Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus Review – Awesome Battery Life Flagship Behemoth

Launched alongside its compact sibling the Galaxy S23 and the phablet sized Galaxy S23 Ultra, the Galaxy S23 Plus is the middle child out of the trio with a blend of features from both phones and a price point that hovers between both depending on what storage variant you buy.

After taking it for a spin around the block for the past couple of weeks, here’s our Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus review where we see if this plus sized flagship phone is worth your money…

Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus Review – Build and Design

Our Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus review sample resembles an upsized Galaxy S23 as it retains the same aesthetics which include rounded corners, a flat display and backplate as well as the same chromed sides but features a larger 6.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display. The bigger Galaxy S23 Ultra differs on account of its larger, sharper and curved display with its steeply rounded sides that lends it a different silhouette from the Galaxy S23 and S23 Plus.

@hitechcentury #question from @Hitech Century Loving the matte frosted finish and cool tactility of the Samsung Galaxy S23 series – which one will you buy and in what colour? @samsungmalaysia #galaxys23ultra #fyp #tech #malaysia #techtok ♬ bad guy – Billie Eilish

 

In Malaysia, the Galaxy S23 Plus comes in four general issue colourways which are Green, Pink, Phantom Black and in the case of our Galaxy S23 Plus review sample, a shade of Cream which consists of an off-white matte frost finish and chromed silver sides.

You can also acquire it in two online-exclusive colourways which are Lime and Graphite. The finish resists fingerprints wonderfully and each camera in the rear triple camera array has its own raised chromed protective housing. 

The left and top sides of the phone are otherwise unremarkable though the right side features a power button and volume rocker while the base has a dual nano SIM card slot, a USB-C port and a grille for one of the two onboard speakers that form a stereo pair.

Up front, the 6.6-inch FHD+ display has a tiny punch hole up top for its 12MP selfie camera and an under-display fingerprint reader in the lower quadrant of the phone.

The larger dimensions of the Galaxy S23 Plus means that the width of the screen is just a bit wider than what you can comfortably stretch your thumb across unlike the smaller Galaxy S23 which is ideally sized for one-handed use.

Build quality is exceptional befitting a Samsung flagship phone with their new Gorilla Glass Victus 2 glass on the front and back offering added drop resistance with a chassis made of their Armor Aluminum as well as a solid IP68 water and dust resistance rating.

Bundled accessories are minimal at best in keeping with their recent efforts at sustainability with the contents consisting of a USB-C cable, a SIM eject pin and a warranty guide bundled with the box.

Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus Review – Performance and Benchmarks

In terms of hardware, the Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus features the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy processor as the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 Ultra with a larger vapour chamber to ensure better cooling for sustained high performance.

Like the Galaxy S23, it comes paired with 8GB LPDDR5X RAM with up to 8GB of RAM Plus virtual RAM allocated off the onboard storage. Available storage configurations for Malaysia consist of  either 512GB and in the case of our Galaxy S23 Plus review sample, 256GB UFS 4.0 storage. 

Running under the hood is the latest Android 13 overlaid with their OneUI 5.1 overlay. Of particular note here is that Samsung has guaranteed that the Galaxy S23 Plus will have four years of Android updates and 5 years of security updates, meaning that it will keep running all the way to Android 17 in 2027 which is fantastic from a sustainability point of view and as a long-term investment.

Unlike its smaller Galaxy S23 sibling, the Galaxy S23 Plus benefits from faster 45W wired charging akin to the Galaxy S23 Ultra while featuring a slightly larger by 200mAh battery than the older Galaxy S22 Plus, lending it a relatively huge 4,700mAh cell to keep it powered. Faster wired charging aside, the Galaxy S23 Plus retains the same 15W wireless charging and 4.5W reverse wireless charging as its predecessors. Here’s how it looks on paper:

Price	RM4,699 (256GB), RM5,199 (512GB)
Display	6.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X, 1,080 x 2,340 pixels, HDR10+, 120Hz dynamic refresh 1,750 nits peak brightness
Processor	Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy
OS	Android 13 with One UI 5/1
Memory	8GB LPDDR5X RAM/ 256GB or 512GB UFS 4.0
Cameras	50MP F/1.8 w/ OIS, 12MP F/2.2 ultra wide, 10MP F/2.4 w/ 3x optical zoom + OIS [rear] / 12MP F/2.2 w/ Dual Pixel PDAF [front]
Battery	4,700mAh w/ 45W wired fast charging, 15W wireless charging, reverse wireless charging
Size/Weight	157.8 x 76.2 x 7.6mm / 196g

Basically, the Galaxy S23 Plus is a larger sized Galaxy S23 with the same powerful processor, same cameras and with a scaled up battery that’s closer to the Galaxy S23 Ultra in size and a larger display. 

