A Hands-on Review of Samsung's Latest Smartphone: First Impressions and Final Thoughts

We started by taking pictures like crazy, with our camera capturing 68% of the scene. As we sat in some direct sunlight, the phone automatically boosted the brightness to the max, ensuring that we could see everything clearly. I must say that this feature is one of the most underrated aspects of the device - it's a game-changer for anyone who wants to take great photos or videos outside.

The display on Samsung's latest smartphone is indeed a highlight. It features a vibrant and colorful AMOLED 2X Infinity-O display, which is not only beautiful but also extremely bright. The dynamic contrast ratio provides deep blacks, making colors appear more vivid and lifelike than ever before. Whether you're watching content or using the device for everyday tasks, this display is sure to impress.

One thing that struck me during our hands-on session was the phone's grip. While it didn't feel too slippery in my hand, I did find myself feeling a bit less confident holding onto it compared to other devices. However, once I got used to its shape and weight, I started to feel more at ease. The phone's overall design is sleek and modern, making it a joy to hold and use.

As we began exploring the device's features, we discovered that one of the standout aspects was its camera capabilities. We were able to capture stunning photos with excellent color accuracy, thanks in part to the inclusion of natural and oil-based photo settings. The former provided more accurate colors, while the latter offered a subtle sheen to the images. Whether you prefer oil-based or water-based photography, this device has got you covered.

After completing our shoot, we headed out to Home Depot to finish some house work. As I pulled out my phone, I couldn't help but appreciate how well it performed in bright sunlight - a feature that Samsung's devices have always excelled at. The display's brightness levels are truly impressive, making it perfect for outdoor use.

As the day drew to a close, we started discussing our final thoughts on the device. Overall, I can confidently say that this is the best smartphone Samsung has ever produced. With its excellent user experience, snappy performance, and outstanding cameras, it's clear that Samsung has raised the bar once again.

One aspect that did surprise me was the standby time of the battery life. Even with minimal usage, the phone seemed to be able to conserve energy remarkably well. According to our tests, the 5000mAh battery offered an impressive standby time of over a day - something that's not always guaranteed with modern smartphones. With quick charging options also included, I don't foresee any significant issues with battery life.

Another notable feature is the inclusion of the S Pen, which will undoubtedly appeal to fans of this stylus-based interface. While I don't personally use it often, its presence adds a welcome layer of functionality and versatility to the device.

In conclusion, if you're considering upgrading from an older Samsung model or one of the newer Ultra devices (S21 or S22 Ultra), this latest smartphone is a safe bet. However, if you're already using one of these high-end models, you might not need to upgrade - but it's always worth checking out what Samsung has in store for you.

What do our readers think about Samsung's latest device? Do they feel that it offers enough improvements over previous models? Share your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's going on guys it's Trav consumer and today we are spending a real Day in the Life with the new Samsung Galaxy s23 Ultra and you know how we do in these videos I'll be taking you through a full day with the phone so we can test out everything you want to know like the battery camera performance so we can see how it works in the real world so let's see how it does all right guys so real day in the lifetime obviously but I'm in a bit of a predicament as you can see I'm only at 43% to start the day so I need to go ahead and charge this up luckily we got Anchor's newest Chargers 45 Watts right in this tiny bad boy hopefully this can help me get this thing charged up quickly so we can get the rest of the day started now if you want to pick this phone up you should know it doesn't come with a charger but that's where anchor comes in not only did they sponsor today's video but they make some of the best power accessories in the game including their new 313 and 312 Chargers the 313 is a 45 W charger with super fast charging 2.0 meaning you get Peak charging performance so you can get a full charge on the s23 ultra in less than an hour you get that kind of performance while keeping a low profile thanks to their Nan technology giving it higher Energy Efficiency upgraded heat dissipation and that compact size and if you plan on going the compact route with with your phone and you pick up something like the standard s23 you might want to look at their 312 charger that hits you with 25 WS of peak charging for that phone if you plan on picking one of these phones up and you want the best charger for it you know I'll have links Down Below in the description so you know where to grab them all right you guys so about 20 minutes later we are at 78% I can live with that if I had 29 more minutes I would have been full but I'll take it now I got to wrestle I got to wrestle this guy and take him to school you ready Austin I don't have to you don't have to that's great all right all right so now