Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra vs Galaxy S23 Plus vs Galaxy S23 compared!

This year, Samsung has made some welcome changes to the Galaxy S23 trio. We’ve got bigger batteries, higher storage, and an unchanged price tag for all three phones. This means that if you were holding off and didn’t invest in the Galaxy S22 series, you’ll be paying the same price as last year for better hardware. That said, not all Samsung Galaxy S23 phones are made equal. While they share many characteristics, including the design to some extent, you might be better off getting one device over the other two. It all depends on what you need and how much you’re willing to spend. Here’s a quick Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra vs Galaxy S23 Plus vs Galaxy S23 comparison to help you pick your next premium handset.

The Samsung Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23 Plus, and Galaxy S23 Ultra can all be considered powerful and premium. That’s because at the heart of these phones rests the custom Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy. Qualcomm calls it its fastest Snapdragon yet, because it has an accelerated 3.36GHz Cortex-X3 CPU compared to the 3.19GHz default CPU on the regular Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. The Adreno 740 GPU also gets clock speed improvements from 680Mhz to 719Mhz, promising performance and power efficiency gains alongside ray tracing support. Of course, we’ll test all that during our review process. But in essence, you’re getting equally capable phones, as far as pure performance is concerned.

The differences between the Galaxy S23 Ultra, Galaxy S23 Plus, and Galaxy S23 emerge in the more obvious hardware traits like display resolution, battery size, storage, and camera specs. These vary across the series every year.

The regular and Plus Galaxy S23 models feature identical FHD+ display resolutions. The former is more compact at 6.1 inches, while the latter stretches to 6.6 inches. So if you’re aiming for one-handed use, you might be better off with the vanilla Galaxy S23. The S23 Ultra is Samsung’s Note replacement and, as such, gets a large 6.8-inch display with curved edges and a QHD+ resolution. All S23 phones get AMOLED panels with a 120Hz refresh rate, but if you’re looking for the device with the absolute best screen, the Galaxy S23 Ultra is the one to go for. Of course, it comes with the added advantage of S Pen support, which makes note-taking a pleasure on this phone.

Where the Samsung Galaxy S23 gets left behind compared to the Galaxy S23 Plus and Galaxy S23 Ultra is the base storage. The regular S23 starts with a 128GB built-in storage option, even though Samsung has upgraded the base storage on the Plus and Ultra variants to 256GB for the same price as last year. You’re also stuck with 8GB of RAM on the Galaxy S23 and S23 Plus, and while that should be good enough for all your multitasking needs, the S23 Ultra is the only device in the series that’ll offer you that extra boost to 12GB RAM.

Thankfully, Samsung’s software commitment remains consistent across the series. No matter which Galaxy S23 phone you get, you’re assured four years of Android updates and five years of security patches. They all come with Android 13-based One UI 5.1, which brings a host of new features, some of which are exclusive to the S23 series.

Lastly, you don’t have to worry about one of the Galaxy S23 series phones having better water and dust protection than the other. They all come with an IP68 rating, which means they are water resistant in fresh water to a maximum depth of 1.5 meters for up to 30 minutes and are protected from dust without needing extra cases or covers.

If you look at the design of the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra vs Galaxy S23 Plus vs Galaxy S23, you’ll notice the obvious size differences between the three phones. The regular S23 measures 146.3 x 70.8 x 7.6mm, the Plus model comes in taller and wider at 157.7 x 76.2 x 7.6mm, and the Ultra is the tallest and thickest, measuring 163.3 x 77.9 x 8.9mm. Needless to say, the Galaxy S23 will be the most pocketable phone out of all three. It’s also the lightest one to carry around, weighing 168g. The S23 Plus is just shy of 200g, and the S23 Ultra is the heaviest at 229g.

All the new Samsung flagships are made of “Armour Aluminum” and feature Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protection. The S23 and S23 Plus also get the same floating camera design as the S23 Ultra, so you’re not getting drastically different-looking phones, even at the lower end. This is a good thing and makes the series feel more uniform than before.

