Samsung Galaxy S23 vs. Galaxy S22: Is the upgrade worth it?
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A refined, all-around excellent device
The Galaxy S23 might not be a must-have upgrade from the S22, but it’s worth consideration if you want peak performance and all-day battery life in a small package. And it’s as close as anybody’s come to a compact flagship in a while.
Still holds its own a year later
The Galaxy S22 still performs great and will for years, although it’s held back slightly by middling battery life. If you’re already sporting this small flagship device, don’t feel like you have to upgrade to the S23 just yet. Save your money and wait to see what Samsung does next.
The Galaxy S series continues to offer some of thebest Samsung phonesavailable, and theGalaxy S23and the S22 before it are some of the best phones from any manufacturer. They’re about as compact as a flagship-class device gets, putting both in the running for thebest small phoneson the market. But is it worth upgrading to the newest Galaxy device if you’re already sporting a Galaxy S22? Since theGalaxy S22can still do everything you need, think twice before shelling out a few hundred bucks for what’s mostly an iterative upgrade.
Price, availability, and specs
While $800 isn’t cheap by any means, it’s nice to see the Galaxy S23 at the same launch price as the previous generation. It also has the same storage options of either 128 or 256 GB. Of course, you can find some great deals on the year-old Galaxy S22, though its availability is dwindling.
The Galaxy S22 was one of thebest 5G phonesdue to great network support and performance — all major carriers in the U.S. support the phone — and the S23 is no different, as Samsung’s flagship models continue to demonstrate class-leading connectivity. Overall, the S23 doesn’t stray too far from what made the S22 successful, but it has a few key upgrades worth knowing about if you’re picking between the two models.
Hardware and design
The S22 and S23 share an extremely similar design, with just a fraction of an inch separating the two in terms of width and height. The only big departure from the S22 is the removal of the camera bump in favor of a flush back panel with only the individual lenses protruding. Like its predecessor, the S23 continues to carry an IP68 dust and water resistance rating.
The S23 does feature the upgradedGorilla Glass Victus 2, which combines top-of-the-line structural durability with impressive scratch resistance. Corning claims its latest material can withstand drops of up to 1 meter onto surfaces like concrete (specifically, 80-grit sandpaper) and up to 2 meters on those like asphalt (180 grit), which means the S23 should be a tad more durable than the S22 in theory. But a slightly more durable glass doesn’t move the needle in terms of getting a new phone.
The display hasn’t changed much from last year, either, and that’s a great thing. The S23’s 6.1-inch AMOLED still delivers as crisp, bold, and good-looking an image as any phone out there, and supports adaptive refresh rates up to 120 hertz. That means scrolling, on-screen animations, or gaming will always look super smooth and crisp, without screen tearing in fast-paced games or wastefully high refresh rates when viewing 60FPS content. The new display does get brighter, though, offering a max peak brightness of 1,750 nits, eliminating visibility worries even in direct sunlight.
Battery and charging
The Galaxy S22 struggles in the battery department, due partly to its meager 3,700mAh battery. Subpar battery life ended up being the S22’s most glaring issue, in fact, and the S23 makes big strides to fix that. The newer model does sport a slightly bigger battery at 3,900mAh, but that’s not responsible for the significantly improved battery life.
Instead, theQualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2chipset inside boastssignificant efficiency gainsand much better sustained performance, which reduces overheating and throttling events. A huge step up over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, the newer SoC delivers worry-free all-day battery life.
That Galaxy S23 does, unfortunately, retain similar limitations on charging speed that we saw last year, of amere 25-watt charging rate. And that’s only in theory, too, since lab testing tells us itrarely reaches peak speeds, although having ahigh-quality PPS chargerhelps. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s a tier below other flagship manufacturers, and we’re actually a little surprised Samsung hasn’t addressed this yet.
The S23 also supports 4.5-wattWireless PowerShare reverse charging, so you can top off small electronics like theSamsung Galaxy Buds 2 Proin a pinch.
