I’m loaned a Galaxy S23 Ultra.
Overclocked 8 Gen 2 but gaming performance is subtle
The Galaxy S23 Ultra is equipped with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy with a higher clock than normal version, a 200MP camera, bright Dynamic AMOLED display, fast UFS 4.0 storage – it’s packed with Samsung’s latest technologies.
However, it is not optimized well and does not perform well in games.
This review is done on the 12GB+1TB, S918QOPU1AWE4 version.
- Power-saving Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy
- Bright and beautiful AMOLED display
- Built-in S Pen for easy writing
- 5,000mAh battery with wireless charging support
- USB 3.2 Gen 1 port for video output and DeX support
- IP68 waterproof and dustproof
- 5G millimeter wave support
- Difficult to get game performance
- Prone to photo color changes, especially when zooming
- No aptX Adaptive available despite Snapdragon
- Heavy at 234g
| Galaxy S23 Ultra (SM-S918QZEGSJP) | |
|---|---|
| OS | Android 13 |
| RAM | 12GB LPDDR5X |
| Storage | 1TB UFS 4.0 |
| SoC | Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy |
| Display | 6.8inch QHD+ 3088 x 1440 Aspect ratio 20:9 120Hz AMOLED |
| Size | 163.4 x 78.1 x 8.9mm |
| Weight | 234g |
| SIM | nano SIM + eSIM |
| Rear Camera | 200MP (OIS / Samsung S5KHP2) + 12MP (Ultra-wide Sony IMX564) + 10MP (3x Sony IMX754) + 10MP (10x Sony IMX754) |
| Front Camera | 12MP (Samsung S5K3LU) |
| Battery | 5,000mAh |
| USB Port | USB Type-C (USB 3.2 Gen1) |
| Bands | 5G mmWave：N257(28GHz) 5G：N1(2100), N3(1800), N5(850), N28(700), N41(2500), N77(3700), N78(3500), N79(4500) 4G：B1(2100), B2(1900), B3(1800), B4(AWS), B5(850), B7(2600), B8(900), B12(700), B13(700), B18(800), B19(800), B20(800), B21(1500), B26(850), B28(700), B66(AWS-3) B38(2600), B39(1900), B40(2300), B41(2500), B42(3400) 3G：B1(2100), B5(850) 2G：GSM850, GSM900, DCS1800, PCS1900 |
Index
The box is fairly slim and comes with instructions and a charging cable.
No protective film is attached.
Display: Easy to see even outdoors
The Galaxy S23 Ultra features a 6.73″ 6.8″ QHD+ 3088 x 1440 resolution display.
Made by Samsung, which has the world’s top technology in OLED, you can enjoy a beautiful display with no color or viewing angle issues.
The array is diamond pixels.
When measuring brightness with the LX-1336B during all-white HDR video playback with automatic brightness adjustment on, it reached a maximum of 1073 nits.
I was able to confirm that the high brightness mode was triggered at outdoors and reached more than 1029 nits. After reaching about 1020 nits when the high brightness mode is activated, it seems to detect the ambient brightness and gradually raises the upper limit.
It is quite easy to see outdoors during the daytime.
Refresh rate is 120 Hz supported.
Touch latency measured by WALT Latency Timer was 15.2ms and screen drawing latency was 23.0ms for a total of 38.2ms.
Widevine L1 allows streaming in HD quality on Amazon Prime Video (beta) and others.
It is equipped with an in-screen fingerprint sensor.
Because it is ultrasonic, authentication is highly accurate and is unlikely to fail even if the finger status changes over time.
Back: Matte and fingerprint resistant
The back of the Galaxy S23 Ultra is matte and fingerprint resistant.
Due to the large protrusion of the camera, it tends to rattle when placed on a desk.
It weighs 234g.
The built-in pen and 5,000mAh battery make it unavoidable, but it is heavy.
