at 30fps if you want to switch between the three lenses while recording a video. Video captured in daylight reproduces excellent clarity, exposure, and dynamic range. Colour accuracy was an area where Samsung did struggle, although the vivid colours can be more appealing, particularly for social media. At night, the S23 captured 4K video at 60fps with good noise reduction and good resolved detail in footage.

There’s a good bit of stabilisation in footage across all resolutions and frame rates. However, if you want to switch to Super Steady mode, you’ll be limited to Full HD resolution at up to 60fps and Quad HD resolution at up to 60fps. The front camera can also record 4K video at up to 60fps. Lastly, the Samsung Galaxy S23 also supports HDR10+ video recording and 360-audio recording with zoom-in audio. Overall, the camera capabilities on the Samsung Galaxy S23 don’t rise to the level of ‘ultra-premium’ like its ‘Ultra’ counterpart. But you still get a top-tier flagship camera experience that is reliable across every scenario.

Battery

One of the biggest improvements on the Galaxy S23 is battery life. Samsung has equipped the Galaxy S23 with a larger 3,900 mAh battery. However, it’s the power efficient Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip that does most of the heavy lifting here. Under heavy usage, the Samsung Galaxy S23 easily lasts an entire day, something the vanilla S22 fell shy off. I got around five to seven hours of screen-on time on a single charge, which is more than enough for a whole day of usage. While battery life wasn’t an issue on the Galaxy S23, charging is the real issue.

The Galaxy S23 supports 25W wired fast charging, which is comparatively slow when pitted up against other flagships and mid-range smartphones. Additionally, Samsung doesn’t provide an adapter in the box, which was another letdown. On the flip side, the Galaxy S23 does offer 15W of wireless fast charging, although that doesn’t quite make up for the slow charging and lack of an adapter in the box.

Software

On the software front, the Samsung Galaxy S23 boots Android 13-based OneUI 5.1 out of the box. Samsung promises the usual four years of major OS updates and five years of regular security updates on the Galaxy S23, which is the best among Android phones. One UI 5.1 feels more refined than its predecessor, removing any jitters and delivering smooth animations and excellent transition between different areas of the UI. Modes and Routines have expanded to enable custom wallpapers, ringtones, touch sensitivity, and fonts that can personalise specific activities for even more convenience.

One UI 5.1 also improves the Smart suggestions widget by adding the ability to recommend Spotify tracks and playlists based on users’ activities. New navigation improvements also make it easier than ever to find photos within the Gallery app and create shared family albums. AI-based Photo Remaster automatically improves deteriorated details of images by improving brightness, fine-tuning details, and making color corrections. Link to Windows enables users to browse with Samsung Internet on their phones to continue browsing the same pages on their PC seamlessly.

Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy S23 is an excellent addition to the ever-increasing roster of Android flagships. The phone offers the best combination of hardware and software in a smartphone in the segment. Samsung has equipped the S23 with a vibrant display, powerful chipset, reliable battery life, and quality speakers. Then there’s the camera system, which is consistent and dependable in every scenario I put it through. To top it all off, the phone offers highly customisable software and even better support. This translates to the best combination of hardware and software on an Android smartphone in the range. Although this does come at a premium cost as compared to some of its competitors.

So, should you buy the Samsung Galaxy S23? If you are looking for the best of the best Android smartphone, then the vanilla Galaxy S23 might not be the right smartphone for you. However, if you are in the market for a practical Android flagship that doesn’t break the bank, I see no other option than the Galaxy S23. Samsung has addressed most of the weakness on the Galaxy S22, while further improving the smartphone experience. But most importantly, the Galaxy S23 was never found lacking in any area despite its compact size, which makes it the most practical Android flagship of 2023 yet.