The Quality of Life Improvements in the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra

When it comes to smartphones, we often find ourselves caught between the excitement of new technology and the efficiency of established systems. The latest addition to Samsung's Galaxy S lineup, the S23 Ultra, is no exception. With its impressive Snapdragon chip and power-sipping screen, this device offers a significant improvement in terms of performance and energy consumption without sacrificing any key features.

As an enthusiast, I must say that I appreciate the attention to detail that Samsung has put into this device. The upgrades may not be revolutionary, but they are certainly noteworthy. For example, the camera system on the S23 Ultra is a major highlight. The 108 megapixel main camera and 10x telephoto lens were already impressive in their time, but the addition of a 200 megapixel sensor takes things to a whole new level. This sensor offers improved sharpness and low-light performance, making it ideal for capturing high-quality images.

One of the most practical benefits of the 200 megapixel sensor is its ability to take pictures at full resolution in low light conditions. While this may seem like overkill at first, the benefit comes from pixel binning down to a 12.5 megapixel image, which enhances detail and reduces file sizes for sharing. This technology also helps to improve performance in tricky lighting environments.

However, not all cameras are created equal. The front-facing selfie lens with a 12 megapixel sensor has taken a slight step back from last year's 40 megapixel offering. While this may seem like a disappointment at first, the difference is hardly noticeable in everyday use. Close-up subjects still look about the same, and the biggest trade-off I noticed was with the bokeh natural background blur, which looks significantly better on last year's camera.

For portrait mode enthusiasts, the S23 Ultra does offer a good step forward, but the difference may not be as pronounced as some might expect. The phone's camera system is still excellent, and the improvement in low-light conditions is noticeable. Whether you're an enthusiast or just someone who wants a top-notch smartphone experience, the cameras on the S23 Ultra are definitely worth considering.

However, it's easy to get caught up in the hype of new technology and forget about the importance of incremental upgrades. For Samsung, which has built its brand around producing high-quality flagships, there is often pressure to reinvent the wheel every single year. But this approach can be alienating for average smartphone users who may feel that their device is outdated after just a year.

In reality, many people upgrade their smartphones every three to five years, and it's not necessarily about having the latest and greatest technology. It's about getting a solid experience with features that matter to you. As someone who puts themselves in Samsung's shoes, it doesn't make sense to produce something revolutionary every single year. This approach can set unrealistic expectations and lead to disappointment.

Take, for example, the Galaxy Z Fold 4, which is rumored to receive a major upgrade later this year. While incremental upgrades may not be as exciting as a complete overhaul, they do offer Legacy users more opportunities to catch up in terms of features. For someone who owns a Galaxy Note 10, the S23 Ultra might finally be the device that catches them up.

