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00:00Do you know what the best thing about this phone is? The new Galaxy S23 Ultra and its little
00:04brothers. It's not the upgraded camera, the better selfie or the slightly better battery life,
00:09it is the fact that this uses a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 everywhere. Here in the UK and in Europe
00:14and other places we've always had Samsung's Exynos chips which have been fine, we've always
00:18felt a little short-changed. I'm happy to report everywhere we get Snapdragon with the Gen 2.
00:24So this is the S23 Ultra. Is it any good? Is it worth upgrading to?
00:28Well it all depends on what phone you're using right now and whether you have a cool £1,250
00:33laying about or whatever frightening monthly payments this will go for. But if you are doing
00:36an upgrade you're probably not going to be disappointed. The S23 Ultra not only packs
00:41in the new 8 Gen 2 chip but we also get a new 200 megapixel main camera with a new sensor
00:47and the promise of much improved low-light photos and video. The selfie's been upgraded as well
00:51although actually it's gone down in megapixels but it should actually be a step up and in fact
00:55all three S23 phones share the exact same 12 megapixel selfie camera and they all benefit
01:00from the smarter processing we get with the new chip. The design has been slightly tweaked
01:05although you'd be hard-pressed to notice. One little change is that the curved edge on the
01:10screen is now less curved or at least the curve doesn't start until closer to the edge which I
01:15think is a smart design because you get a little bit more usable space before you fall off the edge
01:19so to speak which is particularly helpful if you're drawing with the S Pen. Also it might just
01:24be me but it feels even more boxy. I mean the Ultra is just the new Note in all but name with
01:29the squared off corners, the S Pen, the best specs and some people love this design but it is big
01:34especially if you put a case on it and depending on how you hold it I find the corners can jab
01:38into my hand a little bit. I prefer the rounded edges of the regular S23 and the Plus. The S23s
01:44also use Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the front and back promising better long-term durability and
01:49also using more sustainable materials and of course no new phone launch will be complete
01:53without a couple of new colors. More options usually turn up on Samsung's website after launch
01:57and I will leave my affiliate link to the website in the description below if you fancy having a
02:01look. So design-wise not much has changed really to the point where this is actually the old one
02:06this is the S22 Ultra. I haven't got my new review sample just yet but same design, near enough,
02:11same S Pen, stereo speakers, same dual SIM although no micro SD card support. It's all very familiar
02:18and it may be a little bit controversial but I think if Apple get a bunch of flack for not really
02:22changing the design significantly I feel like Samsung should maybe get that as well. Although
02:26the Ultra's smaller brothers the regular S23 and the Plus have had a bigger design revamp dropping
02:32the camera module leaving just the lenses like the Ultra so there's definitely more design continuity
02:36now between the three. The screen hasn't really changed either or at least not as far as you'd
02:40be able to tell. It's still rocking the big and still very lovely 6.8 inch quad HD 120 hertz
02:46AMOLED with the same and still impressive 1750 nit peak brightness which is great but it doesn't
02:52quite match the 2000 nits you can get on the iPhone 14 Pro series. However as someone who
02:56uses the Pro and Pro Max regularly I can tell you that 2000 nits only lasts for like 10 seconds
03:02before it overheats and starts getting dimmer so in practice there really isn't gonna be that much
03:05between them. The only changes this year is the use of LTPO3 tech so the dynamic 1 to 120 hertz
03:12refresh is a little bit quicker and more efficient saving a bit of battery and I'm also told the
03:16actual material of the screen is also more energy efficient as well. I am a little bit disappointed
03:20that we still don't get any Dolby Vision HDR support on the new S23s. Some rival phones are
03:25offering it although I can't really talk about that just yet and we are expecting a Netflix update
03:29to support Dolby Vision on mobile very soon. Fair enough it's a Samsung device and like their TVs
03:34which also don't support Dolby Vision it's kind of to be expected but it is a bit of a shame
03:38especially given how big and lovely the screen is and how you're probably going to want to watch
03:42some movies on this. Let's talk about battery life because while the other two S23s have had a 200
03:48milliampere bump in battery capacity the Ultra sticks with the same 5000 milliampere cell which
03:53is absolutely fine and not really surprising given the constraints of having to leave room
03:57for the S Pen inside and I would be surprised if the S23 Ultra didn't last a little bit longer
04:01than before thanks to the more efficient screen and the 8th gen 2 chip but I'll test this properly
04:05in my full review. Another year goes by and there is still no change to charging. The S23 supports
04:1225 watts and the Plus and the Ultra up to 45 watts. You have to buy that separately of course but like
04:17Apple Samsung really is just falling behind the Android rivals in terms of fast charging speeds
04:22although of course we do get wireless charging and reverse which is nice but I would like to see a
04:26bit of an upgrade in terms of charging speed. However where the S23 Ultra is definitely not
04:31lagging behind is in terms of performance and the camera. LPDDR5X RAM either 8 or 12 gigs of the
04:38stuff plus the faster UFS4 storage with 256 and 512 gig and 1 terabyte options. Now I haven't
04:45had a chance to benchmark this just yet and I don't know why I'm holding that because it's the
04:48old one. I'll test the new version properly but with my experience of other 8th gen 2 powered phones
04:53I can tell you it is actually a significant upgrade in terms of performance, energy efficiency,
04:57battery's been better so far and also the camera. It's surprising just how much difference this new
05:02chip particularly this new chip in the Samsung phone is having to the camera. For gaming you
05:07can expect to max out Genshin Impact and never drop below 60 although at this level it becomes
05:12more about sustained performance and can the cooling system keep up. That's something I'll
05:16definitely be testing. Samsung have actually teamed up with Qualcomm for some special Galaxy
05:20optimizations here including boosting the CPU clock speed 3.2 up to 3.36 gigahertz adding their
05:26latest ultrasonic fingerprint sensor and more advanced camera processing thanks to their
05:30Snapdragon Sight AI. The only surprise is that the new chip supports Wi-Fi 7 but the new phones
05:37don't. Samsung's disabled it or at least for now. Possibly we'll see it on the new Galaxy Fold 5
05:42later in the year and to be fair there are only a handful of 7 routers out there anyway so it's
05:46really on the sort of cutting edge of tech but you know it's £1250, the chip supports it, why not?
