Today, we’re going to compare these two flagship phones. I want to answer the question – is it worth upgrading from the S22 Ultra to the S23 Ultra?
I found out that there are actually quite a lot of differences even though they look the same – but focusing mostly on the cameras because I think that’s what matters the most to people. Everything is also timestamped below – so let’s begin.
Design
As usual, we’ll talk about the design first. As every reviewer has stated – the Galaxy S23 Ultra is boxier than before and it has more grip on the frame, making the phone more comfortable to hold like this.
In contrast, the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s rounded frame makes the phone feel… sharper?
Anyway, if you are upgrading from the S22 Ultra to the S23 Ultra, then you can’t reuse your cases. The S23 Ultra is slightly bigger in all dimensions, and the cameras are also not within the same alignment as before.
As for the colors, they are distinct from each other. I know from our S23 Ultra review, many of you pointed out that there are a total of 8 different colors for the S23 Ultra. 4 of them are the ones we’re familiar with – Phantom Black, cream, green, and lavender – and 4 more colors are exclusively available on Samsung.com only – and those are red, lime, sky blue, and graphite.
You might wonder why my S22 Ultra has this weird jaggy texture – and that’s actually my screen protector. It wraps from the front to the back.
Display
Just for the sake of completion, I also want to quickly mention about the displays of these two phones. They’re very similar if not identical – same resolution, same maximum refresh rate, and even the same color accuracy and brightness levels too. But the only difference here is the curvature at the edge.
Performance
So, the next big thing is obviously – the performance difference. I believe this is self-explanatory. We use Genshin Impact at the highest graphical settings at 60fps and lock them to the same render resolution to redo the test – and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 on the S22 Ultra couldn’t even keep up. It’s laggy.
The S23 Ultra has two significant upgrades – one is the obvious new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, and another is the enlarged cooling system. That helped this phone to sustain high performance over a long period of time and also doesn’t lag. By the way, the Game Plugins app is finally available for the S23 Ultra – but it doesn’t make a difference since it is already rendering at the highest possible resolution by default. So, don’t bother about the Game Plugins app.
Oh – remember the hidden feature that I mentioned in the Galaxy S23 Ultra review? Well, it seems to be rolling out region by region. My retail units of both the S22 and S23 Ultra does not have the feature yet, but many of you guys – including a friend from Indonesia – said that the S22 Ultra already has the battery bypass feature.
By the way, I also have the S23 and S23+ with me – and yes, they both have the battery bypass feature too.
Camera
Okay, what about the cameras? They both are the same except for the main camera. All the differences are as listed on the screen – and I’m sure the screen will be a bunch of text now. Thanks, future me who is going to edit this video.
Do keep in mind that by the time you get your hands on the Galaxy S23 Ultra, the image quality may change as the phone is using a brand new ISP – and I think it’s safe to assume that further improvements are coming soon.
To have a look at all the pictures and videos taken with both phones, please watch our video at the top of this comparison.
Here’s a teaser.
Battery life
How about the battery life difference? Well, since we have a standardized battery life test, we can reuse our data from last year. I don’t want to redo the test because my personal unit of the S22 Ultra had already gone through a year of usage – hence the battery has some wear.
So, with these two phones tested using the PCMark battery life test locked at 100 nits brightness – we got a big surprise. The battery life is a massive improvement. From about 9.5 hours to 13 hours – that’s a massive jump.
Since we have upgraded our charging test, the result gathered and presented are not the same between these two phones. However, we are using the exact same charger anyway – and the charging speed remains unchanged.
RAM and storage speed
As for the RAM and storage speeds, I decided to redo the test once again but using the “accurate” mode in the A1 SD benchmark app – which requires a restart and some setup time. It’ll take more time and yes, with the “accurate” mode, we can see an even bigger difference in both the RAM and storage speed.
I have also seen lots of reports saying that the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s bloatware has ballooned up to 90GB – and to that, I can confirm that it is true. Even the Galaxy S22 Ultra has 93.71GB of system apps. As for what they are, I can’t confirm. However, I think using a blanket and labeling all of them as “bloatware” is unfair since there are lots of useful features built-in too. Just not all of them are useful. Maybe let us choose what apps we want in the future?
Time to answer the big question
Okay, so the final big question is – should you upgrade from the S22 Ultra to the S23 Ultra? Going by my own beliefs, I’ll usually say it doesn’t make sense to upgrade your highest-end flagship smartphone every year.
But then again, the Galaxy S23 Ultra is a clear upgrade over its predecessor. Depending on what you do with the phone, some aspects of it might be more significant than others, which also means that I don’t recommend everyone to trade in the S22 Ultra for the S23 Ultra.
For mobile gamers – especially high-end games like Wreckfest and Genshin Impact, the S23 Ultra is clearly multiple folds better. The ability to maintain high performance over a longer period of time is crucial. While the S22 Ultra also has the bypass battery feature, it won’t help much if the chipset itself is already overheating and thermal throttle.
So, I’ll say that mobile gamers benefit the most while photographers and videographers – depending on how serious you are – will also benefit in this upgrade, especially for handheld night pictures and night videos.
I mean, Samsung does accept the S22 Ultra in their trade-in program, so maybe see if you can get a good price for the trade-in and reevaluate if you should upgrade or not.
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