Ultimately, Samsung's approach is a balance between innovation and practicality. The S23 Ultra offers significant improvements over its predecessor while still maintaining key features that enthusiasts love. While some may complain about minor leaps, it's essential to remember that incremental upgrades can make Legacy users happy and offer more opportunities for progress.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe Galaxy s23 Ultra looks a ton like last year's phone but after spending some more time with it depending on who you are there's more here than what meets the eye let's talk about it the s23 ultra might have you feeling Deja Vu if you're even remotely familiar with the s22 ultra I mean look at them yeah those the same thing what's new about it Ken well watch the video I can't necessarily fault anyone for feeling cynical toward the new one at first glance Samsung in many ways played this generation safe across the board let's aside it was a given that this year's phone was going to get a spec bump to the newest Flagship silicon the cameras might have seen some improvement but already had plenty of megapixels and zoomed to the Moon zoom zoom Mazda if you own an s22 ultra this year's phone won't convince you to upgrade however for everyone else that's either upgrading to something new after a few Generations or are looking among the best that Android has to offer the s23 ultra is a solid reliable and refined option despite the preconceptions and so here are some of the reasons why I think so performance and power is something people look for when it to upgrades not necessarily for heavy hitting tasks though that's certainly a factor for power users however wanting Headroom for the sake of future proofing for the next two three or even four years is a consideration I get when we're talking about phones that cost over a thousand dollars as I mentioned earlier the s23 ultra is powered by a new flagship chip that's the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 that's slightly modified for Galaxy offering a minor uptick in clock speed compared to the vanilla version of the Chip and it's already the best off-the-shelf processor you can get for a phone these days while it's fair to expect performance bumps on a yearly basis for those of us in North America this generation is big news for the rest of the world where Samsung normally fits their Galaxy S flagships with the inferior exynos socs I'll just give all those to Google to be fair tensor pretty good scraps the s23 lineup includes that powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 across the board which could make all the difference for users looking to upgrade from galaxies of the past and even better if you spec up to higher storage and 12 gigs of RAM best of all with the added power the s23 ultra also runs cooler to The Touch compared to last year which if not for the performance benefits certainly helps with comfort in the hand having used the s22 ultra for the better part of a year hopping over to the 23 Ultra brought some quality of life improvements that I didn't expect to be that meaningful but in the day-to-day make all the difference if you happen to be Cross Shopping between the two first is the feel in the hand you might not even pick up on it unless you were comparing the two side by side but the s23 ultra has a more squared off profile where the s22 tapers off while this makes the phone feel a tad chunkier than last year the grip is way more confidence inspiring plus with less of the screen rounding off the edge there's reduced visual distortion on the edges making for a better screen experience overall and there's slightly more usable surface area to boot overall a very welcome change to take more advantage of what was already a beautiful immersive display second is the battery life on paper the s23 ultra stays unchanged compared to last year with a 5 000 milliamp hour battery however as I love pointing out on this channel paper specs are never the best indicator of real world performance and the s23 ultra proves this true where the previous generation barely held on for a full day of mixed use watching videos playing games and browsing social media in my rough testing the s23 ultra can go a whole work day through the night and even into some of the next day without any hiccups this Improvement comes thanks to tweaks that again are more under the hood between the efficiency of that new Snapdragon chip and the screen sipping less power than last year without compromising on spec this is yet another quality of life Improvement I'd consider if you thought this year's Ultra was an easy pass if you care care about cameras the ones on the s23 ultra are also noteworthy got him it's easy to shrug your shoulders and pass off judgment based on the spec sheet but the upgrades offer pretty meaningful improvements first let's get this out of the way when Samsung announced the 108 megapixel main camera and the 10x telephoto that could zoom 100x practically into space in fact they called it space zoom zoom zoom zoom those were already mind-boggling figures to wrap your head around fast forward to present day we now have a 200 megapixel sensor as well as that same 10x telephoto but with improved processing to beef up image stabilization especially for the rare times you actually want to stare at the Moon do people really do that like for real this thing might be gimmicky but it works like actual magic what's more practical is the 200 megapixel sensor which might seem Overkill at first but has benefits in sharpness and also in low light it's certainly able to take pictures at that full resolution which looks crispy as hell and also fun to edit but the benefit comes from Pixel binning down to a 12.5 megapixel image this doesn't just get you smaller file sizes for sharing but combining 16 pixels to one helps to enhance detail especially in tricky lighting environments low-key the underdog among the cameras is the front-facing selfie lens with a 12 megapixel sensor down from 40 megapixels last year there were concerns about a drop in quality but funny enough there's barely a noticeable difference this year close up subjects look about the same between the two cameras however the biggest trade-off I noticed was with the bokeh natural background blur looks way better on last year's camera though if you're one to lean on portrait mode which Samsung might I add does very well the difference is hardly there overall in my eyes the cameras on the s23 ultra offer a good step forward that's worth consideration as an Enthusiast myself I get why companies like Samsung and Apple receive hate for playing things safe especially with their smartphones but I'ma be real companies don't necessarily have to reinvent the wheel every single time it's been like this for a while but the majority of smartphone owners upgrade every three to five years this trend the pace is part of what dictates progress especially for a top selling Flagship line like the Galaxy S think of what the moniker Flagship even means it represents the essence of what Samsung has to offer the core product many people think of when it comes to that brand putting myself in the company's shoes a bit it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to produce something revolutionary every single year not only does this set unrealistic expectations long term but it also alienates the average smartphone user nothing would feel worse than your thousand dollar plus phone feeling out of date after one year in fact if you want something even more egregious take a look at the Galaxy Z fold 4. a phone which also took a minor leap this year but that's like 1800 at retail and if the rumors are true that's going to see a major upgrade later this year so it's easy to complain about Minor leaps but be careful what you ask for you don't want to regret your purchase later incremental upgrades give Legacy users more opportunities to catch up in major ways to someone that owns say a Galaxy Note 10 the s23 ultra might finally be the one for all of the pros and cons I'm sure Samsung's happy with the s23 ultra and also those that have been waiting a while to upgrade will certainly love the phone as well enthusiasts seeking the bleeding edge might complain a bit but honestly that's totally fine thanks very much for watching this episode of danky Channel let me know what do you think of the Galaxy s23 Ultra also if you guys like the content here