Samsung’s Galaxy Series is the de-facto smartphone lineup which, for years, has competed head-on with the iPhone on behalf of Team Android. Starting right from the original Galaxy S more than a decade ago, the series has added features, matured, and refined itself generation after generation. Samsung’s latest Galaxy S23 is a testament to that. It provides an amazing user experience with hardly anything to complain about, or does it? I have been using the Galaxy S23 as my daily device for months now and I have a lot to share with you. Let’s begin!
Galaxy S23 Long-Term Review: Build Quality and Design
I did not like the design of the Galaxy S23 when it first launched. It looked extremely generic with the 3 camera holes and I much preferred the unique in-frame camera island design of the Galaxy S21 and S22. With the Galaxy S23, I felt that it would be impossible to distinguish from the sea of multiple Samsung smartphones with essentially the same design language. Many months later and my feelings have remained the same. The design of the Galaxy S23 continues to be boring.
However, that cannot be said about the build quality. The Galaxy S23 is built like a tank with flat sheets of Gorilla Glass Victus glass that sit flush in a thin, glossy aluminum frame. The phone feels extremely premium to handle thanks to the clicky volume buttons and the matte back glass. I used a Pixel 7 Pro before switching over and it feels like a significant step-up. However, one minor caveat that I noticed in my daily usage is that the sharp edges where the aluminum frame meets the flat glass is very sharp and can get uncomfortable to hold single-handed. A case will mitigate this issue though.
Also read: Best Cases for Samsung Galaxy S23
Galaxy S23 Long-Term Review: Software Experience
Every once in a while, I reminisce about the days of TouchWiz, Samsung’s old Android skin. When software experience was a constant drawback in every Samsung phone’s user experience. However, Samsung has improved massively with OneUI. I have been using the Galaxy S23 for months now and I haven’t noticed any significant software issues, be it app crashes or bugs or even random UI frame-drops. The software experience is extremely smooth and consistent. It is a far-cry from my time with the Pixel 7 Pro, which was comparatively riddled with bugs and overheating issues.
I will admit though, that OneUI is an extremely feature-heavy Android skin and I turned off a lot of those features after the initial few weeks of usage, not because they made the phone slow but because I had no use for them. I still use Split-Screen and Pop-up multitasking from time to time and the phone does not struggle at all in these scenarios. All in all, I would say that Samsung’s OneUI has evolved a lot to become my Android skin of choice.
Also read: Top Accessories for Samsung Galaxy S23 to make the most out of it
Galaxy S23 Long-Term Review: Display and Performance
The Galaxy S23 houses a 6.1” AMOLED panel with a variable 120Hz refresh rate. It is an FHD+ panel with beautiful colors and rich contrast. Samsung has been consistently excellent at making high-quality smartphone displays and the Galaxy S23 is no exception. Be it looking at pictures on Instagram or watching a 4K HDR clip on Netflix, the Galaxy S23’s display provides an amazing watching experience which is rivaled but unbeaten by competing smartphones.
However, I will be the first one to admit that the small screen on the Galaxy S23 is not suitable for gamers simply because of its size. If you still want to game on this phone though, you’re in for a treat. The Galaxy S23 is an extremely powerful computer with the flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 silicon under the hood along with top-of-the-line hardware. For some weird reason, Samsung decided to put a faster kind of storage chip on the 256GB variant of the Galaxy S23 when compared to the 128GB one, so if you can, opt for the higher-capacity version.
My daily usage consists of a lot of social media, texting, emails, and navigation. More often than not, I am doing 2 or more of these tasks simultaneously. I am happy to report that despite all that, the Galaxy S23 maintains its composure very well. In my months of usage, I never once encountered a scenario where the phone seemed to struggle. I even tried running some graphic-intensive games just to test it out and the experience was very satisfactory. There was some heat build-up after around 20-30 minutes of gaming but no throttling in that time. Again, I am not a smartphone gamer so if you are an extreme maxed out gamer pro ultra, your experience may vary. But all in all, I am extremely satisfied with the performance on the Galaxy S23. It is much better than the terrible mess that the Galaxy S22 was when it launched last year.
