Galaxy S23 5G SM-S911B/DS 256GB 8GB RAM, 50 MP Camera, Factory Unlocked, Global Version – Phantom Black

Got this in a Black Friday sale as there was a substantial discount, to upgrade from an almost 4 year old S10e. It's a very nice phone - premium look and feel, decent screen size but still 'compact' as modern handsets go .. you can 'one hand' it. Screen clarity of the OLED is very good. Performance is excellent - super snappy for everything and handles intensive tasks with ease. The battery life is also good, if you are not using it heavily you can expect 50% or more by the end of the day and even with reasonable use it generally doesn't go below about 60% for me. A massive improvement over the previous S21 model by all accounts. I don't use fast charge (to preserve longevity of the battery) so I can't comment on that. Qi wireless charging is my preferred method and very convenient. Camera is very good - I was certainly impressed as a complete novice. Likely to be more than good enough for the average person. The Samsung One UI actually isn't all that bad and arguably adds to functionality. Drawbacks - No MicroSD card support so go for the 256gig version. No headphone jack .. bluetooth is fine but I have lots of great older wired phones that need an adaptor now. It still seems to be maintaining a high price despite the fact its about to be replaced - I would not have bought at the full £850 or so that was the regular price at the time. All in all, one of the best Android phones you can get if you don't want a massive near-tablet sized slab.

I am happy with my purchase as the phone is working very well. The battery life is good, and the camera results are impressive. The display is vibrant and clear, making it enjoyable to watch videos and browse content. The performance is smooth, and the phone handles multitasking effortlessly. The sound quality is also excellent, and overall, it does its job perfectly.

I am very pleased with the S23 which I purchased as a replacement for my 4 year old A40. My reasons were to get eSim support to make it easier to access the Internet when cruising between multiple countries and to have a better camera. I didn't want the S23+ or Ultra because they are too big to fit in a pocket easily. I chose S23 because spec is not much different to S24, but is cheaper. So far the phone is working well, not much different to Android 11 on the A40, but with better features "behind the scene". Arrived saying it was an Indian model and to use an Indian SIM, but works fine with UK Sim, just that some Indian languages were pre-loaded.

Firstly, I upgraded from another Samsung phone and the transfer of data (using cable supplied) was nearly excellent. I had to spend an age registering passwords for apps ... the up-side being it made me delete apps that bloated my earlier phone! So, every cloud has a silver lining. I haven't tried it 'in the wild' (in woodland for example) but it appears to be more accurate in our garden! Secondly, it is a pity the box didn't include a charger; but I was upgrading, so use the old charger. If you are upgrading from a different manufacturer that may be a problem - check. Thirdly, this is much faster, better camera, otherwise much the same, just better all round. The battery life of my old phone was dying, so this model was welcome. Fourthly, I cleared my bloated apps, but the phone came loaded with many Samsung Apps, most/all of which provide 'services' and functionality that is served better by other apps (or not bothering with the apps at all. For example, do I need Samsung News feed? No. Are the AI features anything more than dressing up features of other overhyped apps? No. Not a problem to decide which to keep and which to delete. Fifthly, I found the s23 met my 'real world' needs and couldn't see the reason to pay for later models at bloated prices. In short, a good choice for my needs.

Really pleased with this phone. Data, Apps and accounts all transferred easily from my old Samsung S8, via the Smart Switch app. There's no SD card slot included in these later Samsung S' models but this version has ample storage, meaning that the SD card data could be accommodated automatically in the transfer. The phone is a nice, manageable size and can slip into a pocket nicely, without protruding out and potentially tempting light-fingered opportunists. Altogether, so far, I'm extremely pleased with the phone's design, functionality, performance and battery life.

The phone arrived in an old jiffy bag with many meters of parcel tape wrapped around, not amazon packaging at all, when switching it on it was in Japanese or similar looking. Having loaded everything from my old phone, I started to use it finding I had to press very hard to get the volume buttons to work. After a couple of days the volume buttons ceased to respond at all, so I loaded the Samsung app to diagnose faults and it concluded that they did not work. Very annoying to pay for recorded postage to send it to a London address. A huge waste of my time.

So far, so good. After delayed arrival, I got the phone which seems in great condition, looks new and works fine. Will update review if anything changes.

The S23 is a very good phone; there are plenty of reviews about this. This version of the S23 is advertised as a global version and comes at a great price compared to the UK version. It appears from the model number to be an import from Hong-Kong. However, that doesn't appear to be a problem in the UK where I am on O2 and everthing appears to be working properly and there were no problems registering this phone on my Samsung and Google accounts. The slight disadvantage compared to buying a UK version phone is that the promotions offered on UK phones (e.g. Disney + etc) don't appear to be applicable to this version. Overall, I think its a good buy.