Samsung Galaxy S23 - Compact high-end smartphone with small compromises

The Samsung Galaxy S23 has a 6.1-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2x display that offers Full HD+ and up to 120 Hz. Both the front and back are protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2. Power is provided by the exclusive Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy, which can draw on 8 GB of LPDDR5x RAM. The battery has again grown slightly and now has a capacity of 3,900 mAh. The S22 still had to make do with 3,700 mAh, while the S21 had 4,000 mAh at its disposal.

The triple camera on the back has received a lot of fine-tuning. The new sensor for the ultra-wide angle in particular performed well in our tests. Samsung is also breaking new ground with the front camera and has given all models in the series the same look.

Even the smallest Galaxy S smartphone can now utilitze the 6 GHz WLAN standard, as Wi-Fi 6E was reserved for the big siblings last year. Unfortunately, Samsung has omitted Wi-Fi 7. Users of a Galaxy S23 also have to do without the ultra-wideband chip (UWB).

We particularly like the fact that Samsung has balanced out the differences within the series in terms of display brightness, which gives the Galaxy S23 a big plus in terms of luminosity. However, the charging rates remain the same and the Samsung smartphone can still only be charged with a maximum of 25 watts.

Another bitter pill is the price increase of around US$100, compared to last year, for the entry-level model, which only has 128 GB of UFS 3.1 storage, while the US$60 more expensive 256 GB model uses the modern UFS 4.0 standard. Whether the differences are actually noticeable in everyday life is questionable, however.

The Galaxy S23 can be purchased directly from Samsung's online store (where applicable) in all color and memory variants.