Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus Review: An Excellent Android Device With Two-Day Battery Life

Samsung’s trio of Galaxy S-series smartphones for 2023 - Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23+ and Galaxy S23 Ultra - was released to much fanfare in early February. The Galaxy S23, a compact flagship, and the Galaxy S23 Ultra, a flagship with a 200MP sensor and the S-Pen, have been the most talked about since.

The Galaxy S23+ may sound like a forgotten sibling, but it really shouldn’t, for what it has to offer.

Samsung hasn’t put a foot wrong in recent memory and the Galaxy S-series continues the trend of the company rolling out solid smartphones that are rocking the sales charts. The Galaxy S portfolio is the best that Android can offer, the foldable smartphones from Samsung are category leaders and One UI 5.1 is one of the best forks out there.

While everyone is raving about the Galaxy S23 Ultra, it is a behemoth of a smartphone, no doubt. The Galaxy S23 is there for those that want a solid one-hand usage smartphone. The Galaxy S23+ has the same design as the vanilla Galaxy S23 but picks up a few features from the Galaxy S23 Ultra. Does this make the Galaxy S23+ an exciting smartphone in 2023? Let’s find out.

Streamlined Design

For 2023, Samsung has designed to streamline the design of its Galaxy S-series smartphones. Samsung’s new design language is unsophisticated, simple, and premium-looking. Each camera has its own dedicated lens cutout. They all neatly stick out and it’s all just very tidy.

The S23+ (as I’ll refer to it henceforth) is fully flat at the front and back, and comes with Corning’s Gorilla Glass Victus 2. The frosted glass panel is great to look at and comfortable to hold. The Galaxy S23+ offers IP68 dust and water resistance as standard, which the consumers very well appreciate.

Even with a 6.6-inch display up front, the phone felt compact and I didn’t need to stretch my fingers on a daily basis to reach certain parts of the display. All in all, the S23+ has a familiar, yet premium design language and something that most people can get on board with.

Display: Best In The Business

Samsung makes the best displays. I’ve repeated this time and time. The flat 6.6-inch AMOLED panel is one of the best around. The Galaxy S23+ display is the same as the Galaxy S22+, but that’s no problem. It’s a fantastic panel through and through. The panel comes in a Full HD+ (2340x1080 pixels) resolution with narrow and uniform bezels. There’s a punch hole for the

selfie camera and no curve on the display. What’s most impressive is that the panel has a peak brightness of 1,7500 nits! The colour vibrancy and contrast are fantastic. You’ll be enchanted whether you’re gaming or streaming media content!

Performance, Software And Camera

Yes, I’m going to keep this section short, because it’s much the same as what I’ve said in my other two - S23 and S23 Ultra - reviews.

For 2023, Samsung overhauled its strategy vis-a-vis its smartphone chipsets. While Exynos continues to exist, it’s Snapdragon for everyone out there for the Galaxy S-series devices. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chipset is now a global standard. This is something everyone will be pleased to hear.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy is most excellent for performance and efficiency. That means that the consumer will get top-notch performance, much better battery performance and excellent post-processing of photos.

In daily use, the S23+ zipped through any and all tasks I threw at it. It felt as snappy as any flagship phone that I tested in 2023 and not for a moment was I disappointed. Multitasking was blissful and watching videos was a lot of fun. Even games like Genshin: Impact never lagged. Smooth performance was expected and the S23+ truly delivered. I’m curious as to how the phone will hold up later in the year, but for now, absolutely have no complaints about the performance.

Where the S23+ shines is with respect to the battery life. Let’s just say that the S23+ is one of the best smartphones for multi-day endurance. It easily lasts two days on a single charge unless one is gaming for over five hours. The 4,700mAh battery, along with the super-efficient Snapdragon chipset, means you don’t have to spring for the charger as often as you thought you would.

Where the S23+ falters vis-a-vis the competition is in charging times. Personally, I’d love a smartphone to last longer on a single charge than to have to reach for the charger multiple times a day.

When it comes to the cameras, I’ll just say one thing. You won’t be missing the 200MP sensor of the S23 Ultra. The S23+ features a 50MP main wide-angle camera (f/1.8 aperture), 12MP ultra wide-angle lens and a 10MP 3x optical telephoto (f/2.4 aperture and 30X digital zoom). On the front is a brand-new 12MP selfie camera.

The main camera delivered and how. The colours came out vibrant and sharp and the contrast was well-balanced. There wasn’t any visible noise in the photos. The ultra-wide and telephoto lenses were a treat to use as well. The colours were realistic, not so over-saturated, and very pleasing to the eyes.

Portrait shots had excellent edge detection and low-light photos did a good job of eliminating noise, and not brightening the image too much.

Where the camera setup faltered was with respect to shutter lag and shooting videos. If you’re shooting fast-moving objects, then be vary of the shutter lag. It’s been a problem with Galaxy devices for a while, and one hopes that Samsung takes note and fixes it with a software update.

While shooting videos, I noticed a visible lag when switching between the different lenses. Definitely, something you don’t want to see in a smartphone priced over Rs 70,000. Stabilisation, on the other hand, has vastly improved from last year’s model.

Overall, the S23+ features a fantastic triple-camera setup, speedy performance, and class-leading battery life.

Verdict: Is This The Galaxy S-Series Device For You?

The S23+ isn’t a phone worthy of an upgrade if you have an S22 or even S21 device. That’s because S23 isn’t a generational leap, and neither is the design enticing enough for an upgrade. That said, the S23+ is a fantastic device on its own and the choice of a Snapdragon chipset for everyone will prove wonders for the company.

The competition, in this price range, is fierce - Google Pixel 7 Pro, Vivo X90 Pro, Apple iPhone 14 and more - but the S23+ does manage to stand on its own two feet. It’s not the best-in-class in any one category (except maybe battery life) but it’s absolutely solid nonetheless.

The S23+ ranks up there with the best Android smartphones out there. It’s got almost everything you could ask for in a smartphone. From a beautiful display to speedy performance and from incredible photos to class-leading battery life, the S23+ has it all. To top it off, it isn’t unwieldy to use, unlike the behemoth that is the Galaxy S23 Ultra.

It’s not a standout for the company, but it doesn’t disappoint. If you don’t need the extra real estate and are okay with a little bit less from the battery, then the S23 should be the one to look at. If you need the S-Pen and some extra bells and whistles (including the incredible 100x zoom), then the S23 Ultra is the one.