After seven months spent in its company, it’s difficult to find a real complaint to make against the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. It has lost a little in autonomy, but remains very good. Certainly in photos, it is not always perfect, but what freedom it gives! The performance, the comfort of use, the sumptuous screen… The king of Android is here.
Test long du Galaxy S23 Ultra. // Source : Aroged – Robin Wycke
My colleagues are jealous of me. They give me sidelong glances when I go to the coffee machine, I’ve seen them approach my desk with a sinister look. All because I took the best smartphone of the year in a long test… Maybe I should have chosen a folding smartphone or something more exotic like a Nothing Phone (2)? But how can you resist it… Its incredible autonomy, its all-powerful chip, its sumptuous screen, its photo versatility. I gave in to the Galaxy S23 Ultra.
Young Titouan in February 2023 when choosing the S23 Ultra in long test.
Rest assured, my colleagues did not confiscate the Galaxy S23 Ultra from me to appropriate its powers and I was able to complete my test. After almost seven months in his companythe time has come to draw the necessary conclusions and to warn those who may be interested.
Put on a shell
We attack with a point on which I can never emphasize enough. Put on a shell. Yes, I know, it was stupid of me not to have put on a shell and to arrive after the war to tell you not to make the same mistake as me. But that’s what the tests are for. I would like to point out that I did not damage the smartphone for pure pleasure, I even asked Samsung for a case on several occasions, without success.
Test long du Galaxy S23 Ultra. // Source : Aroged – Robin Wycke
Test long du Galaxy S23 Ultra. // Source : Aroged – Robin Wycke
Test long du Galaxy S23 Ultra. // Source : Aroged – Robin Wycke
Let me tell you that I have tested the durability of the Galaxy S23 Ultra. I’m perhaps a little clumsier than average, but have no illusions on this point: in seven months, a smartphone is gone. It even falls a lot. If it remains perfectly functional, the S23 Ultra that I use shows traces of this in several places. Don’t think that because smartphones are much more durable today, they won’t get damaged, that’s not the case.
That being said, we must recognize that the S23 Ultra is tough. The one tested here has many traces on the edges, but only one so to speak deforms the chassis of the phone. At the very top of the screen, a fairly deep cut has deformed the metal of the frame. Apart from this main impact, the smartphone remains in excellent condition. The screen in particular shows no signs of wear, not even the beginning of a scratch visible to the naked eye. When I compare to my 6 months spent with the Oppo Find X5 Pro which ended up riddled with small scratches, I find it prodigious.
Perfect screen and format, pure big screen fun
While we’re talking about the screen, I have to tell you that I loved every moment spent with him. I test between two and four smartphones per month, but I always enjoyed seeing the Galaxy S23 Ultra screen between each test. The size of the panel, 6.8 inches, the fluidity (from 1 to 120 Hz), the vibrancy of the colors… We take full advantage of it and no one really comes to compete with it in the field.
This is what best characterizes, in my eyes, these few months in his company. It is not uncommon, when we keep a smartphone for the long term, to sometimes find faults in it, faults which are all the better highlighted by the various cars that pass through our hands. But there, no smartphone had enough arguments to make me forget the S23 Ultra. The characteristic of an Ultra device.
Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra // Source : Aroged
To continue on the screen, its slightly curved side does not interfere with everyday life and makes the immersion all the stronger. I have never experienced phantom support.
Which brings me to the rather generous format. There, of course, everything will be a question of taste above all. I have people around me who could not tolerate such a bulky smartphone. But I would like to invite you to measure Samsung’s progress in this area.
I was critical of the Galaxy S22 Ultra which really felt like a brick to me. I don’t know if Samsung oils read our tests, but it gives a bit of that impression. For the occasion, I even took out the S22 Ultra to compare the progress made and… the change is both subtle and important. Everything goes through much less rounded slices. This avoids the slippery and uncomfortable side of the predecessor.