The S23 reuses the S22’s camera hardware, which isn’t a problem, since the S22 performed fine from that standpoint. In our hands-on experience, Samsung’s hardware and experience (especially with telephoto processing) puts the Galaxy S series among thebest smartphones for taking pictures.
It doesn’t always best the most renowned camera phones like the high-techGoogle Pixel 7or user-friendlyiPhone 15in head-to-head comparisons, but the differences are honestly pretty minor and subjective. Also, the shortcomings we have noticed from Samsung’s imaging algorithms seem to grow smaller with each subsequent update.
The 50MP primary lens does a great job in most conditions, and is absolutely fine for documenting your travels, meals, funny dances, and everyday life on social media. The 12MP ultrawide lens does OK, but offers considerably less detail. Samsung also does a good job implementing the S23’s optical zoom. It’s nowhere near the level of theS23 Ultra’s telephoto zoom, but it tends to focus better than competitors like the iPhone, especially when taking videos.
Thanks partly to the upgraded SoC, S23 video capture does technically improve slightly over the S22, from 24 to 30 FPS. Otherwise, video capture specs are identical, and impressive, including 720p Super Slow-Mo at up to a ridiculous 960 FPS. The S23’s selfie camera also saw a small bump from 10 to 12MP, which may prove noticeable in some situations but, again, isn’t a reason to upgrade.
Software and performance
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset powering the Galaxy S22 was certainly powerful, but it ran hot, throttled often, and sucked up a ton of electricity. A lot of hardware experts considered it somewhat of a mess, and it contributed heavily to the phone’s poor battery life.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 For Galaxy SoC behind the S23 isn’t just a significantly more efficient iteration of that, it’s also remarkably more powerful. While single-core benchmarks put it at a mere ~13% faster, an outright impressive jump in multi-core and sustained load numbers tells a powerful story about Qualcomm’s newer processor.
Interestingly, the For Galaxy version in the S23 is really just a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 2, which is just an overclocked version of the Gen 2, like the SD 8 Gen 1 compared to the SD 8+ Gen 1. Since the somewhat cryptic release, we’ve actually learned thatit’s not a Samsung exclusiveafter all after it showed up in the RedMagic 8S Pro. Either way, no other Android phone can consistently best the S23 when it comes to raw performance, although the iPhone 15’s right there on the same level.
Once widely maligned, Samsung’s One UI Android implementation now sees near-constant praise from everyday people and power users alike. Its out-of-the-box streamlined design, relatively minimal bloatware, extensive customization, and impressively low incidence of bugs and glitches all solidify the S23’s reign as one of 2023’s top phones.
For the moment, the S22 and S23 offer an identical software experience. But, once the S22 gets its fourth update of Android 16 (or whatever it’s called in 2026), that’ll be it aside from security patches. The S23 gets one more full Android update after that, since Samsung recently confirmedfour years of updateson its best devices. An extra year of support’s always nice, but won’t drive most people to splash out on the S23 if they already own an S22.
Should you upgrade?
The S23 improves greatly on the S22’s biggest flaw, its battery life. It also offers some iterative enhancements like increased performance, longer software support, and slightly stronger glass. It’s the best phone in such a small size, so if you want a convenient form factor and truly flagship experience, the Galaxy S23’s a great choice.
On the other hand, if you already have an S22, it’s probably not worth the upgrade. The exception is if your carrier’s offering a substantial trade-in value for your S22; if it only costs you a couple hundred bucks for meaningfully better battery life and a guarantee of Android updates through 2027, consider making the jump.
The better phone
There’s not much we would add to the Galaxy S23 given the chance, especially considering how small it is. It’s one of the best phones of 2023, and improves on the S22’s biggest con, its battery life.
In a similar vein, the still-great Galaxy S22 offers a better display and user experience than even many newer phones. And since it’s a year old, it’s relatively easy to find at a discount. If you’re in the market for a high-end phone and want to save some cash, keep an eye out for a discounted S22 and you might find yourself in flagship territory without dropping a huge sum.
Still great a year later
It’s still a top performer, so don’t let its 2022 release date deter you if you can find a great deal on the S22. It’s small, fast, and extremely user-friendly, even if the battery could stand to last a little longer.
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