Samsung hasn't made many changes to the S-Pen, which can still feel a touch flimsy, but isn't bad overall. It still does all the things you'd expect an S-Pen to do, such as writing and scribbling on the screen when the phone is on standby, doing more when the phone is actually awake, and using it as a presentation controller with the handy button on the inside. We're not likely to use the S-Pen, but others could, and between the flexibility of that feature and not necessarily needing to have a tablet, plus the fairly solid versatility of the camera and the impressive system performance, Samsung's S23 Ultra is about as worth the price as nay other flagship phone released today.

In fact, tested in Sydney on the Telstra 5G network, we found the S23 Ultra was able to hit into the 750Mbps mark, though your mileage may vary based on your network, where you are, and the strength of the network at the time. Mind you, all of this is the same as last time, as is the in-screen fingerprint sensor and the hole-punch selfie camera working as a facial login. Samsung has switched the camera in that selfie camera, but it’s not the only place to see a shift. Performance Yes, it was over ten years ago, and while some laughed at the idea, Samsung managed to make the big phone work. We got past the term “phablet”, and these days, big is in. Every phone is big, with small phones more difficult to find than ever.About the only major issue we have is that the camera can also feel a touch slow to fire, which seems to be a consistent Samsung issue. We've seen it on what must have years worth of Samsung phones, and it's a bug that just doesn't seem to go away. Of course, to get this sort of performance and feature set, you need to be prepared to pay for it, and the Galaxy S23 Ultra is not an inexpensive handset. Not by any stretch of the imagination. In general, high-end phones tend to capture at 12 megapixels, and with the S23 Ultra, you're effectively getting 16 times the photo data for every pixel in its images, a feature specific to Samsung's Isocell HP2 sensor, which this phone uses. Whether triggered by on-screen button or volume, the camera in the S23 Ultra can be a little lazy to fire its shot. Sometimes it nails the speed, but other times, you just feel like the S23 Ultra hasn't heard Lin-Manuel yet, and is just about ready to throw away its shot. Once you go beyond 10X, you're entering Samsung's "Space Zoom" territory, where a combination of digital zoom and software will find and sharpen edges, and theoretically let you get close.

Simply put, there is no conceivable reason beyond "owning the newest" to upgrade from the S22 Ultra to the S23 Ultra. The camera isn't a massive leap, and neither is the spec bump. That upgrade would be an upgrade for upgrade's sake.For instance, if you have no problem with large phones, you’ll likely love the massive 6.8 inch size of the S23 Ultra, and dig the S-Pen built into the body. That last bit is one of the main features, though it hasn’t changed dramatically from last generation, offering a way to draw and write on the screen, whether it’s off or on standby, and giving you some extra controls if you need them, too.