we're going to take a quick pick of the fit don't mind his hair it's getting done today we'll take a before and after picture but all right buddy ready he Cheese look at the camera say cheese there we go give me a thumbs up turn it around huh turn it around turn what around the camera you want to turn the camera around you want to take a selfie come here buddy cheese cheese how you tell me to take say cheese man you the boss now all right bud you ready to go to school yeah whose car are we going in this one that one what about my car mama's car mama's car you're a Traer bro all right bud you ready to go to school no you got to stop saying that all right let's drop you off no all right so Austin's finally a school uh this phone isn't at Max charge yet you know I like to start my day off with a full charge uh so I'm going to go ahead and put this thing on the charger uh so we can get it to 100% it's a little bit later in the morning but I rather start off with a full battery and because we're using that 45 W charger we're getting the max speeds here so in about 29 minutes we should be all good to go that's not too bad your phone's on 20% get your life together bro so the real work day started while I let the phone charge up to 100 and I had a few things to script out one I was super excited about was this Apex Legends collab believe in manifestation y'all but of course I couldn't control myself and I wasn't able to stay off social media for too long okay so I've been browsing social media for a little bit and it kind of leads me to my first point about this phone I love the direction Samsung is going with these I don't know how many of you will notice but the edges are now a bit flatter than they used to be with the s22 ultra we had very rounded edges uh these are a bit flatter uh so I actually find them a bit easier to hold in the hand I'm telling you guys I am waiting for the day when they decide to just go all flat like they have with the regular s23 and s23 plus I don't feel like it's a hindrance when watching content like I was just on Dave 2D's video and because of the bezels I feel like there's not really any content spilling over so the edges are starting to go down more and more it feels like at least uh especially with the sides so I am all for that so using this to do everyday stuff of course feels very comfortable uh still a big phone so when you you know you got throw it in your pocket it's not a big deal I think most of us are used to big phones at this point so we aren't seeing a radical redesign by any means it honestly almost looks exactly like the s22 ultra aside from those sides although there's another slight difference and that's with the camera bumps you might notice on the s23 ultra they look a good bit bigger than last year's and that's because they beefed up some of the cameras here including a 200 megapixel camera but we're going to talk about that a little bit more later and for some of the changes you can't see the Galaxy s23 Ultra now has the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor and this one is customized particularly for this phone and it's what you would expect in 2023 you guys it is fast you can gain you can do pretty much anything on this honestly performance to me has to be the most boring part of any smartphone review these days because they are so powerful there's not much that you can do in a normal day that's really going to make them not perform that's not to say that the chipset doesn't unlock a lot of cool new features because they always do but from a performance perspective after about a week this phone is still going to do everything you want it to do the real test is always going to be like a year later or so all right fellas so I just got in touch with the contractor the studio uh we got some decisions to make about the a-roll set so let's head on over there and uh check it out so we can make some choices and maybe give these guys a sneak peek of where we're going to be shooting from that one huh what is this oh this these are weather maps for AR's car I have to buy some like offbrand ones wait hold on that's a oh you're just seeing it the I just saw this the first time like yeah we got her car wrapped up man you know she copied me a little bit the with the you know and uh we also put the back so the trim goes all around the entire car and up here oh this is nice it Rivals mine just a little bit yeah don't this is better this is and what I like about it is that I guess it's really lowkey like you don't notice it unless you get kind of close it's not super flashy she didn't want to be flashy with it so let's go to the studio what did I do nothing I just pressed the button want to come back oh yeah yeah yeah ready all right so we're at the new studio don't mind the mess it's really crazy that's the texture we're going for right that's the new texture this look get out of here J We're actually what we want to put up on that wall is actually in here but this looks so long so we got to peek into here and make sure we got The Right Stuff interesting so now that we have an idea of what this is uh let's actually take a picture of this so that we can find a stain to match so we can worry about these sides and get it all cohesive now this is something I did notice it does kind of boost the shadows in the darker areas quite a bit like and just like the photos I took of Austin this morning they looked like they really pushed up the brightness quite a bit we'll continue taking samples maybe it just doesn't