If you’re thinking about dropping $1,000 on the Galaxy S23+, you need to know exactly what you’re paying for — and what Samsung quietly held back.
Design, Build, and What Actually Changed
The Galaxy S23+ is the definition of incremental. Compared to the S22+, the big visual change is the removal of the camera island: each of the three rear cameras now protrudes individually, matching the Ultra’s floating-lens aesthetic and making the S23 lineup look more unified.
Beyond that, this is a very familiar slab. You still get a flat 6.6-inch display with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio, rounded corners, and a small punch-hole selfie camera. The corners, frame, and general silhouette scream “Samsung flagship” in a way that’s refined but completely predictable.
On the durability side, Samsung did the right things. Both front and back are Gorilla Glass Victus 2, clamped to an Armor Aluminum frame. Victus 2 promises better drop performance on rough surfaces like concrete while keeping the scratch resistance of Victus+. The whole phone feels rigid, with essentially no flex, and of course you still get IP68 water and dust protection (up to 1.5m for 30 minutes).
Controls are unchanged: power and volume on the right, nothing on the left, secondary mic up top, and USB-C, primary mic, SIM tray and bottom-firing speaker on the bottom. There’s no microSD slot, no 3.5mm jack, no notification LED, and no MST or ANT — none of that is new, but if you were hoping for a U-turn, keep dreaming.
The under-display ultrasonic fingerprint reader is as good as Samsung’s current tech gets: accurate and reasonably quick in testing. Ultrasonic still isn’t as foolproof as a good capacitive reader, but this is about as close as you’re getting on a modern Samsung flagship.
Display: Brilliant, Fast… and Still Stuck in 8-Bit
Samsung’s screen team continues to carry the phone. The S23+ uses a Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel with 120Hz refresh and HDR10/HDR10+/HLG support. There’s no change in headline tech versus S22+, but performance is excellent.
Brightness is where it hits hard. In testing, the S23+ hits about 471 nits in Vivid mode on manual brightness, roughly 768 nits with the “Extra brightness” toggle, and up to around 1,205 nits in harsh light with auto-brightness. Samsung advertises 1,750 nits peak — with a smaller APL you’ll get closer to that. Either way, it’s brutally bright outdoors.
Vision Booster is back and smarter, using ambient light data to tweak tone mapping per pixel. The result is a picture that looks “wrong” if you care about absolute accuracy but remains visible when the sun is nuking the panel, which is the whole point.
Color handling is classic Samsung: Vivid targets DCI-P3 and gets close, though the default profile is slightly too cold. A single notch towards warmer on the slider pulls it into accurate territory. Natural mode targets sRGB and nails it with deltaE around 2.8.
But for a $1,000 phone in 2023 territory, there’s a catch: this is still an 8-bit panel. Competitors at similar or lower prices are already shipping 10- or even 12-bit displays. If you care about smooth gradients and high-end HDR mastering, Samsung is coasting here.
Refresh rate logic is smart, even without LTPO. The panel supports 10/24/30/48/60/96/120Hz. In practice, the phone runs at 120Hz while you interact and typically drops to 24Hz when idle, with the UI render frame rate going as low as 1fps. For video, it matches the content: 24fps → 24Hz, 30fps → 30Hz, 60fps → 60Hz.
One annoyance: HDR video playback locks the screen at 120Hz, even if the content is 24 or 30fps. That’s worse for power efficiency than the S23 Ultra, which still adapts. Not a dealbreaker, but this is the kind of detail that matters on long Netflix sessions.
Performance, Thermals, and Battery: Snapdragon Finally Everywhere
The biggest generational change isn’t visible — it’s silicon. There’s no Exynos variant this year. Every S23+ ships with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy, an overclocked version of Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.
CPU layout: 1x Cortex-X3 at 3.36GHz, 2x Cortex-A715 at 2.8GHz, 2x Cortex-A710 at 2.8GHz, and 3x Cortex-A510 at 2.0GHz. GPU is an Adreno 740 clocked at 719MHz instead of the usual ~680MHz. Samsung pairs that with 8GB LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.0 storage on both 256GB and 512GB models.
Versus Snapdragon 8 Gen 1/Exynos 2200, Qualcomm claims ~35% higher CPU performance and 40% better efficiency, plus ~25% more GPU performance with 45% better efficiency. In benchmarks, the S23+ sits right at the top of the Android pile and gets closer than before to Apple’s Bionic line.
Real-world? The phone feels fast everywhere: One UI animations, app launches, and 120Hz gaming all come through clean. GFXBench runs easily break 60fps in heavy tests and push triple digits in lighter ones, often saturating the 120Hz cap.
The downside is thermal behavior. In a one-hour sustained load torture test, the S23+ dropped to about 67% of its peak performance, even with the enlarged vapor chamber Samsung added this generation. That’s a heavy artificial scenario and the phone doesn’t get uncomfortably hot, but the throttling is real.
On the battery side, Samsung bumped capacity from 4,500mAh to 4,700mAh. Combined with the more efficient Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the S23+ delivers strong results: a 111-hour endurance rating and nearly 14 hours of “Active Use Score” in testing. It outlasts the S22+ (97 hours) and gets close to the old S21+ (114 hours, 4,800mAh).
