Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus reviewA treat for Android lovers

By Ankita GargSamsung is known for offering the best Android experience with its flagship Galaxy S series and the company has never really failed to deliver a great phone with a top-notch experience. Does that mean the new Galaxy S23+ is also the best and worthy ultra-premium phone? It is a treat for those who love Android phone and want fast performance with loads of nifty features and customization options. But, the Galaxy S23+ is a pretty expensive 5G phone. Should you consider buying it? Let’s find out in our detailed review.

Design, display, build

The Samsung Galaxy S23+ has a simple, yet elegant design. The company has made cosmetic changes in the design, but the combination of a metal frame as well as a glass back with white finish makes the phone look luxurious. Compared to the Galaxy S22+, Samsung has eliminated the back camera module to offer a neat look. The rear panel is pretty much flat and the device doesn’t wobble when kept on a flat surface.

The glass back with a glossy finish is not as slippery while using the device, but a case would still offer a better grip. The buttons are placed on the right side and tactile feedback was pretty good. I can say that the haptics on the Samsung Galaxy S23+ is pretty solid and offered satisfying clicky feedback. There is, of course, no audio jack, which is something we stopped seeing on premium phones a long time back.

The Galaxy S23+ retains the 6.6-inch FHD+ display, which in my opinion, is the best screen size. Not too big or compact. So, people who love binge-watching and need a big enough screen will likely be pleased by this Android phone. It is pretty easy to handle the device with one hand. Samsung’s OneUI also makes it easier to access all things that are placed on the top of the screen. One just needs to slide down once on the screen and the device pulls down the upper area of the display to let you seamlessly access content.

The flagship phones from Samsung have the best displays and the new offering is no different. The panel has excellent contrast levels and colours that make the content really pop out. At times, the colours did seem a bit saturated, but Samsung has given you the option to adjust the saturation levels of the screen in the settings, and so, one can adjust colours that better suit their eyes.

The latest generation features a dynamic 120Hz LTPO panel. But, the device only switches refresh between 48Hz to 120Hz based on the content, similar to what we saw on the S22+. While an average user wouldn’t spot a difference if the company added support for 1Hz or 10Hz at least, I believe the more we get is merrier. The lower refresh rate would have helped save more battery life. We will talk about this area in a bit.

Just like S22+, the bezels are minimal and the punch-hole is also tiny, which provides a clean experience and a bigger canvas for content consumption. I was pretty impressed by the support for brightness levels. The company has increased peak brightness to 1,750nits, up from 1,300nits. This did make a huge difference as the screen was pretty visible and usable in harsh sunlight, unlike a lot of phones in the market. I also liked the fact the display’s brightness can be reduced to the lowest at night, which is good for eyes as the light won’t hurt them if you use smartphones a lot in the dark.

The panel has the rugged Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 coating on top for protection against accidental drops and scratches. I can say that my unit dropped a few times, but the screen didn’t achieve any cracks or scratches. Though, I would still advise people to buy a case.

Performance, software

While the performance part is pretty obvious because it features a flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC, the Samsung Galaxy S23+ did feel buttery smooth in real-world usage. From multi-tasking to video editing to gaming, the device can handle everything you throw at it. One of the biggest improvements is in terms of temperature control. The device doesn’t get hot even after using resource-heavy apps and graphically demanding games for more than an hour. I loved playing Genshin Impact on the Galaxy S23+ purely because the device was able to display graphics in detail in medium settings and there was no lag or stutter during intense fights. It is worth pointing out that the game has high-level graphics and requires more than 15GB of storage space.

The device didn’t feel slow at any point in time even after playing the game for hours. During gaming, some resource-heavy apps like Inshot, and Instagram were running in the background, which didn’t slow down the Galaxy S23+. Those who want the fastest and smooth performance out of the box should buy this flagship phone without any second thoughts.

This one has an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner, which is accurate and fast to unlock the phone. Though, I have seen that OnePlus phones can unlock phones way faster. I advise people to use fingerprint sensor for security as it feels more secure and quicker than Face Unlock.

The company is still not offering support for microSD card slots to let people expand the internal storage. Samsung did start offering 256GB as base storage with the introduction of the new Galaxy S23+ smartphone, which is a welcome addition. Though, the price has also been increased. It is worth pointing out that the Galaxy S23+ consumes at least 50GB of storage space by default when you buy it. So, you are basically getting 200GB or so space, which is still plenty. One can always use cloud storage services to store videos or big file-sized images.

