24 hours with Galaxy S23 Ultra: Samsung could have hit the jackpot

The Galaxy S23 series debuted earlier this week, with the Ultra model in the lineup getting special care and attention as far as new features and improvements are concerned, which is something that wasn’t very surprising.

Thanks to Samsung India, I received the Galaxy S23 and the Galaxy S23 Ultra for testing the day after the Galaxy Unpacked 2023 event, and I’ve been using the Galaxy S23 Ultra for almost exactly 24 hours at the time of this writing.

24 hours isn’t enough time for proper testing and offering a proper verdict, but it is enough for getting a feel of what the user experience could be like on a new phone. And I think I like the Galaxy S23 Ultra already.

There are many reasons for that. The design is exquisite and instantly stands out – those individual rear camera rings look better here than they did on the S22 Ultra. The display is as amazing as you expect from a Samsung flagship. Oh, and Samsung’s decision to exclusively use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor will please everyone.

Samsung could have a winner on its hands

In fact, it seems like the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 makes a notable difference, at least in battery life. The Galaxy S22 Ultra had the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 in most markets, which was great on paper but the chip’s quality was held back by Samsung’s not-so-good fabrication process. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, meanwhile, is manufactured by TSMC, and Samsung has worked closely with Qualcomm to optimize the chip for its latest flagships.

The Galaxy S22 Ultra’s battery life wasn’t bad, but it looks like the Galaxy S23 Ultra will last even longer with the same amount of battery charge. Tests done by some YouTubers already show promise: the Galaxy S23 Ultra lasts almost as long as the iPhone 14 Pro Max.

That’s more impressive than you might think if you have never used an iPhone (or the most recent versions of it), because battery life on Apple’s Pro Max iPhone models is more or less the gold standard in the mobile industry. Samsung hasn’t managed to beat the iPhone, but it has gotten real close with the S23 Ultra.

As for taking pictures, I’m afraid I can’t say anything about whether that 200MP camera (or Samsung’s new 12MP front-facing camera) brings any meaningful improvements in day-to-day use. The fancy new astro and pro-grade features probably work well, but you will have to wait for our review to find out if that is the case for sure.

Like the Galaxy S22 Ultra, the S23 Ultra comes with an embedded S Pen. I’m not a regular user of the S Pen and have yet to use the one on Samsung’s newest flagship, though the stylus experience probably hasn’t changed much — or at all — compared to last year.

On the software side, the S23 series comes with One UI version 5.1 (the core OS is still Android 13). We’ve already seen what new features One UI 5.1 adds on top of One UI 5.0 thanks to a leak before the phones’ launch, but we’ll be digging deep down to see whether that leak was 100% accurate or if there’s more (or less) new software functionality in there.

Overall, while we have yet to test all aspects of the S23 Ultra, my experience after the first full day of use suggests Samsung might have a winner on its hands. I can’t wait to thoroughly test the phone over the next few days and discuss what’s good and what isn’t with other members of the SamMobile team as we work on our review.