During Heart’s Day Samsung made a lot of buzz with the launch of the latest flagship Galaxy S Series. We’ve got our hands on the Samsung Galaxy S23+ for a while now.
We’re looking at some tweaks in aesthetics and boost in performance and nightography. Is it time for you to get an upgrade or should you hold on to its predecessor a little longer? Find out in this review.
Design and build
The new iteration embraces a unibody design at the rear. This makes it appear sleeker and more elegant despite leaning more on the heftier side (196g and 7.66mm). It has a smooth, matte finish, which provides users heightened comfort even with long usage. Colors lean more on muted hues, and we absolutely love it. You get to appreciate its subtlety in a sea of smartphones with way too striking designs.
Apart from its ergonomic and stylish design, it excels in durability. Samsung prides itself for being the first to use the latest and toughest glass around for the front and back — the Gorilla Glass Victus 2. This offers smartphones the capacity to withstand drops even on rougher surfaces. To add to that, the frame is equally durable as it’s built with armor aluminum.
A notable and noble thing about the brand has something to do with its strides towards sustainability: more device components consisting of recycled materials.
Display
Flipping the phone, what greets you is a 6.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with 120Hz refresh rate and a whopping 1750 nits of peak brightness. This translates to a smooth and immersive viewing experience — great news for series-bingers like me.
Visuals were amazing. Colors look vibrant, yet natural. Since the display also exhibits deep blacks and crisp details, you’re able to witness the visuals pop and come alive. Even better, the entire encounter will be hitch-free. And lastly, you can take advantage of the brightness of the screen even under the scorching sun of Manila.
Camera
At the rear, you’ll find the 50MP wide-angle camera, 12MP ultra-wide camera, and 10MP telephoto lens (3x optical zoom and 30x digital zoom). Nothing really new on paper when you compare it to its predecessor, but there are indeed some refinements when it comes to night photography.
10x Zoom 20x Zoom 30x Zoom
Nightography is undeniably the Galaxy S23+’s biggest forte. Amid dark sceneries, you can capture photos with superb quality. In particular, post-processed images appeared brighter, exhibiting sharp details with vibrant colors. In fact, I was shocked by the outcome given that most shots were taken with barely any light at all.
Considering the camera’s capabilities at night, you can immediately assume that it can excel under good lighting conditions. And it did just that. While the overall quality looks amazing, vividness might be over the top, making it appear slightly unnatural.
The 12MP selfie camera proves to be a good partner in varying lighting conditions. Shooting on a sunny day wasn’t a huge challenge that’s hard to face. With the front camera’s good dynamic range, you’re able to see the details of the photos clearly. No part of the image seems to be underexposed or overexposed.
Performance
The list of things that Samsung is proud of doesn’t stop. Under the hood, the Galaxy S23+ is powered by the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor. With that power boost, one can foresee that it’s built for heavy and power users. I’m happy to report that it didn’t disappoint. From multitasking and video editing to intensive gaming, the Galaxy S23+ was able to handle all tasks impeccably. Hence, it’s more than expected that day-to-day tasks such as calling, browsing the internet, scrolling through Facebook, and even running several apps were carried out swiftly.
Contributing to its breezy operation is 8GB of RAM. The device we’re testing is packed with a large 256GB storage, which is highly sufficient for memory and app hoarders like me.
Battery
It received a minor boost in battery capacity, housing 4700mAh — almost approaching the 5K mark. A generous offer given that, in the flagship scene, it’s the battery life most brands have no problem skimping on.
Verdict
Simply put, the Samsung Galaxy S23+ had a minor glow up. On the surface, it received a makeover and ramped up durability. Beyond looks, you get a very accomplished chipset that can take on whatever you throw at it; and thankfully, a battery increase. Nocturnals can also benefit greatly from Samsung’s amazing nightography capabilities.
The price tag is what you’ll expect from a flagship phone: PHP 68,990 for the 256GB variant and PHP 76,990 for the 512GB variant.
If the above mentioned are the driving factors that make you want to upgrade, then by all means go and hop right in. Otherwise, you can hold on to its predecessor, which is nearly as excellent, until we witness truly significant feature upgrades.
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