There are of course some drawbacks inherent to the format: the S23 Ultra remains relatively heavy and it takes up space in your pockets. But if you are used to large formats, it still does very well in its genre.
Photo, pure pleasure
Without dwelling on the photo quality itself of the Galaxy S23 Ultra (spoiler: it tends to win most of the blind photo tests we organize), the main thing I take away from it is that it is a great tool, capable of adapting to many situations.
Test long du Galaxy S23 Ultra. // Source : Aroged – Robin Wycke
In my personal case, for example, I used it in trade fairs such as the MWC or the IFA. And what joy it was! A subject is a little far from me, hop, I switch to X10. If I can get closer, but I want to avoid casting a shadow on my subject, hop, I go to X3. If I want to get really close, macro mode is there for that. And the main sensor, whatever happens, always does the job with great sharpness and colors.
In a more personal setting, the photo versatility allows, again, to take many photos without feeling a lot of constraints. I can take a photo of my cat from my couch without moving. When traveling, I tended to turn into a photo reporter for my loved ones and multiply the viewing angles thanks to the four modules on the back.
However, I have two or three complaints about the photo. Portrait mode is sometimes a bit disappointing. In particular, I often needed to try again several times, taking a series of blurry shots, as soon as the lighting was not perfect. There are also quite a few autofocus issues on this smartphone as soon as the scene gets a little complicated. I regularly take photos of smartwatches and the Galaxy S23 Ultra tends to want to focus behind the watch.
Let’s also point out some slightly strange results such as a slight veil on the face of my subjects in X10 or a lot of noise, once in X10, in low light.
The last of the Ultra vouchers?
That a Galaxy S Ultra is good at photos, and has a nice screen, is almost normal. That he is a performance monster is more of an exception. The Galaxy S23 Ultra is a very nice exception. Indeed, for once, Samsung has equipped it with a Snapdragon chip rather than the usual Exynos.
The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and its stylus. // Source: Aroged
On a daily basis, it would be a lie to say that the presence of a Snapdragon is felt. But in fact, we completely forget about it, which is a very good sign. The Snapdragon gave me the assurance, the confidence, to never wonder if my smartphone was capable of launching an application and turning on the graphic details at full speed. It’s the smartphone equivalent of a graphics card like the Nvidia RTX 4090.
Autonomy loses a little of its splendor
When it came out, I could almost last three days with the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. A real, absolutely indestructible monster. But since then, it must be admitted, autonomy has declined significantly.
Test long du Galaxy S23 Ultra. // Source : Aroged – Robin Wycke
From now on, the Korean smartphone tends to last a day and a half without flinching. Let’s be clear, it’s still very good and it allows you to not have enough margin not to worry in a day, especially with one charge per day.
In addition, I used the smartphone a lot in a living room context, with extremely heavy usage (video, photo, note taking, GPS, exchanging messages), and even if I often ended my day a little ric-rac. This is where the 45W charging sometimes seemed a little sluggish to me, especially since you have to invest in a fast charger which is, as a reminder, not supplied with the device.
Maybe we should have given it a 10
Let’s be honest, we could have given the Galaxy S23 Ultra 10/10. Or rather, if a smartphone could have received such a rating, it probably should have been him. At the time, we judged that the colorimetry and the lack of fast charging prevented us from judging it as perfect, which for us is a product receiving a 10/10.
Whether it receives 9/10 or 10/10, the result is somewhat the same. After seven months spent with it, we must face the facts: we are facing the Rolls-Royce of Android smartphones. If we do not want to immediately condemn the probable Galaxy S24 Ultra under Exynos which is announced, it will be very complicated for it, and its competitors, to surpass an extremely excellent Galaxy S23 Ultra.
Especially since its test in February 2023 its price has fallen by almost 350 euros among certain sellers. It is even possible to find it below 900 euros, compared to 1459 euros when it was released. Certainly this remains a small budget, but it goes without saying that this is an excellent long-term investment, a smartphone that you can keep for half a decade without needing or wanting to change it.
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