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Samsung’s Galaxy S23 series is an early contender for smartphone of the year
With the Galaxy S23, Samsung took what worked in the Galaxy S22 and kept it, upgrading what didn’t work. Like the battery life, and using Snapdragon on every single unit, worldwide. And in doing that, Samsung has built, what we’re calling the Smartphone of the Year, so far. Which is why it has earned a Best of MWC 2023 award.
On the outside, the Galaxy S23 isn’t a huge change from its predecessor. Samsung continues to make iterative changes to the Galaxy S lineup. With the biggest changes being flat sides on the Ultra model. While the S23 and S23 Plus gained a flatter backside. With just the camera bumps on-board. The camera bumps across the lineup have also gotten thinner.
The Galaxy S23 Ultra is a battery champ
One of the biggest complains with last year’s Galaxy S22 lineup, was that the battery life was not that great. Well, that has been fixed on the Galaxy S23 Ultra (also on the other models, but not to the same extent). In our review of the Galaxy S23 Ultra, we were able to hit 10 hours of screen on time, repeatedly. Which is a huge jump from the barely 6-7 hours on the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
So how was this possible? Qualcomm. The company ditched Samsung last year, and now has TSMC manufacturing their chipsets (starting with the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1). And since then, we’ve noticed huge improvements in battery life across the board. And that’s the case yet again with the Ultra.
Additionally, the Ultra does also have that stunning 6.8-inch QHD+ AMOLED display. It’s been rated as the best display on a mobile device, ever. Which is pretty common for Samsung, as these displays are made by Samsung and of course the newest displays will be used on Samsung devices.
Samsung’s Galaxy S23 and S23 Plus are impressive too
It’s not just about the Galaxy S23 Ultra though, as the entire lineup is really good this year. The Galaxy S23 and S23 Plus both have larger batteries, and with the new chipset, they see much better battery life, but not quite as good as the Ultra. These also use 120Hz AMOLED displays, which are limited to FHD+. Which is fine, as the Ultra is set to FHD+ resolution out of the box.
Now let’s talk about prices? The Galaxy S23 series starts at $799. Which is pretty impressive in 2023. And that is another reason why it has earned the Best of MWC 2023 award.