work with brown that well I don't know we'll see now Jay actually mentioned using the promo to take a photo of this since it allows the camera to do a little bit less interfering and looks like this might be the answer so we take a picture oh that's much better that's way better oh it did it did still brighten it quite a bit yeah I mean take a look at the difference here we got this versus this I I can I can see on camera yeah see how bright the wood is here now get it it makes sense brighter pictures are usually liked a bit more uh but if you're looking for that you know more realistic look then you might want to mess around with like the pro side of the camera now we all know Samsung's camera system is one of the most capable out there what you get here are some really detailed shots especially if you tap into that 200 megapixel setting this to me is more of a pro setting though so if you plan on doing something with a picture afterward like cropping so you have the right framing or even printing the photo it'll certainly give you what you're looking for there's going to be a ton of details in those 200 megapixel shots but I don't think most people really need to use this feature unless they've got a reason to you also get the best camera zoom I've ever seen on a smartphone here so if for whatever reason you need to somewhat make out something that's a bajillion miles away you got that 100 times space Zoom but more reliable Zoom options go up to about 30 times now of course the quality of the shots you get here is is going to be great lots of vibrant color sharpness details are what you're going to find but I still have some gripes about performance when it comes to folks with darker skin tones like myself I feel like the camera tends to overcompensate a bit and boost darker skin tones to the point where they start looking a bit too bright and washed out we pulled off some awesome portrait mode shots of Dom but when I try to get in onto action you can see I look quite a bit more washed out compared to him I appreciate that it's trying to make sure I don't look too dark in our our shots but we haven't quite struck the right balance for us yet and my only other issue you might have guessed it is shutter lag I've gotten some really blurry shots when trying to get a quick photo of Austin and in a situation where he's only down to stay still for a quick snap or two it can be pretty frustrating now has anyone figured out a solution for this yet if you have please let me know in the comments overall though it's an amazing camera system with some of the same gripes that I've had over the last few years and while software is the root of those issues nobody can deny that this thing has high quality Hardware that can potentially make those non-issues if Samsung ever tried to address them with an update battery update we are currently at 68% 234 it actually went down quite a bit didn't it since we got it to 100% oh we we've been taking pictures like crazy we're at 68% Jay now something that's actually pretty cool you might notice that we are sitting in some direct sunlight and the phone will automatically boost the brightness to the max so that you can see well I do think that that's one of the most underrated features this thing has a really nice bright screen so being able to use it in the Sun not going to be an issue whatsoever and I think it's pretty fair to say that Samsung's been crushing the display game for so many years now and it just keeps getting better and watching content is always going to be pleasant since you've got those vibrant colors from the dynamic AMOLED 2x Infinity o display which is just a ridiculously long name but when you're this good you're allowed to have five words or more in your name it's just a great display for any situation you're using it in whether it's indoors or out thanks to the amazing brightness levels that it's capable of and those beautiful deep blacks okay so it's 320 we got 60% I'm going to have us go to Home Depot we can finish up some of this house stuff that we're doing handyman not really you know what I will say though even though out and about I don't feel like I feel so comfortable using this in my hand I don't feel like it's going to just slip out my hand like it's slippery don't get me wrong but something about the the overall shape I just feel a lot more confident holding it I'm going to throw the GPS on even though we literally have Google Maps right here uh but you know it's all good want to really use the phone right like how a regular person would most people don't use the navigation in their cars so that's true though yeah right yeah all right we made it we're at 57% all right so we're using our raw photo here that we felt gave the best color accuracy so uh let's see that's close natural right yeah it looks like natural is the way to go what are those so there's different things there's like oilbased and then there's water-based what's the difference so I think oil based has has more of a Sheen to it and it requires less coats but it really stinks when you're applying it waterbased doesn't smell as bad but you'll need multiple coats and water Bas is faster to dry handyman handyman that's cuz we were just dealing with this so all right guys so we wrapped up what we were shooting for Apex now it is like 6:15 p.m. I got to act like I got a family a newborn so I'm going to go hang out with down for the rest of the night call it a day let you guys know my thoughts my final thoughts on this phone and work on some