While all of the new Galaxy S23 series displays use the new power-efficient AMOLED displays that minimise power drain, the Galaxy S23 Plus and the Galaxy S23 are slightly more power efficient on account of the fact that their displays max out at FHD+ resolution as opposed to the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s QHD+ display which is not only sharper but is also the largest sized  out of the three.

On paper, our Galaxy S23 Plus review unit has a performance profile akin to the smaller Galaxy S23 that we reviewed recently on account of an identical processor and amount of RAM. For academic curiosity, we performed the usual run of benchmarks:

3DMark Wild Life	Maxed out
3DMark Wild Life Unlimited	14,572
3DMark Wild Life Extreme	3,824
3DMark Wild Life Extreme Unlimited	3,323
Geekbench 5 Single core	1,544
Geekbench 5 Multi core	4,921
Geekbench 5 Vulkan	10,178
Geekbench 5 OpenCL	10,356
PCMark Battery Life	16 hours 5 minutes
PCMark Work 3.0	16,159

As expected, the phone has similar performance as the Galaxy S23 save for one key benchmark where it, oddly enough, performed better than even the Galaxy S23 Ultra. The combination of a FHD+ AMOLED 120Hz display and the huge battery resulted in a phenomenal 16 hours and 5 minutes of battery life in the PCMark battery life test.

In terms of practical endurance, it’s easily able to comfortably last two days of normal use including liberal use of the cameras and some gaming too. Charging it is also just as fast with a compatible 45W charging juicing it to full from dead zero in a little over an hour.

Battery life aside, our Galaxy S23 Plus review sample’s large display made it fantastic for both gaming, reading and watching movies. While it has a similar FHD+ (2,340 x 1,080 pixels) resolution with a similar 120Hz dynamic refresh rate, peak 1,750 nits brightness and 100% DCI-P3 as its smaller sibling the Galaxy S23, it has a slightly slightly lower pixels per inch on account of its larger size though this isn’t apparent to the naked eye.

The large display also lends itself excellent utility especially for Netflix and for gaming too with a smooth refresh rate and excellent colour rendition. Clarity under direct sunlight was great as well on account of Samsung’s Advanced Vision Booster tech. The built-in stereo speakers also sounded pleasantly loud and did a bang-up job going through the latest episode of the Last of Us and going to town with an LMG in Call of Duty Mobile.

Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus Review – Cameras

The Galaxy S23 Plus features an identical camera setup as the smaller Galaxy S23 with a rear triple camera array built around a primary 50MP camera with OIS, a secondary 12MP ultra wide angle camera and a 10MP telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom that also has OIS.

The larger Galaxy S23 Ultra has an entirely different rear quad camera setup with a new 200MP ISOCELL HP2 sensor. Up front the phone also has the same 12MP selfie camera with Dual Pixel tech as its fellow Galaxy S23 series siblings including the S23 Ultra.

Like the Galaxy S23, it has the same refinements and upgrades on account of its enhanced ISP with improved 8K@30fps video capture, a wider by 3-degree angle of compensation for steadier optical image stabilisation and Ultra Steady video capture at up to 4K@60fps. The telephoto zoom camera enables the Galaxy S23 Plus to capture shots from the rear camera with 3x lossless optical zoom and at up to 30x digital zoom with AI assistance to ensure steady shots.

If you’re using the front-facing 12MP selfie camera, you’ll get similar great results across all three Galaxy S23 series phones. For rear camera performance, our Galaxy S23 Plus review sample has results akin to the smaller Galaxy S23.

The larger size of the Galaxy S23 Plus’s display and longer battery life does lend it more practicality as a viewfinder for selfies but performance is equivalent to the Galaxy S23. You can check out our Galaxy S23 review here to see how its cameras perform.

Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus?

On its own merits, the Samsung Galaxy S23 has a fantastic and lusciously vibrant display surpassed only by the Galaxy S23 Ultra, flagship-grade performance, a solid set of cameras and phenomenal battery life.

If you want something with a large display and excellent endurance but can’t quite afford the Galaxy S23 Ultra and find the Galaxy S23 a bit too small, the Galaxy S23 Plus is the phone to get.

You can also read our Galaxy S23 review here and our Galaxy S23 Ultra review here.

Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus review sample courtesy of Samsung Malaysia. For more details and to purchase please visit https://www.samsung.com/my/smartphones/galaxy-s23/buy/