We’re putting the finishing touches on our review of the Galaxy S23 Ultra. But in the meantime, we know you all want to know how good the battery life is thanks to the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset. Well, we’ll tell you.
We’ll put the numbers here, but the review will still be a deeper dive.
The Galaxy S23 Ultra beats the endurance rating of its predecessor by 18 hours. But perhaps more importantly, the new phone also beats its predecessor in each of our on-screen tests – it achieved 4 hours more in web browsing and 5 hours more in video playback. These are impressive results considering that the S23 Ultra works with the same battery capacity.
But even more than that – the Galaxy S23 Ultra is competitive with the Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max – something Samsung’s big phones haven’t been able to do for years. The Galaxy earned a higher endurance rating of 5 hours and lasts 12 full hours longer than the iPhone in our call test. But the 14 Pro Max still beats the Galaxy S23 Ultra in screen tests.
On paper, charging has not improved. It’s still technically limited to 45W, although we saw an improvement in charging speed compared to the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
Using the faster 45W Samsung adapter, the Galaxy S23 Ultra reached 68% in our 30-minute test – 8% more than its predecessor. However, both completed their 0-100% charge test in 59 minutes.
Interestingly, if you use the slower 25W Samsung adapter, the Galaxy S22 Ultra was faster in both the 30-minute test and the 0-100% test.
