Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00What's up guys, today we're going to be talking about the S23 Ultra.
00:03I wanted to do my end of the year review of this phone.
00:07It has been really impressive and honestly one of my favorite phones of this year.
00:10I can't necessarily say it's the best phone of the year, I haven't tried all the major
00:15flagships and stuff like that, but I've tried the big three as in the S23, the Pixel 8 Pro,
00:21and then the iPhone 15 Pro Max as well too.
00:26This phone has been very impressive, it's the phone that I've always come back to and
00:30I think it's just the most featured pack phone for the money.
00:34Samsung actually fixed a lot of things with the S23 Ultra that I did not like with the
00:40S22 Ultra, so we'll talk about that a little bit as well too.
00:44We'll talk about this One UI 6 update as well, which I think actually made the phone a lot
00:48better.
00:49That's typically rare because usually with a major OS update, you have battery issues
00:56and glitches and stuff like that, but this was actually a very smooth update.
00:58I had used the beta all the way up to the final release and I was pretty impressed with
01:03performance on here.
01:04The screen is also another highlight with the S23 Ultra, even though it's not the brightest
01:09display now, you have brighter phones like the Pixel 8 Pro, even the iPhone 15 Pro Max,
01:14this still has one of the best designs as far as the screen.
01:17It gives you this really boxy look and I think a lot of people don't like the curved
01:21display, but I actually think it gives the phone a little bit more of a premium experience
01:28and it looks like a little mini TV and it's just a beautiful display to look at with these
01:34very slim bezels on here, so I think this is one of Samsung's best screens.
01:38It gives you the boxy look, slight premium curves on here and it's just an excellent
01:44looking display.
01:45Dynamic AMOLED, 120Hz, HDR10+, it gets up to 1750 nits peak brightness, so using this
01:51phone this year, I didn't have any issues using it outdoors, like I said, there are
01:55brighter phones, but this thing does get pretty bright outdoors and it's a full 1440p display
02:01at 6.8 inches, 540ppi, like I said, one of Samsung's best displays.
02:06From what we're seeing with the S24 Ultra leaks is that they're going to make the display
02:10completely flat, which I'm not super excited for, but I know a lot of people say that it's
02:15easier to put the screen protectors on, which some of you are going to call me crazy, I
02:18never use screen protectors, but yeah, I get that point, but I still like the curved look,
02:24I think it looks a little bit more premium, but this is a beautiful display guys, whether
02:28you're playing games or watching movies, this is as good as it's going to get if you're
02:32getting a smartphone, beautiful panel on here.
02:35Now I want to talk about some of the, I guess, complaints that I hear a lot of people with
02:40One UI 6, and that is, I guess, the way it looks, a lot of people say it looks cartoonish,
02:46and I don't know, it doesn't have that serious look that you would find on like a, honestly,
02:53I think they all kind of look cartoonish, the iPhone, even the Pixel, this has like
02:57these bright colors, so I don't know why Samsung gets that called out, they have like a kind
03:01of, you know, animated look, but yeah, so, I don't dislike the UI on Samsung, and what
03:10a lot of people don't really realize is that Samsung, even though this is a heavy UI, like
03:16you have a lot of applications and stuff like that, it's not necessarily bloatware, so that's
03:21one of the things that I was looking at the comments too, oh, this has a lot of bloatware,
03:24yeah, it's not stock Android, they're trying to give you a Samsung experience, so when
03:29you go into the gallery or the Samsung store, you're able to take advantage of an application
03:33like Good Lock, which is on here, which gives you crazy customization, that's something
03:40that you can't do on the Pixel or iPhone, is get like this crazy amount of customizations,
03:45and I mean, the Good Lock can be a whole video itself, like, what I'll tell you, it really
03:49gets like, you can do some complex, you know, animation, not animation, but some complex
03:54customizations on here, even when it comes to just animating the phone, how Samsung's
03:59able to do it, all very seamlessly in one application, so you're not downloading thousands
04:05of applications to try to get a certain look or feature on your phone, it's very impressive,
04:09like I said, it's a whole video itself, right, but yeah, and then a lot of people, you know,
04:15you forget about Samsung desktop support, which I try to mention in my projector videos
04:19and stuff like that, Samsung desktop support is seriously impressive, guys, it's really,
04:23really nice, especially for people who are probably on the go, you bring a portable monitor,
04:29keyboard, you can turn this into like a little laptop as well, too, it's really impressive
04:33for that, so like I said, it's a power user phone as well, too, so it's not just Samsung
04:38throwing in bloatware applications, it's the applications actually do have a good amount
04:43of depth to them, the browser, they have like their own unique, you know, sort of theme
04:47to it.
04:48I also want to touch on gaming performance, and just performance in general, again, making
04:52that comparison to the S22 Ultra, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip is more efficient, obviously
04:58it's a more powerful chip, but you don't have those throttling problems, and you don't
05:02have the kind of overheating problems, and I think that stuff is more geared towards
05:07people who are, I believe, like more into video games, I consider myself more of a casual
05:13gamer, so the S22 Ultra wasn't really a terrible phone to game on at all, but if you were like
05:18playing Genshin Impact or playing games, you know, all day and stuff like that, people
05:22were noticing throttling problems and frame drops and all that, overheating problems.
05:28With this phone, it's really not here at all, like even with the S22 Ultra playing a game
05:35like PUBG, I would notice like the back of the phone getting a little bit warmer than
05:38I would like.
05:40With the S23 Ultra, I mean, the phone barely gets warm for PUBG playing at 90 frames, you
05:47know, it doesn't get hot or anything like that, so I think this phone does a really
05:50good job with heat management and just gaming in general, especially if you're a casual
05:55gamer, you're going to absolutely love the experience on the S23 Ultra.
