February is starting and that means we have our new Samsung Galaxy. The S23 family is now complete and another year is planned as the star product inside the S23 Ultra. Before our full analysis, we will tell you what happened. Our first impressions of this phone.

Curiously, it is one of the Galaxy generations in which (at least on paper) fewer changes are detected. I’m giving you a little spoiler: that’s exactly it. this mobile is better than ever.

Technical page of Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra

A continuous design and a thinning curve

Samsung is used to changing the design significantly from one Galaxy generation to the next. This year’s offer is completely different. It might look exactly the same as last year’s model, if we don’t touch upon the minor changes that have occurred in the design. In the presenter’s opinion, this is the right way to go with the senior. refine what is already goodInstead of completely abandoning good design in pursuit of an innovation that we all don’t want.

But there is one small change in the design of this Galaxy S23 Ultra that changes everything. For generations, Samsung has been smoothing the curves of its high-end products. The message they want to convey is that such a solution improves gripAlthough our experience suggests otherwise. However, every year we see flagships with less curves.

This Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra cuts philosophy down to minimal expression edge From Samsung to the point we barely have small 2.5D effect, with a curved panel instead of using it. It becomes more comfortable in the hand, our finger now touches the bezel rather than the screen (something that should resolve possible ghosting beforehand), and in your presenter’s opinion, it’s even cleaner at the design level than its predecessor.

For the rest, a Giant phone over 16 centimeters high, 230 grams weight and glass (Gorilla Glass Victus 2) and aluminum coating. The only downside we can say is that it doesn’t splatter onto titanium, a coating that’s even superior to aluminum. However, this bet will significantly increase the already high final weight. without forgetting that S-Pen is integrated into the body your device.

Speaking of weight, it’s fairly well distributed, although noticeable. It’s a huge cell phone, but if we get used to this format, nothing disturbing has been done. Likewise, it has less curvature, making it a little less panicky to think about what will happen if it falls to the ground and hits the screen. This is something we will hopefully not check in our analysis.

If we talk about the screen, there is almost no news. we are before same 6.8 inch Super AMOLED displayWith Quad HD+ resolution (although set to Full HD+ by default) and adaptive refresh from 1 to 120 Hz, the Maximum brightness is once again 1,750 nits and is now covered by Gorilla Glass Victus. The panel already stood out last year, but maybe we expected a little more ambition.

Apple has already joined the 2,000-nit bandwagon with the iPhone 14 Pro, and if anyone in the nits is outperforming Apple (numberly at least), it’s Samsung. That said, it’s unlikely that we’ll start to see competition with that 2,000 nits, given Samsung is the main panel provider for its other rivals. Protection is slightly higher in this generation, the panel is covered with Gorilla Glass Victus 2.

Goodbye Exynos, we won’t miss you

Samsung didn’t do a bad job with the Exynos 2200. It came with an AMD-signed GPU and accurate performance, but efficiency well below the competition, and not-so-impressive behavior on both CPU and graphics. In America, they enjoyed an S22 Ultra with a Qualcomm heart, a strategy where they only bet on their chips for certain regions.

We haven’t had a chance to fully zip this Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra but out of surprise we will be before best performing Samsung Galaxy. We have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the American giant’s best piece to date, and proof that bugs in Gen 1 can be fixed in a single year.

Despite repeating 5,000mAh and 45W for the battery, Samsung promises It is the Galaxy with the best autonomy.and they have almost tripled the size of the steam room so that heating is not a problem. With this chip and proper optimization, the phone should fly. At our first contact, we noticed a light mobile with a layer that no longer drags (at least in the highest range) and a very, very sweet taste in the mouth.

There was no improvement this year with the S-Pen, which is exactly the same as last year. The latency is less than 3ms, it’s integrated into the mobile phone and is the perfect complement for those looking for maximum productivity. This Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra comes with 4 years of system updates and five security patches, so longevity should be one of its key points.

The Android version is number 13 with One UI 5.1 as the customization layer. there are a lot of changes and almost all for the better, so we guess Samsung ROM takes a step forward. It still looks like a lot of Samsung and a lot of Samsungbut on a functional level, it does improve with points such as the implementation of Expert RAW within the native camera.

Many megapixels, much to prove

Examining the camera of the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra will not be an easy task, and that’s good news. Only the main camera sensor has changedIt is the massive new 200 megapixel ISOCELL HP2, a sensor specially designed to work with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and its ISP (image signal processor).

Only the main sensor and selfie camera change in this S23 Ultra. The new 200 megapixel HP2 has the potential to change everything.

As usual, the phone will shoot 12 megapixels in auto mode, although we can increase the resolution to 50 or 200 MP at will. Although it is an application that we need to install additionally, Expert RAW is integrated into the camera interface. In this mode, we can compress the RAW footage of the phone to 50 megapixels.

We asked Samsung why we couldn’t take full advantage of the sensor and shoot RAW at 200 megapixels, and there’s no official comment on that. Logic tells us how much internal storage this phone has, Managing 200 megapixel RAW files will not be an easy task neither for the phone nor for the computer that wants to process it. In the analysis we will see if there is a difference between shooting at 12, 50 and 200, as well as the potential of the RAW file.

The rest of the rear sensors are exactly the same: 12-megapixel ultra-wide angle and two 10-megapixel telephoto lenses: one 3X and the other 10X. The only resolution that has dropped is the resolution of the front sensor, which has increased from 40 to 12 megapixels. Samsung promises more details despite the drop in resolution, it’s not clear yet if this is true.

This Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is promising, but has a few challenges ahead

When these go far beyond the technical picture, it’s hard to convey sensations with a phone. From my point of view, it’s always better to let technologies that work and mature, rather than want to introduce completely new ones that are immature. I prefer this S23 Ultra to repeat the design, have the same battery and not replace the already well-working camera sensors. It makes sense if you touch what’s really important.

Switching to Qualcomm should affect not only energy consumption and higher thermal efficiency, but also the image processing itself (although we guess the philosophy of washing to reduce noise still applies, hence losing details). This new sensor Promising at the level of possibilitiesand we’ll see if Samsung can get the most out of it.

The only thorn I have left is seeing a phone from 2023. Final invoice of 1,409 euros and the main competitor of mobile phones such as the iPhone 14 Pro Max with a brightness of less than 2,000 nits. The panel will appear in a scandal and in the sun, but it was born without wanting to be the best on the market.

Secondly, since the S22 Ultra is currently around 1,000 euros on pages like Amazon, it seems difficult to justify the extra 400 euros that must be contributed to get the new version. But in a few days we will review the camera, performance and autonomy of this Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, which is nominated for the best Android of 2023.