If the camera specs make or break your purchase decision, then you might not have a tough time choosing between the Samsung Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 Plus. They have an identical camera setup featuring 50MP primary + 12MP ultrawide + 10MP telephoto shooters. They are the exact same cameras as the Galaxy S22 and S22 Plus. However, you can now record smoother 30fps 8K videos on the new phones, compared to 24fps on the S22 series. You can also expect improvements in AI image processing, thanks to the upgraded Image Signal Processor on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip.

The biggest change comes to the camera array of the Galaxy S23 Ultra, which now features Samsung’s new 200MP ISOCELL HP2 sensor. It has 200 million 0.6-micrometer pixels in a 1/1.3-inch optical format, a sensor size that is also widely used in 108MP main smartphone cameras. The sensor can shoot 12.5MP, 50MP, or even the full 200MP images using various pixel-binning options. Samsung also claims big improvements to HDR and low-light photography. All said and done, we’ll have to put the camera through its paces to see how big an improvement it brings to this generation. Still, if you want Samsung’s best camera, you’ll only get it on one phone, and that’s the Galaxy S23 Ultra, since this also has a telephoto shooter with 10x optical zoom, improved optical image stabilization (upgraded from 1.5 to three degrees), and Samsung’s 100x Space Zoom feature.

Elsewhere, the Galaxy S23, S23 Plus, and S23 Ultra have the same 12MP selfie camera. It’s technically a downgrade for the Ultra model compared to last year’s 40MP snapper on the S22 Ultra. All of the phones also get most of the same camera features, including Samsung’s Nightography feature (a fancy name for night mode).

Coming to battery life, the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 Plus now sport bigger batteries that offer 200mAh more capacity compared to last year. The S23 still features the smallest battery at 3,900mAh, while the S23 Plus has moved closer to the Ultra model’s 5,000mAh battery with a 4,700mAh powerhouse of its own. So if you’re looking for the phone with the best battery life in the series, you should get comparable results from the Galaxy S23 Plus and Galaxy S23 Ultra.

There’s a difference in wired charging speeds between the flagships, with the standard model getting 25W charging and the bigger variants getting 45W charging. However, we tested Samsung’s 45W charging on the Galaxy S22 Ultra, and it was barely faster than 25W charging, so you shouldn’t worry too much about which phone gets faster charging this time around. The results should be pretty much the same. All three phones also share 15W wireless charging, so they are equal on that front too.

Samsung has kept the prices of the Galaxy S23 series unchanged compared to last year. Apart from the Galaxy S23, the rest of the phones in the new series start with 256GB storage and yet cost the same as the 128GB variants from last year.

Pre-orders for the Galaxy S23 series start on February 1. The S23 phones will be available in stores beginning February 17 in the US.

You can pre-order the phones from Samsung.com, where you’ll also gain access to exclusive Galaxy S23 colorways you won’t find anywhere else. These include Lime, Graphite, Sky Blue, and red. Those exclusive colors join the four you can get anywhere else: Phantom Black, Cream, Lavender, and green.

You can also get a free storage upgrade on Samsung’s site. That means you’ll get a 256GB Galaxy S23, a 512GB Galaxy S23 Plus, and a 512GB Galaxy S23 Ultra for no additional charge. Additionally, you can get $100 in extra Samsung credit.

There’s a $200 difference between the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 Plus, which have identical specs except for a higher base storage and bigger screen on the latter. So if those two things don’t matter as much to you, the regular model is the obvious choice here. Even the 256GB version of the S23 is cheaper than the same storage variant on the S23 Plus, so it really all comes down to the screen size you prefer.

Of course, a lot changes on the Galaxy S23 Ultra vs the Plus and standard models. You’re paying a premium for the top-end Samsung flagship for its 200MP camera, an additional telephoto shooter, more storage, a higher resolution and bigger display, and S Pen functionality. As such, it’s up to you if you want to spend $200 more and get the base S23 Ultra instead of the base S23 Plus, given the added features you gain with the same amount of RAM and storage.

If you’re willing to wait, we’ll update our verdict once we’ve had a chance to review all the three phones.