Joined in 2023 
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63 About this deal
Overall, achieving a full day of strong use is a great outcome, and for the rest of us not living on our phone at all hours of the day and night, two days is quite impressive. It's the sort of battery life we've yearned for, and virtually no one is delivering. Great work, Samsung. With all of that tech inside what is easily one of the biggest phones around, using the phone can be a bit of a mixed bag. Like all other 5G phones released in Australia, the S23 Ultra is also 4G compatible, so even when you're not getting super-fast 5G, you should still get pretty solid 4G, too. Camera
However, if you’re used to a smaller phone, using the S23 Ultra isn’t necessarily easy, and will become a two-hand phone. It all sits under a big 6.8 inch slightly curved display, something Samsung’s calls an “Edge” display, running a Dynamic AMOLED panel at Quad HD+ (3088×1440) and 120Hz. There’s support for HDR here and Corning’s scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protecting things, while the rest of the body is made from aluminium and glass, measuring 8.9mm thin and weighing 234g.The size could be an issue if you're not used to huge phones, and some hands will find the size so unwieldy, they may struggle to hold the handset comfortably. Mind you, if you're coming from a big phone already, this is likely already an issue you've overcome. In fairness, it's not entirely Samsung's issue alone: high-end smartphones are quite pricey at the moment, and the S23 Ultra is not new in that respect. Hopefully you know this going in, and won’t see any issues, with the phone offering you a massive 6.8 inch 3088×1440 Quad HD+ screen at a maximum of 120Hz, plus an S-Pen to let you do that little bit more. Like other tablets with a stylus attached, that means writing on the screen, scribbling on the screen, and drawing on the screen, all either while the phone is on and doing things, or even on standby. But it's not much of an update, if any at all. It's a phone with the S-Pen, just like the S22 Ultra was. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that starts with the system spec, which is upgraded from the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. If that just reads like jargon, think of it as the latest and greatest fast mobile chip, because that’s exactly what it is.
The only other critical factor Samsung may struggle with is upgrades, because it's a near impossible argument from last year's model to this one. About the only major issue we have is that the camera can also feel a touch slow to fire, which seems to be a consistent Samsung issue. We've seen it on what must have years worth of Samsung phones, and it's a bug that just doesn't seem to go away. The change offers a fair amount of flexibility to Samsung's most impressive camera in its range, and something the S23 and S23+ both miss out on. As for how this relates to real-world performance, the good news is you shouldn't need to think about it at all. Using the S23 Ultra in a day-to-day way should see apps work beautifully and little to no lag in most of what you do. On the one hand, it's the same 5000mAh battery from the older S22 Ultra, but on the other, it just performs better in general. It's so good, you can get a good two days of life from regular use if you wanted to, and if you use it less, you might hit the three mark.
You might wonder why there's such a big camera in this phone, and that's fair. After all, megapixels don't always make for a better camera, something many a photographer learned over a decade ago when the term "megapixel myth" popped up. That lines up roughly with the 12 megapixels on offer from the ultra-wide camera in this phone, and is also similar to the 12 megapixels used in the S23 and S23+, not to mention Samsung's obvious competitor in the iPhone 14 Pro Max. While the system performance has received a bit of a boost from the new Snapdragon chip, the biggest upgrade may well be on the camera side of things, as the main 108 megapixel wide angle camera is upgraded to an even bigger 200 megapixel camera, and it is an interesting addition.
The camera is sure an update on the previous generation, but the battery reads like a winning change, too. It's a similar deal in the world of mobile performance, and because this is a 5G phone, you should be able to get solid 5G speeds out, as well. Simply put, there is no conceivable reason beyond "owning the newest" to upgrade from the S22 Ultra to the S23 Ultra. The camera isn't a massive leap, and neither is the spec bump. That upgrade would be an upgrade for upgrade's sake.Close-up images through the complex camera setup sees some interesting shots that are possible, but a slightly slower lens on each means you won't find as much light control. For instance, if you have no problem with large phones, you’ll likely love the massive 6.8 inch size of the S23 Ultra, and dig the S-Pen built into the body. That last bit is one of the main features, though it hasn’t changed dramatically from last generation, offering a way to draw and write on the screen, whether it’s off or on standby, and giving you some extra controls if you need them, too.
You'll still find four cameras to speak of in the Ultra, but strangely they're not evenly matched: there are also two 10 megapixel cameras for 3x and 10x telephoto and a 12 megapixel ultra-wide camera, alongside that massive 200 megapixel shooter. Pit the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra against Asus' high-end gaming phone from last year, the ROG Phone 6 Pro, and Samsung's phone is faster again, even when the Asus model is on its high-speed "X" mode.
We're not likely to use the S-Pen, but others could, and between the flexibility of that feature and not necessarily needing to have a tablet, plus the fairly solid versatility of the camera and the impressive system performance, Samsung's S23 Ultra is about as worth the price as nay other flagship phone released today. To put it simply, Samsung's all-round flagship phone is beating the performance of a phone made for gaming, telling you just how useful the Galaxy S23 Ultra will end up being for gaming, or anything else you throw its way. In fact, tested in Sydney on the Telstra 5G network, we found the S23 Ultra was able to hit into the 750Mbps mark, though your mileage may vary based on your network, where you are, and the strength of the network at the time. For the most part, however, the camera delivers quite a bit of performance, and few will really have a reason to complain about it. Battery
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