The Galaxy S23+ ships with Samsung’s custom One UI 5.1 skin, which is based on Android 13 OS. The company has promised to offer four years of major Android OS upgrades and five years of security patches, which makes the new phone future-proof and is expected to offer a better experience to users in the longer run.

You get some of the cool features with One UI. People can just touch and save (or copy) a person or an object from Gallery app as a separate image. Samsung does a pretty decent job of neatly extracting any object from a scene. One also gets a nifty co-edit Samsung Notes feature during video calls. There is also lock screen customization functionality, as well as Bixby Text Call feature to let you respond to calls with a text.

I would like to mention that the unit offered great noise cancellation during voice calls, which is something that one doesn’t get on all smartphones. You get dual speakers on the Galaxy S23+. As per my usage experience, the speakers sounded pretty loud. The base was pretty much pronounced and mid frequency sounded balanced, which made watching movies on the phone much more enjoyable. Though, I tried not to keep the volume level to full to avoid distortion.

Camera

The Samsung Galaxy S23+ is capable of offering a great photography experience when the light is right. I feel that this flagship phone can best capture sceneries for your Instagram account. The dynamic range and exposure levels are good when there is a good level of light source in the scene. Sometimes, the camera app did take a few seconds to process an image before making it visible in the Gallery app. Also, the regular photo mode offered better details, colours, sharpness and highlights on subjects than the 50MP mode. The post-processing of the 50MP photos offer a warmer tone with loss of details in some parts. I noticed a bit of barrel distortion in a few shots and some parts of frames were randomly out of focused.

The colours on the Samsung phone might look a bit saturated because of the screen mode you select, but the truth is the Galaxy S23+ actually manages to deliver almost natural colours and contrast levels. The dynamic range is balanced in daylight, but the unit struggles to properly display shadows and highlights as the light metering goes down.

It can capture detailed and well-defined close-ups, but you will have to take a few shots to get a perfect picture. The portrait shots turned out to be attractive with a good level of blur effect in the background. Though, when I suspected a few images little closely, I discovered that the edge detection is not as sharp and neat. I liked the fact that Samsung managed to retain hair strands, textures on clothes, skin tone and other things pretty accurately. The similar is also the case for selfies.

The most impressive part is the phone’s night mode. Even if there is less light, the device manages to deliver a well-lit photo without compromising on colours, and highlights. The noise is also suppressed pretty well. The details are also not lost and I can say that it is one of the best night photography phones in the market. One can shoot up to 8K videos with great quality. So, people who create short videos or blog a lot will love the Galaxy S23+.

Battery, charging

The Galaxy S23+ has a 4,500mAh battery under the hood, which is enough to survive a day with moderate usage. This involves a few photography sessions, 30 minutes of gaming, light usage of social media apps and attending a few calls. Samsung phones have a heavy UI with loads of features and hence, they consume slightly more battery. But, the Galaxy S23+ offered solid battery life and I didn’t witness any battery drain issue at any point of time. Gaming was an absolute delight on this device and the battery didn’t run out quickly, which is an improvement. The battery-saving modes offer an even better experience and provide extra screen time for a few hours. I liked the fact that the device doesn’t reduce battery when it is not in daytime or at night.

Samsung doesn’t ship a charger in the retail box, which is a downside. The good thing is the company has at least given support for 45W fast charging. Though, we have several phones in the market with at least 120W charging tech support. People can buy the 45W charger from Samsung, which the brand claims takes 55 minutes or so to fully charge the device. The fast chargers of other brands take a little more time to top up the battery. So, I would advise users to buy a Samsung adapter.

The Galaxy S23+ has support for wireless charging too. This tech is way more convenient than wired charging, but you miss out fast charging speeds and you will have to wait a little longer to quickly fill up the battery.

Samsung Galaxy S23+ reviewShould you buy it?

The Samsung Galaxy S23+ is priced at Rs 94,999 and it is worth every penny because of the top-notch Android experience you get out of the box, with some software goodies. It offers a luxurious design, buttery smooth performance, and an eye-catching display. The battery life is pretty solid. I can easily say that this one has a great set of cameras that are capable of offering picturesque shots in good lighting conditions. The night photography is pretty impressive compared to the competition. All this combined with long-term software support makes the Samsung Galaxy S23+ a great Android phone.

Yes, it is a bit expensive phone and the company has increased the price of the latest generation by at least 10,000 compared to the Galaxy S22+, but you get the best Android experience as well. There are several huge discount offers available on the e-commerce platform, which makes the deal even more enticing. However, there is one downside of the phone, no charger in the box.