Camera: Saturated, good zoom
Galaxy S23 Ultra has quad cameras:
- 200MP (OIS / Samsung S5KHP2)
- 12MP (Ultra-wide Sony IMX564)
- 10MP (3x Sony IMX754)
- 10MP (10x Sony IMX754)
The 200MP camera does not output the standard resolution as-is, but instead outputs 12MP, as 16 pixels are combined as one superpixel using pixel binning to produce a brighter, higher resolution image.
In Expert RAW mode, the camera can also shoot 50MP with 4 pixels.
Photos taken hand-held are stored here.
The saturation was high, and even when “Optimize by scene” was turned off in the settings, the tendency for saturation to be high did not change.
This is probably because the general public tends to find photos with higher saturation more beautiful.
Zoom buttons are available for 2x, 3x, 10x, 30x, and 100x.
Perhaps because of the extreme difference between the 200MP main camera and the 10MP 3x telephoto camera, the tints often change or the sharpness is too strong after the 3x zoom compared to the 1x.
I think it would be easier to have the 200MP camera remain on the digital zoom to crop out the image….
The 10x zoom has a bit of a paint-by-numbers look, but there is less crushing of detail, such as patterns on the wall.
The 100x zoom is not likely to be used much in practice, but it can be used as a telescope because it can capture enough to see what is in the distance.
The night mode makes it easier to capture beautiful night scenes.
As you can see on the preview screen, I was able to take fairly bright pictures even in a pitch dark environment. The picture is out of focus, though…
It can shoot brighter than the naked eye even in dimly lit environments, and is recommended for those who just want to keep their night photos vivid.
However, the night mode is somehow prone to blurring, and even when the sides are tightened, it is easy for compositing to fail, so I feel that the image stabilization works less effectively than other smartphones.
Also, I could not get a good shot of the moon by tapping on the moon or zooming in 10x, perhaps because the priority was to get a bright shot.
By setting the camera to Expert RAW mode and manually adjusting the shutter speed, etc., I was able to capture the moon’s surface.
Speaker: Stronger treble
The Galaxy S23 Ultra has stereo speakers.
The left and right speaker volume is slightly different on the type that doubles as a speaker for calls, but the difference is small.
Treble and vocals are easily audible, and bass is strong enough.
It has Cirrus Logic CS35L43 and CS40L26 amplifiers.
The audio output delay was 15.6 ms when measured with the WALT Latency Timer.
Bluetooth supports AAC, aptX, LDAC, and a proprietary codec called SSC (Samsung Scalable Codec).
Unfortunately, it does not support aptX HD or aptX Adaptive, and cannot benefit from the recently increasing number of earphones that use aptX Adaptive to achieve high sound quality and low latency.
Since this is a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 device, I wish it would have been able to use general-purpose codecs such as aptX Adaptive from the user’s point of view, instead of enclosing it in SSC.
Ports: DeX-compatible for PC-like use
The Galaxy S23 Ultra is IP68 water and dust resistant, so a little water damage is not a problem.
The USB Type-C port also supports video and audio output in DisplayPort Alt Mode, and a PC mode called DeX is available.
The phone side can be displayed as usual, while the monitor can display multiple windows in full screen.
You can also use your phone as a touchpad, or connect a wireless mouse or keyboard for more comfortable operation.
The S Pen is stored in the body and can be easily removed by pushing and pulling it out.
It is easy to lose the pen if it is not built-in, so it is good that it can be stored.
Wacom’s electromagnetic induction method is used, so the pen does not need to be recharged for input, so it can be used easily without worrying about the remaining battery level.
You can clip the pen by simply surrounding it with the pen, or use the buttons on the pen to perform actions.
Although the button operation uses Bluetooth and therefore cannot be used without battery power in the S Pen, it lasts for more than 30 minutes so it should not be a problem.
It supports 4096 levels of pen pressure detection, and the memo app changes the thickness of lines.
There is also a function that allows you to input what you write with the pen as characters, and even if you write English or Japanese in an appropriate manner, it was properly recognized.
The power and volume buttons are located on the right side.
Performance: Benchmark is good, but not in the games
The Galaxy S23 Ultra is powered by a special version of the SoC called Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy, which has a higher clock count than usual.