Valentine's Day bags apparently with this little guy actually we got to show you how Austin looks now that he got his hair done Austin come here real quick buddy no what check out my guy you see his hair Austin show them show them your hair buddy look up look up Valentine's Day you know certified love boy right here I love you you see what I'm saying I love you too go on get out of here scram but all right guys now let's talk about what I recommend this overall though this is the best smartphone Samsung has ever made with a great overall user experience super Snappy performance awesome cameras and a really solid battery life I can easily go past a day of usage with this thing and I got to say I'm very surprised at how good the standby time is with this so when you're not using the the phone I feel like it just sips on the battery with 5,000 milliamp hours that is a beautiful thing to hear this thing will easily last you through the day and maybe even a little bit more if you forget to charge it like I did with the real D in the life and with quick charging options I don't think battery is going to be much of a concern here and not to mention this thing also has the S Pen for those of you who enjoy it I'm not someone who pulls it out often but it's there so it's safe for me to say this is an easy phone to recommend unless you have the s 21 or 22 Ultra this isn't the phone you'll need to upgrade from one of those but if you're coming from one of the non Ultra models or maybe something even older this is a safe bet but what do you guys think of this year's Ultra device did you want to see a little something more from Samsung or is this enough for you let me know and I'll catch you guys in the next one till then it's your average consumer peacewhat's going on guys it's Trav consumer and today we are spending a real Day in the Life with the new Samsung Galaxy s23 Ultra and you know how we do in these videos I'll be taking you through a full day with the phone so we can test out everything you want to know like the battery camera performance so we can see how it works in the real world so let's see how it does all right guys so real day in the lifetime obviously but I'm in a bit of a predicament as you can see I'm only at 43% to start the day so I need to go ahead and charge this up luckily we got Anchor's newest Chargers 45 Watts right in this tiny bad boy hopefully this can help me get this thing charged up quickly so we can get the rest of the day started now if you want to pick this phone up you should know it doesn't come with a charger but that's where anchor comes in not only did they sponsor today's video but they make some of the best power accessories in the game including their new 313 and 312 Chargers the 313 is a 45 W charger with super fast charging 2.0 meaning you get Peak charging performance so you can get a full charge on the s23 ultra in less than an hour you get that kind of performance while keeping a low profile thanks to their Nan technology giving it higher Energy Efficiency upgraded heat dissipation and that compact size and if you plan on going the compact route with with your phone and you pick up something like the standard s23 you might want to look at their 312 charger that hits you with 25 WS of peak charging for that phone if you plan on picking one of these phones up and you want the best charger for it you know I'll have links Down Below in the description so you know where to grab them all right you guys so about 20 minutes later we are at 78% I can live with that if I had 29 more minutes I would have been full but I'll take it now I got to wrestle I got to wrestle this guy and take him to school you ready Austin I don't have to you don't have to that's great all right all right so now we're going to take a quick pick of the fit don't mind his hair it's getting done today we'll take a before and after picture but all right buddy ready he Cheese look at the camera say cheese there we go give me a thumbs up turn it around huh turn it around turn what around the camera you want to turn the camera around you want to take a selfie come here buddy cheese cheese how you tell me to take say cheese man you the boss now all right bud you ready to go to school yeah whose car are we going in this one that one what about my car mama's car mama's car you're a Traer bro all right bud you ready to go to school no you got to stop saying that all right let's drop you off no all right so Austin's finally a school uh this phone isn't at Max charge yet you know I like to start my day off with a full charge uh so I'm going to go ahead and put this thing on the charger uh so we can get it to 100% it's a little bit later in the morning but I rather start off with a full battery and because we're using that 45 W charger we're getting the max speeds here so in about 29 minutes we should be all good to go that's not too bad your phone's on 20% get your life together bro so the real work day started while I let the phone charge up to 100 and I had a few things to script out one I was super excited about was this Apex Legends collab believe in manifestation y'all but of course I couldn't control myself and I wasn't able to stay off social media for too long okay so I've been browsing social media for a little bit and it kind of leads me to my first point about this phone I love the direction Samsung is going with these I don't know how many of you will notice but the edges are now a bit flatter than they used to be with the s22 ultra we had very rounded