A lot has been said about South Korean tech giant Samsung's latest flagship, the Galaxy S23 Ultra — that it's an iterative update on its predecessor, the design is very similar, that it artificially enhances its moon shots, but none of that matters for just one reason — it's an incredible device.

In many ways, this is a classic Samsung device — reliable to a fault, familiar, and smooth. And in other ways, its an evolution — the cameras are better, the battery life is excellent and OneUI 5.1 is the best implementation of Android as yet by the South Korean giant.

First, let's get the spec sheet out of the way — the Galaxy S23 Ultra runs on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, packs up to 12 GB of RAM and a whopping terabyte of storage, sports a 6.8-inch AMOLED display with a 120 Hz refresh rate with 1,200 nits of typical peak brightness (1,750 nits while on HDR10+), and has a 5,000 mAh battery that never seems to run out of charge, and the faithful S-pen.

If these details mean nothing to you, then know this — this is a phone that will always give you peak performance and refuse to die on you, no matter how much of a power user you are. In my roughly three weeks of testing, the battery rarely dipped below the 30 percent mark, with the resolution and refresh rate scaled up to the max, and constant usage of messaging, streaming apps, games, and the camera.

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Cameras

Speaking of the camera — recent controversies notwithstanding, the shooters on the S23 Ultra are outstanding. The device sports a 200-megapixel primary camera, a 10 MP 10x optical zoom lens and a 12 MP ultrawide lens, with a 12 MP selfie camera.

While you can take full 200-megapixel shots, the default output will be 12 MP photos, thanks to the pixel binning technology in which the image processing software combines several smaller pixels into one large pixel, giving you more detail per pixel.

The sweet spot here is the 50 MP photo option, which will ensure you get the best shots possible. Oh, and I am in love with this small-yet-impressive indicator that allows you to frame the best possible shot.

Now, to address to elephant on the moon, er, in the room. Apparently, the Galaxy S23 Ultra's super impressive Moon shots are a result of some software wizardry, wherein the image processor determines you are focusing on the Moon and overlays an image of the Moon so that no matter what you're shooting — the actual Moon, a photographic cutout of the Moon, or even the image of the Moon on an electronic display, the result always looks like you've photographed the actual Moon.

I watched countless explainers on YouTube and even pored over Samsung's official explanation of the process but in the end, I found myself not caring a whit — just look at the photographs below and tell me it doesn't blow your mind that something that can fit in your pocket, makes phone calls and plays music can take such pictures!

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And photographing the moon isn't the only thing the Galaxy S23 Ultra is proficient at. It takes great photos in general, especially at night. Sample these two:

I'd go out on a limb and say this is the best camera setup on a smartphone currently in the market. And that includes my own, beloved iPhone 14 Pro Max. That said, the video quality on the Galaxy S23 Ultra, which is capable of 8K output, is still inferior to the iPhone's.

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User experience

As I mentioned earlier in this review, One UI 5.1 is excellent — the interface is clean, the apps run smoothly and you can blaze through different windows thanks to the high refresh rate and processing power. The unit Samsung sent me came with 12 GB of RAM with the option of adding a further 12 GB in virtual RAM from the 256 GB storage, which I did.

What this translated into was a completely lag-free experience which, in my experience, is a first. Every Android phone I've used in the past year, while being excellent in its own right, lagged a little now and again — even Google's Pixel lineup.

Not the Galaxy S23 Ultra. I'm not exaggerating when I say this is the first phone in more than seven years that made me not want to go back to using the iPhone.

In conclusion

For Rs 1,24,999, you're paying for the best Android smartphone experience money can buy. And if you're spending that much, you get what you pay for — a premium smartphone experience. If you're on the fence over whether to buy this smartphone or an iPhone 14 Pro, at this point, the lines blur between iOS and Android, thanks to the superior hardware, so take your pick. You can't really go wrong. But I'll say this — the Galaxy S23 Ultra is incredible.

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