Living With the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra

pcmag.com:

For the past few weeks, I've been using a Galaxy S23 Ultra as my primary Android phone. It's not a whole lot different from last year's Galaxy S22 Ultra, which I thought was the most capable phone I had ever used; but the camera system has gotten noticeably better, especially in low light, and as you would expect, it has a new, faster processor. The result is a terrific phone that keeps Samsung on top, particularly in some areas of photography, and that continues to have a number of unique features such as pen support.

With its 6.8-inch screen, the S23 Ultra measures 6.43 by 3.07 by 0.35 inches and weighs 8.25 ounces, which makes it much larger than the regular S23 or S23+, and it has sharper edges. As such, the S23 Ultra does feel like a big phone; it fits in my pockets, but just barely. I've always liked big phones, but others may find it too large. It’s pretty much the same size as the S22 Ultra, though a little heavier. The unit I used came in the new green color which is, to my eyes, more of a grey-green sage; other options include cream, lavender, and "phantom black." It runs Android 13 with Samsung One UI 5.1 software and is powered by a special version of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.

The standout feature of the S23 Ultra is the new 200-megapixel (MP) camera sensor with an aperture of f/1.7 on the main (wide) camera with what Samsung calls "adaptive pixel," where it supports multiple layers of binning.

In most situations, when you use the 200MP sensor, the camera system will combine 16 pixels into one, creating a 12MP image. But by just clicking a button on the photo menu, you can switch to capturing 50MP photos (where four pixels are combined into one), or even 200MP photos. The downside is that 50MP and 200MP