05:59It's very powerful, it can blow anything out of the water, emulators, whatever I threw
06:04at it, it was able to do a fantastic job.
06:06This is the 512 gigabyte version, the 12 gigs of RAM, but yeah, this thing is just absolutely
06:14a beast when it comes to performance.
06:16Now I want to touch on the hardware with this phone here, so Samsung did make some
06:21improvements, it's still a boxy phone and it's still kind of sharp, it's not the most
06:26comfortable phone to hold, but it's a very nice looking phone for the most part.
06:32You see you have this matte finish, it's IP68 dust and water resistant, I don't use this
06:36stylus as much as I, you know, as much as I should, I typically try to use this if I'm
06:43going to the store and I'll just write a grocery list down real quick, I know this is good
06:48for that, but everything else I don't really use it for.
06:51I think this is a godsend if you are somebody into digital artwork, I've seen people on
06:56YouTube do like crazy artwork with the S-Pen since it's such a low latency, it does a fantastic
07:03job with that, and then you have all the S-Pen features and stuff like that that you can
07:08mess with.
07:10But yeah, the hardware on here is top notch, beautiful, I think Samsung did a really good
07:15job, it is easier to hold, I noticed, from the S22 Ultra because it has that more kind
07:20of like boxier look to it, so it's easier to like kind of hold I guess, but again, it's
07:27still, you know, sharp.
07:30But yeah, it's just beautiful hardware on this phone, really really nice looking.
07:34Something that I don't see a lot of people mention on the internet is actually how the
07:38S22 Ultra has some of the worst speakers in a Samsung flagship, super flat, just really
07:45like bad sounding, just extremely flat, not powerful at all for such an expensive phone.
07:51This phone absolutely fixes that, this phone has amazing sounding speakers.
07:59Super clear sounding.
08:18So you get such a fuller and just a more crispier sound with these speakers, even if you cover
08:24the bottom speaker, the top speaker just gives a clear, nice sound, good amount of bass,
08:29it is really really nice speakers on here.
08:32You also do have the fingerprint scanner which is pretty much been unchanged, it's still
08:37excellent, ultrasonic, really fast, face unlock, still great.
08:41I do want to touch on the cameras, so I've always said this, I think Samsung has some
08:45of the most well rounded cameras on any smartphone, because, so I'll give you an example, I think
08:52the Pixel still does take the best still images, and I think the iPhone still takes
08:56some of the best video on a smartphone, but I think the S23 Ultra just has everything
09:01you could really want, and it does everything really well, so it takes really good stills,
09:06it does really good video as well too, and not only that, it has some of the best zoom
09:10quality in any phone, so I'm talking about taking 10x, 30x zoom shots, it is going to
09:16be really impressive, like I said you can go all the way up to 100x zoom as well too,
09:20it's still first in class when it comes to zoom shots in my opinion, but yeah, the camera
09:25system on here is excellent, I think especially with the features that Samsung gives you with
09:29the expert raw mode and stuff like that, the pro mode, pro video, all that good stuff,
09:34it is just a fantastic phone when it comes to taking photos, whether it's night time
09:40photography, or like I said, video, it's still going to give you some excellent quality,
09:44so that's why I said it's more well rounded than the Pixel and iPhone, in terms of giving
09:49the user pretty much everything at a really good quality, that's pretty much the best
09:53way I can describe it, it is a 200 megapixel standard, so if you want to crop in the photos
09:59and get a good amount of detail, that is there, and then you have that 10 megapixel periscope
10:03telephoto that does 10x optical, then a 10 megapixel telephoto that does 3x optical with
10:08a 12 megapixel ultrawide, does shoot in 8K 30, and with a 12 megapixel selfie that shoots
10:15in 4K 60, like I said, this year I've been absolutely blown away by the S23 Ultra's pictures,
10:22and like I said, some of the best zoom you're going to find on any phone. Alright, so lastly,
10:27the battery life, so this was something that I thought Samsung was always lacking with
10:32their flagship phones, is having really good battery life, and this year Samsung, I think
10:38surprised pretty much everybody with the battery performance on this phone, it is excellent
10:43guys, and I mean, it's really really good, it's a 5000 mAh battery, 45 watt wire charging,
10:49so it just charges pretty decently fast, and then you also have the wireless and reverse
10:53wireless charging, but when I say this phone easily can go, you know, 2 days for me, as
10:59a lighter user, it is just excellent battery life guys, and also just considering how powerful
11:04the phone is, standby time has just improved, and compared to the S22 Ultra, like I said,
11:10it's a night and day experience, that was one of my biggest complaints, was having to
11:14charge the S22 Ultra, I felt like I had to charge it, like, more than I should, right,
11:21especially if you're doing like gaming and stuff like that, or just doing heavier tasks,
11:24like I said, this phone does such a great job with this new chipset, and I think, like
11:29I said, it surprised everybody, so I see why people are putting this as their phone of
11:34the year, it's really impressive, honestly, it's so impressive that I'm really curious
11:39to see how Samsung's gonna actually top this phone with the S24 Ultra, because looking
11:43at the S24 Ultra, it's looking like the S24 Ultra's not gonna be that big of an upgrade,
11:50so yeah, so if you were thinking about buying the S23 Ultra, I would definitely make that
11:58move and just buy it now, I wouldn't say, because from what I'm seeing, the S24 Ultra
12:03is not gonna be that big of an upgrade in my opinion, so I would try to get like a really
12:07good deal if you can, if you can get it renewed or refurbished, they have them for like 800
12:11bucks on Amazon, but yeah, I would definitely buy it right now, only because, even though
12:17the S24 Ultra is right around the corner, I'm telling you guys, I don't think it's gonna
12:21be a big upgrade at all from what I'm seeing, but let me know what you guys think, and I'll
12:27catch you guys in the next one.