Intro
To say that it remained in the overshadowed by the Ultra would be an understatement, but here’s to hoping the Galaxy S23 Plus could offset that and establish itself as the proper flagship phone.
- Refreshed design (Galaxy S23 Plus)
- Brighter display, up to 1,750 nits (Galaxy S23 Plus)
- Gorilla Glass Victus 2 (Galaxy S23 Plus) vs Gorilla Glass Victus (Galaxy S22 Plus)
- Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy (Galaxy S23 Plus) vs Snapdragon 8 Gen 1/Exynos 2200 (Galaxy S22 Plus)
- Larger battery on the Galaxy S23 Plus (4,700mAh) vs Galaxy S22 Plus (4,500mAh)
- Unchanged price ($999)
Table of Contents:
Design and Display Quality
Few but important changes
From the get-go, there aren’t so many differences between the Galaxy S23 Plus and the S22 Plus in terms of dimensions. The new Galaxy comes along phone is expected to be just a smidgen taller and wider: the Galaxy S22 Plus stands at 157.4 x 75.8 x 7.6mm, while the S23 Plus measures in at 157.8 x 76.2 x 7.6mm. While it’s a mostly negligible difference from a size difference, it’s an important distinction to make as it could potentially change up the ergonomics of the phone. It would also mean that your old case wouldn’t fit the new phone, so you will have to get yourself a new one.
The Galaxy S23 Plus also adopts the single camera cutout look of the Galaxy S22 Ultra at the rear, with the sloping Contour Cut camera island that gently transitions to the side chamfer is gone. This unifies the design language of the Galaxy S23 range and boost the synergy between the three phones.
In terms of display, the Galaxy S23 Plus doubles down with a 6.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED LTPS display with a 2340 by 1080-pixel resolution and a 48-120Hz refresh rate, which is mostly identical to what the Galaxy S22 Plus had to offer. An important change is just how brighter the Galaxy S23 Plus could potentially be and hit up to 1,750 nits of brightness in the right lighting conditions.
But forget the improvements on paper: both the Galaxy S23 Plus and Galaxy S22 Plus have excellent OLED displays, with the signature deep contrast, vivid colors, good viewing angles, and HDR capabilities of AMOLED screens. Overall, it’s quite doubtful that the Galaxy S23 Plus display could disappoint you: it’s as good as they come right now.
Performance and Software
Enter the Qualcomm era
The Galaxy S22 Plus came with two different chipsets depending on the region — the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 mainly intended for the US and its in-house Exynos 2200 in most international markets. This practice is finally over with the Galaxy S23 series, which solely relies on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chipset, a slightly tuned up version of the regular chip that will power all new Galaxy flagships irrelevant of the market.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy contains a high-performance Cortex-X3 core with a base speed of 3.32GHz, while the normal Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 has a slightly lower base clock of 3.2GHz. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 comes with two Cortex-A715 and two Cortex-A710 performance cores clocked at 2.8GHz, as well as three efficiency Cortex-A510 cores clocked at 2.0GHz.
Memory and storage-wise, the Galaxy S23 Plus comes with 8GB RAM, as well as either 256 or 512GB of native storage. This is a definite win over the Galaxy S22 Plus, which arrived with 128 or 256GB of storage on board, which essentially means that in 2023 you get twice the storage at the same price!
Camera
The triple-camera setup returns
One of the things we’d love to see Samsung address with the Galaxy S23 Plus could hopefully be a less aggressive image-processing that doesn’t over-sharpen and over-process your photos. This was one of our main gripes with the Galaxy S22 Plus, which often was a bit too extreme in terms of detail resolution, to the point where it achieved an undesirable artificial look to it all. Colors sometimes also came out too vivid and unnatural as well, which surely might have its fans out there, but not us.
Audio Quality and Haptics
The Galaxy S22 Plus had excellent speakers and haptics, so our expectations for the Galaxy S23 Plus are already just as high. Having strong haptic feedback is something very important that some manufacturers used to underestimate, but Samsung has giving us flagship phones with great haptic feedback for years now. Here’s to hoping this wouldn’t change anytime soon.
Battery Life and Charging
Greener pastures ahead
This leaves us quite optimistic for the Galaxy S23 Plus, which has the potential to be a much more durable device in terms of battery longevity thanks to Qualcomm’s latest top processor. Here’s to hoping!
Specs Comparison
Here’s how the specs of the Galaxy S23 Plus stack up against the Galaxy S22 Plus in our Galaxy S23 Plus vs Galaxy S22 Plus specs comparison table.
| Specs | Galaxy S23 Plus | Galaxy S22 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Dimensions | 6.21 x 3 x 0.3 inches (157.8 x 76.2 x 7.6mm) | 6.20 x 2.98 x 0.30 inches (157.4 x 75.8 x 7.6mm) |
| Weight | 196gr | 196gr |
| Screen | 6.6-inch, 1080 by 2340-pixel resolution, Dynamic AMOLED LTPS display, 48-120Hz refresh rate | 6.6-inch, 1080 by 2340-pixel resolution, Dynamic AMOLED LTPS display, 48-120Hz refresh rate |
| Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, Exynos 2200 |
| RAM | 8GB | 8GB |
| Storage | 256GB, 512GB | 128GB, 256GB |
| Rear Cameras | 50MP, F1.8 aperture, 23mm, 1/1.56″ sensor size, OIS, PDAF 10MP, 3.0X optical zoom, F2.4 aperture, 69mm, 1/3.94″ sensor 12MP, ultra-wide F2.2 aperture, 13mm, 1/2.55″ sensor size | 50MP, F1.8 aperture, 23mm, 1/1.56″ sensor size, OIS, PDAF 10MP, 3.0X optical zoom, F2.4 aperture, 69mm, 1/3.94″ sensor 12MP, ultra-wide F2.2 aperture, 13mm, 1/2.55″ sensor size |
| Front Camera | 12MP f/2.2 | 10MP f/2.2 |
| Battery Size | 4,700mAh | 4,500mAh |
| Charging Speeds | 45W wired, Fast wireless charging | 45W wired, Fast wireless charging |
| Price | $999 | $999 |
Summary and Final Verdict
It seems that the Galaxy S23 Plus is on track to improve many important aspects of the Galaxy S22 Plus and perfect the formula. Improved performance and better battery life are our main expectations of the Galaxy S23 Plus, but it remains to be seen if we’d see any potential major camera improvements.
No matter how things transpire, we are certain that Samsung fans will generally appreciate all the differences between the new and the old Galaxy Plus generation, as the differences between generations could surely warrant an upgrade.