edges uh these are a bit flatter uh so I actually find them a bit easier to hold in the hand I'm telling you guys I am waiting for the day when they decide to just go all flat like they have with the regular s23 and s23 plus I don't feel like it's a hindrance when watching content like I was just on Dave 2D's video and because of the bezels I feel like there's not really any content spilling over so the edges are starting to go down more and more it feels like at least uh especially with the sides so I am all for that so using this to do everyday stuff of course feels very comfortable uh still a big phone so when you you know you got throw it in your pocket it's not a big deal I think most of us are used to big phones at this point so we aren't seeing a radical redesign by any means it honestly almost looks exactly like the s22 ultra aside from those sides although there's another slight difference and that's with the camera bumps you might notice on the s23 ultra they look a good bit bigger than last year's and that's because they beefed up some of the cameras here including a 200 megapixel camera but we're going to talk about that a little bit more later and for some of the changes you can't see the Galaxy s23 Ultra now has the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor and this one is customized particularly for this phone and it's what you would expect in 2023 you guys it is fast you can gain you can do pretty much anything on this honestly performance to me has to be the most boring part of any smartphone review these days because they are so powerful there's not much that you can do in a normal day that's really going to make them not perform that's not to say that the chipset doesn't unlock a lot of cool new features because they always do but from a performance perspective after about a week this phone is still going to do everything you want it to do the real test is always going to be like a year later or so all right fellas so I just got in touch with the contractor the studio uh we got some decisions to make about the a-roll set so let's head on over there and uh check it out so we can make some choices and maybe give these guys a sneak peek of where we're going to be shooting from that one huh what is this oh this these are weather maps for AR's car I have to buy some like offbrand ones wait hold on that's a oh you're just seeing it the I just saw this the first time like yeah we got her car wrapped up man you know she copied me a little bit the with the you know and uh we also put the back so the trim goes all around the entire car and up here oh this is nice it Rivals mine just a little bit yeah don't this is better this is and what I like about it is that I guess it's really lowkey like you don't notice it unless you get kind of close it's not super flashy she didn't want to be flashy with it so let's go to the studio what did I do nothing I just pressed the button want to come back oh yeah yeah yeah ready all right so we're at the new studio don't mind the mess it's really crazy that's the texture we're going for right that's the new texture this look get out of here J We're actually what we want to put up on that wall is actually in here but this looks so long so we got to peek into here and make sure we got The Right Stuff interesting so now that we have an idea of what this is uh let's actually take a picture of this so that we can find a stain to match so we can worry about these sides and get it all cohesive now this is something I did notice it does kind of boost the shadows in the darker areas quite a bit like and just like the photos I took of Austin this morning they looked like they really pushed up the brightness quite a bit we'll continue taking samples maybe it just doesn't work with brown that well I don't know we'll see now Jay actually mentioned using the promo to take a photo of this since it allows the camera to do a little bit less interfering and looks like this might be the answer so we take a picture oh that's much better that's way better oh it did it did still brighten it quite a bit yeah I mean take a look at the difference here we got this versus this I I can I can see on camera yeah see how bright the wood is here now get it it makes sense brighter pictures are usually liked a bit more uh but if you're looking for that you know more realistic look then you might want to mess around with like the pro side of the camera now we all know Samsung's camera system is one of the most capable out there what you get here are some really detailed shots especially if you tap into that 200 megapixel setting this to me is more of a pro setting though so if you plan on doing something with a picture afterward like cropping so you have the right framing or even printing the photo it'll certainly give you what you're looking for there's going to be a ton of details in those 200 megapixel shots but I don't think most people really need to use this feature unless they've got a reason to you also get the best camera zoom I've ever seen on a smartphone here so if for whatever reason you need to somewhat make out something that's a bajillion miles away you got that 100 times space Zoom but more reliable Zoom options go up to about 30 times now of course the quality of the shots you get here is is going to be great lots of vibrant color sharpness details are what you're going to find but I still have some gripes about performance when it comes to folks with darker skin tones like myself I feel like the camera tends to