05:51And finally let's talk about this camera because this is what I'm most excited about with the Ultra
05:56and while on the outside it's a familiar quad lens setup with the main ultra wide and those
06:00two telephoto cameras for some hilarious and slightly creepy results at up to a hundred times
06:05zoom. But what is different this year is the main camera has a new 200 megapixel resolution.
06:12Clearly 108 megapixels last year was just not enough and now with pixel binning which combines
06:1716 pixels into one we end up with a sharper and less noisy 12 megapixel final photo. But yes you
06:23can shoot in the full resolution if you really want to but I wouldn't recommend it as you'll
06:27miss out on a lot of the processing and the pixel binning benefits only if for some reason you want
06:31to print out a massive canvas photo or something. But don't get too wrapped up in that 200 megapixel
06:37headline, the real story is the new ISOCELL HP2 sensor and also the software the processing behind
06:43the scenes that's going to make a big difference. And also the physical layout of the camera
06:47including how the electrons and neutrons are captured has been flipped from horizontal to
06:51vertical all together means it can capture more light, we get less shutter lag and also fast
06:56autofocus particularly in tricky lighting. I'll do a proper deep dive in my full review and of
07:02course all the camera comparisons you could shake a stick at but Samsung this year are putting a lot
07:06of focus on, I hate this word, nitrography, you know low light photos and videos. And even here
07:12with me just filming the phone off screen you can see that shooting video in this dimly lit
07:16kitchen just how bright and detailed it looks on the S23 Ultra. Also zooming in it's kind of hard
07:23to tell with this off-screen footage but in person I could see a noticeable difference in the detail
07:28and also how much more natural skin tones were, something I have criticized Galaxy phones for in
07:33the past. The ultrawide continues to double as a macro which now actually has a shorter focal
07:38length so you can get even closer to your subjects and video now tops out with 8k at 30 frames per
07:43second up from 24. There's also a brand new astrophotography mode which I didn't get a chance
07:48to try out, I'm also keen to spend more time with the selfie camera because as I say all three S23's
07:53have the same 12 megapixel dual pixel autofocus selfie camera which is a bump up from the 10
07:58megapixel S22 and plus but on paper a step down from last year's Ultra which had 40 megapixels.
08:04Again though this year seems to be all about that processing and Samsung promised that all these
08:08camera smarts and upgrades will also be available in third-party camera apps like Instagram, TikTok
08:13and Snap but really if you're a bit more of a keen photographer or videographer then you want to use
08:18the Expert RAW app which has also been updated, it's free from the Galaxy App Store and that
08:22really is the best way to get the most out of the camera. I also really appreciate we get four years
08:27of Android updates with Samsung phones and of course the S23 runs the latest OneUI 5.1 on top
08:32of Android 13 which introduces a couple of new mode and routine options which I'll play with
08:36but there's nothing significantly new here. No complaints though, it's still fast, there's an
08:40absolute ton of features from the sidebar to Windows Link to DeX to all the S Pen extras.
08:46So all that sounds very exciting but the S23 Ultra is very expensive as you'd expect and
08:52actually while the price hasn't technically gone up because they phased out the entry-level 128 gig
08:57version and now you have to start at 256 which I think actually is the spec you'd want and also
09:01comes with 12 gigs of RAM as standard, it is now more expensive starting at £1249. Although here
09:07in the UK at least for the same storage that's actually £60 cheaper than the iPhone 14 Pro Max.
09:13But don't forget there is a lot of strong competition out there, you've got the regular S23s
09:17and I think the Plus may actually end up being the best choice but we've also got the OnePlus 11,
09:21the Pixel 7 Pro, the Vivo X90 Pro, the Xiaomi 13 series and dare I say even the iPhone 14 Pro and
09:28Pro Max. So what do you reckon? Tempted to upgrade? Or not really? Let me know what you make of this
09:33in the comments below. If you've got any questions for my full review and big comparisons which are
09:36coming very soon also let me know and I'll see you next time right here on The Tech Chat. Oh and
09:41don't forget to subscribe.