Charging is where Samsung looks outdated. The S23+ supports up to 45W over USB PD 3.0 with PPS, but in practice there’s almost no difference between using a 25W and a 45W Samsung charger — expect roughly an hour to full either way and similar 30-minute top-ups. Competitors at similar prices are doing 80–120W and getting you from 0–100% in under half an hour.
There’s no charger in the box in most markets, so you’re likely buying at least a 25W brick. And thanks to the quirks of PPS implementations, not every third-party “PD+PPS” charger will actually trigger Samsung’s fastest modes. Stick to reputable brands or Samsung’s own units if you care about predictability.
A genuinely useful new trick (once it rolls out) is the option to bypass battery charging during heavy gaming and run the phone directly off USB power. That’s hidden in Game Booster rather than battery settings, but it should help long-term battery health for people who play plugged in.
Cameras: Same Hardware, Refined Output
Rear camera hardware is basically unchanged from the S22+:
- 50MP main: Samsung S5KGN3, 1/1.57″, 1.0µm, f/1.8, OIS, Dual Pixel AF, outputs 12MP.
- 10MP 3x telephoto: Samsung S5K3K1, 1/3.94″, 1.0µm, f/2.4, OIS, PDAF, outputs 12MP.
- 12MP ultrawide: Sony IMX564, 1/2.55″, 1.4µm, f/2.2, fixed focus.
The selfie camera is new: a 12MP Samsung S5K3LU with 1.12µm pixels, f/2.2 and Dual Pixel AF, replacing last year’s 10MP unit.
Despite the “same sensor” story, image quality is excellent across the board. The main camera produces detail-rich 12MP shots with wide dynamic range and Samsung’s typical slightly punchy color tuning. Grass and skies can look a touch soft and fine lines a bit oversharpened under pixel-peeping, but for point-and-shoot use this is flagship-grade.
50MP mode is available if you want more detail and less processing. Files are bigger and take longer to capture, but you get cleaner textures and less sharpening, with no obvious Moiré issues in test scenes.
Portraits from the main and 3x telephoto cameras are strong: reliable subject detection, convincing depth blur, and nice-looking background separation even with non-human subjects if you’re patient.
The 3x telephoto is sharper than you’d expect from a 10MP sensor upscaled to 12MP. At 3x it’s very detailed, with color and processing tightly matched to the main camera. Digital zoom goes up to 30x and is usable, especially thanks to OIS, but obviously softens the higher you go.
The ultrawide is the weakest link. Colors and overall rendering match the other cameras well, but there’s noticeable softness across the frame and artifacts from sharpening. That could be a lens issue on the tested unit, but in any case it’s not on the same level as the main and tele.
The new 12MP selfie cam is legitimately good: sharp, detailed, with accurate skin texture and reliable autofocus. Versus the S22, the differences are subtle — a bit more detail here, slightly better or worse skin tone there — but the experience is consistently solid.
Night performance is strong. Auto mode either uses HDR stacking or flips into Auto Night Mode (moon icon indicator). The main camera delivers clean shots with controlled highlights, low noise, and natural colors. Manual Night Mode brightens scenes further at the cost of slightly softer detail and more blown-out light sources.
Importantly, Night Mode is available on all cameras. The ultrawide gets noticeably cleaner and marginally sharper with Night Mode, while the telephoto benefits the most: less noise, better highlight control, and generally much more usable 3x shots in bad light.
Video recording runs up to 8K at 30fps on the main camera, a bump over the 24fps cap on the S22 era. 8K30 HEVC clips are sharp with strong dynamic range and natural color, though the bitrate (around 80Mbps) and file size make this overkill for most people.
4K30 from the main camera is almost as detailed while being substantially more manageable. These clips use AVC at around 50Mbps and look fantastic. The 3x telephoto and ultrawide both shoot up to 4K30; the tele holds up very well with crisp detail and slightly punchier contrast, while the ultrawide trails in sharpness but keeps solid dynamic range and color consistency.
The selfie camera’s 4K output is also high quality: detailed, with only mildly saturated colors and good contrast. Stabilization has two levels: standard EIS and Super Steady for heavy shake (e.g., sports). Both work well; Super Steady costs some sharpness and field of view, as usual.
Low-light video is handled competently across all three rear cams. Detail is high, noise kept under control, and neon/point light sources are readable instead of turning into ugly blobs. Samsung’s Auto FPS and Super Night Solution can drop frame rates down from 60 to as low as 15fps to squeeze more light and stack frames; that means some low-light clips will look choppy, but you get cleaner results.
Software and Experience: One UI 5.1 Matures, Doesn’t Transform
The S23+ ships with Android 13 and One UI 5.1. This is an iterative update, not a reinvention, but that’s not a bad thing when the base is already strong.
Core Android 13 features that matter here are privacy and control tweaks: per-app language settings, a smarter notification permission model (apps start with notifications off until you allow them), and clipboard auto-delete to cut down on apps quietly scraping your copied passwords and card numbers.
