We have the entire family of Galaxy S23 series of phones with us – but in today’s video, I want to focus on this – the small one. The S23 deserves a lot more love because small flagship smartphones are a dying breed, but also because Samsung manages to spice up the deal with this phone to the point that it surprised me on multiple different occasions.
As usual, everything is timestamped below – so let’s begin.
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Performance
We’ll start off with the biggest highlight of the Galaxy S23 – the performance. This phone is also powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, just like the S23+ and the Ultra.
Now, from our gaming test – we said that the FPS is pretty much identical to the Ultra – but Samsung can’t cheat physics and the hot chip still needs to be cooled down.
How did they do it? Well, they have some trick up their sleeves. Using Genshin Impact as the example, the maximum render resolution is actually lowered to 1755×810. It’s not THAT much lower, actually. Doing some quick math, we can find out that the render resolution is only 12.622982% lower than the Ultra.
So, by lowering the render resolution, the S23 is able to maintain an FPS number that is similar to the Ultra while also keeping the temperature in check. Remember, a smaller phone means it has a smaller surface area to dissipate heat away from the phone – and I’m actually impressed that this phone didn’t even reach 45°C on the surface. That’s really good engineering on Samsung’s part.
You might argue that the lowered render resolution makes the game look ugly – and I think we need to look at the bigger picture. By doing some math, we can calculate the pixel per inch of each phone and also the game’s pixel per inch values using the maximum render resolution.
Then, when we divide the two numbers, we can use this result as the “sharpness” value. When we compare the sharpness value of each phone, we can see that the S23 is only behind the Ultra. The S23+ is the least sharp in this regard.
But ultimately, does it matter? I don’t think so. They all look super good and I just wanna do some math.
Oh, a quick highlight here – does the Galaxy S23 have the battery bypass feature? The answer is yes – and it works just the same as the Ultra.
What I discovered is that you’ll have to perform some weird ritual to get that option to appear. We did another video about this.
Display
Then, it’s time to talk about the display. I think this is the S23’s double-edged sword. It’s either you like the small display, or you don’t. This flat 6.1-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X screen with 120Hz maximum refresh rate and a resolution of 2340×1080 has a pixel per inch value of ~422ppi, and that’s very high.
The notable highlight for this generation though, is the screen. Samsung claims that even the S23 has the same peak brightness of 1750 nits, which is the same as the Ultra. Is it true?
Let’s take a step back. If we turn on manual brightness and crank up the brightness, then it’s at about 460 nits brightness. Once we turn on “extra bright”, then its maximum brightness is at around 750 nits.
However, as we mentioned before, playing a white HDR video will make the screen go even brighter – and we recorded a maximum of about 1200 nits – which is the same as the Ultra.
Then, the color accuracy. Tested at 100 nits of brightness, this display covers about 100% for both sRGB and DCI-P3, while the Adobe RGB is at 93.98%. This is the highest we’ve seen so far, actually.
The maximum Delta E is relatively high at 3.1111, but the average delta E is very low. Either way, this is still a magnificent display.
Design
As for the design, we all know this story by now. The S23 got a redesign and it is now a more elegant and minimalistic design with individual protruding circles for each camera. I personally like this design a lot more, honestly.
The back panel is also in a matte finish that feels smooth to touch, and for the Phantom Black color, the Samsung logo is actually more apparent compared to all other colors. And yes, there are two more exclusive colors that are only available on Samsung.com. We have the Graphite and Lime colors.
Camera
Okay, the cameras. Specs of all the cameras are as shown on the screen right now. It might look the same as the S22, but there are a few notable changes – especially in the videography. We’ll get to it later.
To have a look at all of the pictures and videos taken with the Samsung Galaxy S23, watch our video at the top of this review.
Battery life
Okay, let’s talk about battery life. The Galaxy S23 did get a larger battery over its predecessor, totaling to 3,900mAh now. Yes, it doesn’t sound like much and yes, I was also worried about its battery life. However, doing our usual PCMark battery life test locked at 100 nits brightness, we can see that the battery life got a massive increment over the S22 – partly thanks to the new, more efficient chipset.
It jumped from about 9.5 hours to 13 hours – and that is a significant increase. This battery life result is also almost identical to the S23 Ultra as well, actually.
Charging time
The charging time though, stays the same as last year. Maxed out at 25W only, the used our Ugreen 100W USB-PD charger and the phone charges from 15% to completion in about an hour. The temperature did touch 40°C though, but it didn’t stay there for long and then it does the temperature control thing whereby the charging speed ramps up and down in response to the temperature.
Software
So, the software – One UI 5.1. After spending more time with the Galaxy S23 series, I realized that the animations are now super smooth, everything is much more responsive overall – and on top everything mentioned in the Galaxy S23 Ultra review – watch it at the top right corner there – it also has this feature where you can tap and hold on the subject in an image to lift it up. Yes, this is copied from iOS 16. However, I want to question its usefulness.
Also, quick correction on the bloatware that we mentioned. We have to tap on that little “i” icon and grant it proper permissions to see the real system app size. On the 128GB variant of the S23, it is at 27.62GB, and I have installed quite a lot of things already.
Again, I believe that there are lots of unnecessary things pre-loaded into the phone, but I also believe labeling all of them as bloatware is unfair since there are lots of useful features inside.
Misc.
Okay, so before we end – I want to quickly mention a few things. First, the storage speed of the 128GB variant of the S23 is very slow compared to the S23+ or S23 Ultra. The RAM speed is about the same, though.
Second, the S23 also has a proper USB 3.0 port at the bottom , making it super fast to transfer files in and out of the phone. This is especially true if I’m recording 4K 60fps or even 8K 30fps videos.
Of course, the S23 still has Samsung DeX – so plug in any external monitor and you can start using it immediately.
Also, it has IP68 rating too.
Conclusion
So, conclusion time then. I just gotta be straightforward with you – I love this phone. Some of us just prefer smaller phones – and Samsung managed to fix up a lot of problems and worries by extending the battery life significantly, packing a beautiful display, and the cameras are still gorgeous.
Also, tiny flagship smartphones are a dying breed. The Galaxy S23 is one of those tiny flagship smartphones that is actually made well and is readily available worldwide.
So, if you’re looking for a tiny phone that has the best of everything, this is the phone to get.
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