Samsung’s surgically implanted upgrades and improvements have made the Galaxy S23 Plus the poster child Android phone for early 2023. It has a size and shape that could be the sweet spot for most people, as well as respectable performance, great battery life, and significant camera improvements.
The Galaxy S23 Plus is a great follow-up to last year’s middle-of-the-road flagship, the Galaxy S22 Plus. It has the same starting price of $999 and comes with 256GB of storage, which is twice as much as last year. And since you may never pay full price for the Galaxy S23 Plus, thanks to the many Galaxy S23 deals, promotions, and trade-in deals that stores and carriers offer regularly, this new Samsung phone could be great for any Android user who is thinking about upgrading.
[content-egg-block template=offers_logo hide=price]The screens on the Galaxy S23 family probably change the least from one year to the next. You’ll find the same sizes as with the Galaxy S22: an entry-level model with a 6.1-inch screen, a Plus model with a 6.6-inch screen, and an Ultra model with a 6.8-inch screen. As before, all three phones can go up to 120Hz refresh rates when you want to scroll more smoothly or play games with a lot of graphics.
As a way to save power, the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 Plus have a minimum refresh rate of 48Hz, while the Galaxy S23 Ultra can go all the way down to 1Hz when things aren’t moving much. The only change is that the brightness of the Galaxy S23 has been made brighter. The screen on that phone can now get as bright as the Galaxy S23 Plus and S23 Ultra, which is 1,750 nits. We’ll have to test the screens to see if they can reach that level of brightness, but even if they don’t, the Galaxy S23 will have some of the brightest screens we’ve seen.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset should use less power than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset found in U.S. versions of the Galaxy S22. That should help Samsung’s new phones stay charged longer. Also, the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 Plus will have bigger batteries.
The batteries in both phones have grown by 200 mAh since last year’s models. So, the Galaxy S23 has a cell with 3,900 mAh and the Galaxy S23 Plus has a cell with 4,700 mAh. The Galaxy S23 Ultra has the same 5,000 mAh battery that the Galaxy S22 Ultra had.