be sure to subscribe and hit that notification Bell to get notified on when content goes live and otherwise I'll catch y'all later I gotta stop doing that because then I don't know what the how the hell to say itthe Galaxy s23 Ultra looks a ton like last year's phone but after spending some more time with it depending on who you are there's more here than what meets the eye let's talk about it the s23 ultra might have you feeling Deja Vu if you're even remotely familiar with the s22 ultra I mean look at them yeah those the same thing what's new about it Ken well watch the video I can't necessarily fault anyone for feeling cynical toward the new one at first glance Samsung in many ways played this generation safe across the board let's aside it was a given that this year's phone was going to get a spec bump to the newest Flagship silicon the cameras might have seen some improvement but already had plenty of megapixels and zoomed to the Moon zoom zoom Mazda if you own an s22 ultra this year's phone won't convince you to upgrade however for everyone else that's either upgrading to something new after a few Generations or are looking among the best that Android has to offer the s23 ultra is a solid reliable and refined option despite the preconceptions and so here are some of the reasons why I think so performance and power is something people look for when it to upgrades not necessarily for heavy hitting tasks though that's certainly a factor for power users however wanting Headroom for the sake of future proofing for the next two three or even four years is a consideration I get when we're talking about phones that cost over a thousand dollars as I mentioned earlier the s23 ultra is powered by a new flagship chip that's the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 that's slightly modified for Galaxy offering a minor uptick in clock speed compared to the vanilla version of the Chip and it's already the best off-the-shelf processor you can get for a phone these days while it's fair to expect performance bumps on a yearly basis for those of us in North America this generation is big news for the rest of the world where Samsung normally fits their Galaxy S flagships with the inferior exynos socs I'll just give all those to Google to be fair tensor pretty good scraps the s23 lineup includes that powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 across the board which could make all the difference for users looking to upgrade from galaxies of the past and even better if you spec up to higher storage and 12 gigs of RAM best of all with the added power the s23 ultra also runs cooler to The Touch compared to last year which if not for the performance benefits certainly helps with comfort in the hand having used the s22 ultra for the better part of a year hopping over to the 23 Ultra brought some quality of life improvements that I didn't expect to be that meaningful but in the day-to-day make all the difference if you happen to be Cross Shopping between the two first is the feel in the hand you might not even pick up on it unless you were comparing the two side by side but the s23 ultra has a more squared off profile where the s22 tapers off while this makes the phone feel a tad chunkier than last year the grip is way more confidence inspiring plus with less of the screen rounding off the edge there's reduced visual distortion on the edges making for a better screen experience overall and there's slightly more usable surface area to boot overall a very welcome change to take more advantage of what was already a beautiful immersive display second is the battery life on paper the s23 ultra stays unchanged compared to last year with a 5 000 milliamp hour battery however as I love pointing out on this channel paper specs are never the best indicator of real world performance and the s23 ultra proves this true where the previous generation barely held on for a full day of mixed use watching videos playing games and browsing social media in my rough testing the s23 ultra can go a whole work day through the night and even into some of the next day without any hiccups this Improvement comes thanks to tweaks that again are more under the hood between the efficiency of that new Snapdragon chip and the screen sipping less power than last year without compromising on spec this is yet another quality of life Improvement I'd consider if you thought this year's Ultra was an easy pass if you care care about cameras the ones on the s23 ultra are also noteworthy got him it's easy to shrug your shoulders and pass off judgment based on the spec sheet but the upgrades offer pretty meaningful improvements first let's get this out of the way when Samsung announced the 108 megapixel main camera and the 10x telephoto that could zoom 100x practically into space in fact they called it space zoom zoom zoom zoom those were already mind-boggling figures to wrap your head around fast forward to present day we now have a 200 megapixel sensor as well as that same 10x telephoto but with improved processing to beef up image stabilization especially for the rare times you actually want to stare at the Moon do people really do that like for real this thing might be gimmicky but it works like actual magic what's more practical is the 200 megapixel sensor which might seem Overkill at first but has benefits in sharpness and also in low light it's certainly able to take pictures at that full resolution which looks crispy as hell and also fun to edit but the benefit comes from Pixel binning down to a 12.5 megapixel image this doesn't just get you smaller file sizes for sharing but combining 16 pixels to one helps to enhance detail especially in tricky lighting environments low-key the underdog among the cameras is the front-facing selfie lens with a 12 megapixel sensor down from 40 megapixels last year there were concerns about a drop in quality but funny enough there's barely a noticeable difference this year close up subjects look about the same between the two cameras however the biggest trade-off I noticed was with the bokeh natural background blur looks way better on last year's camera though if you're one to lean on portrait mode which Samsung might I add does very well the difference is hardly there overall in my eyes the cameras on the s23 ultra offer a good step forward that's worth consideration as an Enthusiast myself I get why companies like Samsung and Apple receive hate for playing things safe especially with their smartphones but I'ma be real companies don't necessarily have to reinvent the wheel every single time it's been like this for a while but the majority of smartphone owners upgrade every three to five years this trend the pace is part of what dictates progress especially for a top selling Flagship line like the Galaxy S think of what the moniker Flagship even means it represents the essence of what Samsung has to offer the core product many people think of when it comes to that brand putting myself in the company's shoes a bit it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to produce something revolutionary every single year not only does this set unrealistic expectations long term but it also alienates the average smartphone user nothing would feel worse than your thousand dollar plus phone feeling out of date after one year in fact if you want something even more egregious take a look at the Galaxy Z fold 4. a phone which also took a minor leap this year but that's like 1800 at retail and if the rumors are true that's going to see a major upgrade later this year so it's easy to complain about Minor leaps but be careful what you ask for you don't want to regret your purchase later incremental upgrades give Legacy users more opportunities to catch up in major ways to someone that owns say a Galaxy Note 10 the s23 ultra might finally be the one for all of the pros and cons I'm sure Samsung's happy with the s23 ultra and also those that have been waiting a while to upgrade will certainly love the phone as well enthusiasts seeking the bleeding edge might complain a bit but honestly that's totally fine thanks very much for watching this episode of danky Channel let me know what do you think of the Galaxy s23 Ultra also if you guys like the content here be sure to subscribe and hit that notification Bell to get notified on when content goes live and otherwise I'll catch y'all later I gotta stop doing that because then I don't know what the how the hell to say it