On Samsung’s side, One UI 5 puts a lot of work into smoothness. Animations and transitions are tighter, making the phone feel faster even beyond the raw Snapdragon power. Icons and illustrations get a cleaner look, while the Material-style color theming gains more combinations and the ability to tint app icons.
New widget options include stacking multiple widgets in the same slot and swiping through them, plus a new battery widget that aggregates info from connected Galaxy devices, and an enhanced weather widget. Not all third-party widgets support stacking yet.
Multitasking sees practical upgrades: swipe up from the bottom with two fingers to snap into split screen, or do the same from Recents. Floating windows are easier to resize via corner drag shortcuts.
Modes and Routines expand Samsung’s automation story, similar to Apple’s Focus modes. You can tie custom sound profiles, notification rules, wallpapers, and actions (like launching Spotify, toggling hotspot, etc.) to conditions like driving or work. One UI 5.1 adds wallpaper-per-mode support.
Connectivity features get smarter, too. The Connected devices menu consolidates Smart View casting and DeX. Nearby Chromecasts show up in the audio output picker. You can cast your screen while muting notifications from showing up on the TV.
Continue on PC lets Samsung Internet hand off to your default browser on a PC — a niche feature, but useful if you live in the Samsung browser ecosystem.
DeX is fully supported, wired and wireless, up to 4K60. For people who actually use DeX as a laptop replacement, this remains one of Samsung’s biggest differentiators.
Smaller quality-of-life tweaks include:
– RAM Plus (virtual RAM) can be fully disabled.
– Auto background optimization in Device Care keeps things smooth.
– More timers, extended My Files search, updated Digital Wellbeing.
– A simplified “Processing speed” menu with just Standard and Light performance profiles.
The camera app gains Expert RAW integration (as a separate download), one-handed zoom controls, and a much more flexible watermark system. AI Image Clip lets you long-press objects in photos to cut, save or share them, similar to Apple’s Visual Lookup.
Overall, this is the most polished version of One UI yet. But it’s evolution, not disruption — if you’ve used recent Samsungs, you’ll feel right at home.
Price, Competition, and Who the S23+ Is Really For
Here’s the uncomfortable part: Galaxy S23+ pricing. In the US, it starts at $1,000; in Europe, around €1,200. The only consolation is that the base model now starts at 256GB instead of 128GB, which softens the blow a bit in the US. In Europe, it’s just more expensive.
At that price, you’re surrounded by serious alternatives:
- OnePlus 11: Cheaper, with a 6.7-inch 120Hz LTPO3 QHD+ AMOLED, Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, 5,000mAh battery, 100W charging, and a strong 50MP main + 32MP 2x telephoto + 48MP ultrawide setup. IP64 isn’t full IP68, but it’s something.
- Google Pixel 7 Pro: Also cheaper, with a 6.7-inch 120Hz LTPO QHD+ AMOLED, 5,000mAh battery, and arguably better overall camera versatility and computational photography. Clean Android, IP68, but weaker battery life.
- iPhone 14 Plus: Similar price, larger 6.7-inch OLED, A15 Bionic, very good battery life, but no telephoto camera and you’re obviously jumping ecosystems.
- Xiaomi 13 Pro: Big 6.73-inch LTPO 120Hz 10-bit display, Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, IP68, 4,820mAh battery with 120W charging and a triple 50MP camera system.
- Realme GT2 Pro: Much cheaper, still offering a 6.7-inch 120Hz LTPO2 QHD+ AMOLED, Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, 5,000mAh battery with 65W charging. Not the latest, but the value is hard to ignore.
So where does that leave the S23+? It’s a “safe bet” phone. You get:
- A very bright, color-accurate 120Hz AMOLED display.
- Excellent performance and efficiency from Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy.
- Strong battery life but conservative charging.
- A consistently good camera system with great point-and-shoot results.
- Full IP68, Victus 2 glass, and UWB on top of all the usual flagship radios.
- Mature, feature-packed One UI 5.1 plus DeX.
You also get:
- 8-bit panel when rivals brag 10–12-bit.
- Heavy thermal throttling under sustained synthetic load.
- Slow-ish, confusing charging behavior vs. the rest of the 2023 flagship field.
- No charger in the box (most markets) and no expandable storage.
- A price tag that assumes you’ll pay the Samsung tax.
If you’re on an S22+ or even an S21+, there’s no compelling reason here to light $1,000 on fire unless you’re in an Exynos market and absolutely want Snapdragon this time. For everyone else, the S23+ is a rock-solid choice if you specifically want Samsung’s ecosystem, software support, and design — and you’re okay paying extra for that stability instead of chasing raw spec value.
If you’re value-driven, plenty of rivals undercut this thing while matching or beating it on display depth, charging speed, or camera flexibility.
The Galaxy S23+ doesn’t try to blow your mind. It tries to be the predictable, dependable Android flagship you buy, use for four years, and don’t really think about. For a lot of people, that’s exactly what they want. Just make sure you’re not paying flagship money for problems you don’t actually need to inherit.
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