While the system performance has received a bit of a boost from the new Snapdragon chip, the biggest upgrade may well be on the camera side of things, as the main 108 megapixel wide angle camera is upgraded to an even bigger 200 megapixel camera, and it is an interesting addition. Overall, achieving a full day of strong use is a great outcome, and for the rest of us not living on our phone at all hours of the day and night, two days is quite impressive. It's the sort of battery life we've yearned for, and virtually no one is delivering. Great work, Samsung. Of course, to get this sort of performance and feature set, you need to be prepared to pay for it, and the Galaxy S23 Ultra is not an inexpensive handset. Not by any stretch of the imagination. For instance, if you have no problem with large phones, you’ll likely love the massive 6.8 inch size of the S23 Ultra, and dig the S-Pen built into the body. That last bit is one of the main features, though it hasn’t changed dramatically from last generation, offering a way to draw and write on the screen, whether it’s off or on standby, and giving you some extra controls if you need them, too. Once you go beyond 10X, you're entering Samsung's "Space Zoom" territory, where a combination of digital zoom and software will find and sharpen edges, and theoretically let you get close.

About the only major issue we have is that the camera can also feel a touch slow to fire, which seems to be a consistent Samsung issue. We've seen it on what must have years worth of Samsung phones, and it's a bug that just doesn't seem to go away. More interesting, however, is the use of downsampling which sees the 200 megapixel sensor able to use four pixels for every one in 50 megapixel shots, or 16 pixels for every one in 12 megapixel shots. The only other critical factor Samsung may struggle with is upgrades, because it's a near impossible argument from last year's model to this one.In fairness, it's not entirely Samsung's issue alone: high-end smartphones are quite pricey at the moment, and the S23 Ultra is not new in that respect. Low light is also pretty solid, putting up some decent competition against rivals from Apple and Google, which is where most of the action is. We're not sure Samsung is beating either, with slightly sharper low-light images from the iPhone 14 Pro Max and the Google Pixel 7 Pro. That lines up roughly with the 12 megapixels on offer from the ultra-wide camera in this phone, and is also similar to the 12 megapixels used in the S23 and S23+, not to mention Samsung's obvious competitor in the iPhone 14 Pro Max. Glance at the Samsung S23 Ultra and you’ll see a phone that resembles much of the current focus of last year’s phone, the S22 Ultra. The camera feels slightly more flush and the whole thing is possibly a bit firmer, but Samsung’s design is largely the same. The size could be an issue if you're not used to huge phones, and some hands will find the size so unwieldy, they may struggle to hold the handset comfortably. Mind you, if you're coming from a big phone already, this is likely already an issue you've overcome.

To put it simply, Samsung's all-round flagship phone is beating the performance of a phone made for gaming, telling you just how useful the Galaxy S23 Ultra will end up being for gaming, or anything else you throw its way. It all sits under a big 6.8 inch slightly curved display, something Samsung’s calls an “Edge” display, running a Dynamic AMOLED panel at Quad HD+ (3088×1440) and 120Hz. There’s support for HDR here and Corning’s scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protecting things, while the rest of the body is made from aluminium and glass, measuring 8.9mm thin and weighing 234g. Close-up images through the complex camera setup sees some interesting shots that are possible, but a slightly slower lens on each means you won't find as much light control. Big phones are all the rage, and if you’re after one of the best of the biggest, the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra might just have your name on it. In general, high-end phones tend to capture at 12 megapixels, and with the S23 Ultra, you're effectively getting 16 times the photo data for every pixel in its images, a feature specific to Samsung's Isocell HP2 sensor, which this phone uses.Mind you, all of this is the same as last time, as is the in-screen fingerprint sensor and the hole-punch selfie camera working as a facial login. Samsung has switched the camera in that selfie camera, but it’s not the only place to see a shift. Performance

That said, if you came from last year’s model, you won’t see much of a difference. It is more of the same, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Features With all of that tech inside what is easily one of the biggest phones around, using the phone can be a bit of a mixed bag. However, if you’re used to a smaller phone, using the S23 Ultra isn’t necessarily easy, and will become a two-hand phone. On the one hand, it's the same 5000mAh battery from the older S22 Ultra, but on the other, it just performs better in general. It's so good, you can get a good two days of life from regular use if you wanted to, and if you use it less, you might hit the three mark.

The camera is sure an update on the previous generation, but the battery reads like a winning change, too. It's an idea Samsung has been pushing since the S20 Ultra popped up, and while the tech is getting better, close-up images at extreme limits on the S23 Ultra aren't a huge improvement. You can snap a decent picture of the Moon, but most pictures outside of this won't be super brilliant, and really undermine the best feature of the S23 Ultra camera: that impressive 200 megapixels. Yes, it was over ten years ago, and while some laughed at the idea, Samsung managed to make the big phone work. We got past the term “phablet”, and these days, big is in. Every phone is big, with small phones more difficult to find than ever.