The Morning After: Our verdict on the Galaxy S23 Ultra and its 200-megapixel camera

Samsung’s flagship phone of 2023 is here – if you don’t count the foldables. The Galaxy S23 Ultra starts at $1,200 and has a big, beautiful OLED screen, better cameras, a new chip for even better performance and some revamped software. And, of course, there’s still a built-in S Pen for all your drawing and note taking. The highlight feature since last year’s S22 Ultra is the new 200MP sensor, which offers more options for advanced content creation. And, with five rear cameras, there are a lot of options.

In normal use, the S23 Ultra uses 16-to-1 pixel-binning from that huge sensor to help gather more light and produce sharp, colorful images without needing extra-large files. And in most situations, it seemed to produce better-looking photos. According to Engadget’s Sam Rutherford, the S23 Ultra images taken using the default 12MP mode featured more accurate colors and better details than those captured with the sensor’s full 200 megapixels. However, this could be the most capable smartphone camera yet.

– Mat Smith

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