As a result, it is more likely to perform better in benchmarks than other Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 phones.
In Geekbench 6, single-core 2014 and multi-core 5248 were obtained with the package name disguised version (=not affected by manufacturer’s illegal boosting), and single-core 2012 and multi-core 5285 with the normal version.
Since there is no significant difference, it seems that the performance is not controlled by the package name determination.
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AI performance measured in Geekbench ML with TensorFlow Lite/NNAPI was score 645.
The Wild Life Extreme Stress Test in 3DMark, which disguises the package name, scored 3823 to 2070, with a temperature increase from 29°C to 44°C (15°C increase) and battery consumption of 11%.
While peak performance is tops among the 8 Gen 2 phones, the performance drops quickly and the stability is quite low at 54.1%.
PCMark Work 3.0 (package name disguised), which measures performance in everyday use such as document manipulation, scored 15343.
The Galaxy S23 Ultra can be switched to a mode that prioritizes power saving and low heat generation called “Light” under “Performance Profile” in the battery settings.
Fast charging can also be turned off, and battery protection is also available to reduce the load on the battery.
PCMark Work 3.0 score in light mode was 14901 and the difference between normal and light is not big.
Since a score of about 10000 is sufficient, I think it is OK to limit it more and make it more power-saving.
In the 3DMark Wild Life Extreme Stress Test, the performance is indeed slightly lower with a score of 3228 to 1758, but the peak performance is at a level above 8+ Gen 1 and the heat generation is not significantly suppressed with a rise to 42°C.
It has UFS 4.0 storage and LPDDR5X memory.
Although sequential writes are a bit slow, the speed is otherwise top class, as you would expect from Samsung.
Only the random reads had a large upward swing to 55MB/s or 97MB/s when measured several times in a row, so perhaps it is tuned to make it easier to increase the speed when it detects a lot of fine reads and writes.
Although the Galaxy S23 Ultra delivers high peak performance in benchmarks, it is quite difficult to achieve that performance in games.
There is an item in Game Booster called “Alternative Game Performance Management” that is supposed to give higher gaming performance when turned on.
Since this alone may cause the resolution to be reduced on its own, you must also install the official game plug-in Game Booster Plus.
If you set the maximum graphics and FPS limits in Custom mode, the limits will not be restricted.
At this setting, when I checked Genshin’s resolution, both GPU Watch and ADB (dumpsys SurfaceFlinger | grep GetMobileInfo.MainActivity | grep w/h) shows 1853×864.
If you set the Performance option to “Focus on Performance” and turn on Frame Booster, you should get higher performance.
Fundamentally, it would be better to disable the Game Optimizing Service (GOS) service to completely disable the control, but when testing other companies’ phones, I set performance mode with only settings on the UI, and it’s unfair to disable the system app for Galaxy only so I leave the GOS itself as it is.
With the above settings, playing Genshin at the highest quality, 60FPS setting, and Sumeru and measuring with WeTest PerfDog, the power consumption was 127.38 mW per FPS at an average of 44 FPS.
Battery temperatures rose to a maximum of about 43°C.
The frame of the body got quite hot and was difficult to hold in the second half of the day.
Since an average of 58 FPS or higher is the normal for Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 phones from other companies, the result is that the overclocked Galaxy loses.
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Conclusion
- Power-saving Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy
- Bright and beautiful AMOLED display
- Built-in S Pen for easy writing
- 5,000mAh battery with wireless charging support
- USB 3.2 Gen 1 port for video output and DeX support
- IP68 waterproof and dustproof
- 5G millimeter wave support
- Difficult to get game performance
- Prone to photo color changes, especially when zooming
- No aptX Adaptive available despite Snapdragon
- Heavy at 234g
The Galaxy S23 Ultra is one of the highest spec smartphones outside of China, with a camera that can capture bright night scenes, a beautiful AMOLED display, an easy-to-type S Pen with DeX PC mode and millimeter wave support, and other advanced features.
It is unfortunate that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy cannot show off its performance in games, but I hope that future updates will improve the performance.