Also read: Best Screen Protectors for Galaxy S23
Galaxy S23 Long-Term Review: Camera
Photos:
The Galaxy S23 sports a classic triple-camera setup with a 50MP primary camera, a 12MP fixed focus ultrawide, and a 3x 10MP telephoto camera.
In terms of pure camera hardware upgrades, S23’s selfie camera has been blessed with a 12MP Samsung S5K3LU sensor (vs 10MP on S22) with support for dual-pixel PDAF and an f2.2 lens. Apart from this, we got improved imaging processing with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2’s cognitive ISP.
In terms of performance, overall picture quality, and user experience, the S23 delivers amazing pictures with plenty of details both indoors and outdoors. The feature-packed camera app of Galaxy S23 makes shooting photos fun for both casual users and enthusiasts.
- The primary camera captures pictures with excellent dynamic range and plenty of details in all sorts of lighting.
- The ultrawide camera delivers the classic Samsung camera experience. Pictures have punchy colors with plenty of details in shadows and highlights with minimal distortions.
- Even though the 3x telephoto camera has a 10MP sensor, it upscales the images to 12MP and captures somewhat sharp pictures with matching color rendering. Even though the hardware is the same as Galaxy S22, the Galaxy S23’s 3x optical and 10x digital zoom takes sharper and contrasty pictures.
- The selfie camera has gotten the most improvement this year. Samsung increased the resolution this time and improved the overall image processing to make pictures more appealing. Selfies have excellent dynamic range, accurate skin tones with minimal noise, and plenty of details.
- We saw an overall improvement in image quality all across the board in portrait and low-light modes.
Videos:
- The S23 can shoot videos up to 8K@30fps. Flexing aside, the more interesting thing is that the Galaxy S23 can shoot 4K@60fps videos with all of its four cameras.
- The video capabilities got a much-needed processing upgrade this year. The videos look cleaner with better stabilization, dynamic range, and true-to-life colors.
- All this is complemented by improved audio quality and minimal visual noise in different lighting conditions.
To conclude our camera review of the Galaxy S23, we’d sum it up by calling perfect camera for all kinds of users. Be it a casual user running after their toddler or a professional meticulously capturing a RAW picture of a sunset at the beach.
Galaxy S23 Long-Term Review: Battery Life
I used the Galaxy S22 at launch last year and I was flabbergasted with how bad the battery life was. I had high expectations because it was my first Snapdragon Galaxy after years of dealing with Exynos but I was still left very, very disappointed. Thankfully, the Galaxy S23 is far from disappointing. In fact, it is a battery champ.
I use my phone a lot- for phone calls, texting, social media. I use Google Maps for at least an hour everyday. I stream Spotify over Bluetooth for 1-2 hours daily. Despite all that, I have never once managed to kill the Galaxy S23’s battery in a single day. The battery life that I’m getting on the Galaxy S23 is hugely better than what I got on my past few phones including the iPhone 14, Pixel 7 Pro, and the Nothing Phone 1. I have always wanted a compact phone with a phablet-like endurance and that want is finally fulfilled in the name of the Galaxy S23.
Also read: Best Fast Chargers you can buy for Samsung Galaxy S23
Galaxy S23 Long-Term Review: Conclusion
For years people have complained about the lack of a flagship-level compact smartphone- a phone which is small in size but does not compromise on the performance, battery life, and camera when compared to a flagship. Most compact phones suffer from bad battery life, thermally throttled performance, and a variety of other factors. Well, the Galaxy S23 has finally broken that trend.
The Galaxy S23 is the best, most complete compact phone I have ever used with a usable size, premium build quality, excellent performance, and a long-lasting battery life. This is a rare compact phone that delivers a flagship-level experience in all aspects which is the reason that would highly, highly recommend this phone to all buyers. I am pretty sure that this will be my favorite phone of the year unless the Pixel 8 or iPhone 15 have some unexpected tricks up their sleeves!
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