overcompensate a bit and boost darker skin tones to the point where they start looking a bit too bright and washed out we pulled off some awesome portrait mode shots of Dom but when I try to get in onto action you can see I look quite a bit more washed out compared to him I appreciate that it's trying to make sure I don't look too dark in our our shots but we haven't quite struck the right balance for us yet and my only other issue you might have guessed it is shutter lag I've gotten some really blurry shots when trying to get a quick photo of Austin and in a situation where he's only down to stay still for a quick snap or two it can be pretty frustrating now has anyone figured out a solution for this yet if you have please let me know in the comments overall though it's an amazing camera system with some of the same gripes that I've had over the last few years and while software is the root of those issues nobody can deny that this thing has high quality Hardware that can potentially make those non-issues if Samsung ever tried to address them with an update battery update we are currently at 68% 234 it actually went down quite a bit didn't it since we got it to 100% oh we we've been taking pictures like crazy we're at 68% Jay now something that's actually pretty cool you might notice that we are sitting in some direct sunlight and the phone will automatically boost the brightness to the max so that you can see well I do think that that's one of the most underrated features this thing has a really nice bright screen so being able to use it in the Sun not going to be an issue whatsoever and I think it's pretty fair to say that Samsung's been crushing the display game for so many years now and it just keeps getting better and watching content is always going to be pleasant since you've got those vibrant colors from the dynamic AMOLED 2x Infinity o display which is just a ridiculously long name but when you're this good you're allowed to have five words or more in your name it's just a great display for any situation you're using it in whether it's indoors or out thanks to the amazing brightness levels that it's capable of and those beautiful deep blacks okay so it's 320 we got 60% I'm going to have us go to Home Depot we can finish up some of this house stuff that we're doing handyman not really you know what I will say though even though out and about I don't feel like I feel so comfortable using this in my hand I don't feel like it's going to just slip out my hand like it's slippery don't get me wrong but something about the the overall shape I just feel a lot more confident holding it I'm going to throw the GPS on even though we literally have Google Maps right here uh but you know it's all good want to really use the phone right like how a regular person would most people don't use the navigation in their cars so that's true though yeah right yeah all right we made it we're at 57% all right so we're using our raw photo here that we felt gave the best color accuracy so uh let's see that's close natural right yeah it looks like natural is the way to go what are those so there's different things there's like oilbased and then there's water-based what's the difference so I think oil based has has more of a Sheen to it and it requires less coats but it really stinks when you're applying it waterbased doesn't smell as bad but you'll need multiple coats and water Bas is faster to dry handyman handyman that's cuz we were just dealing with this so all right guys so we wrapped up what we were shooting for Apex now it is like 6:15 p.m. I got to act like I got a family a newborn so I'm going to go hang out with down for the rest of the night call it a day let you guys know my thoughts my final thoughts on this phone and work on some Valentine's Day bags apparently with this little guy actually we got to show you how Austin looks now that he got his hair done Austin come here real quick buddy no what check out my guy you see his hair Austin show them show them your hair buddy look up look up Valentine's Day you know certified love boy right here I love you you see what I'm saying I love you too go on get out of here scram but all right guys now let's talk about what I recommend this overall though this is the best smartphone Samsung has ever made with a great overall user experience super Snappy performance awesome cameras and a really solid battery life I can easily go past a day of usage with this thing and I got to say I'm very surprised at how good the standby time is with this so when you're not using the the phone I feel like it just sips on the battery with 5,000 milliamp hours that is a beautiful thing to hear this thing will easily last you through the day and maybe even a little bit more if you forget to charge it like I did with the real D in the life and with quick charging options I don't think battery is going to be much of a concern here and not to mention this thing also has the S Pen for those of you who enjoy it I'm not someone who pulls it out often but it's there so it's safe for me to say this is an easy phone to recommend unless you have the s 21 or 22 Ultra this isn't the phone you'll need to upgrade from one of those but if you're coming from one of the non Ultra models or maybe something even older this is a safe bet but what do you guys think of this year's Ultra device did you want to see a little something more from Samsung or is this enough for you let me know and I'll catch you guys in the next one till then it's your average consumer peace\n"