Galaxy S23 series battery comparison vs OnePlus 11, iPhone 14, Pixel 7, Galaxy S22 series

On Mar 27, 2023

The Galaxy S23 series, released in February 2023, is already widely available both on the shelves in the proverbial selection of brick and mortar stores as well as inside users’ pockets, silently clicking and ticking with their Android goodness.

One of the intriguing improvements that the Galaxy S23 series delivered over its predecessors is improved battery life; the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chip inside is for no small part responsible for that newly-scored efficiency, which helps Samsung’s latest showpieces to really stand out.

Galaxy S23 series web browsing battery test

First up, we will be exploring the results of our custom Wi-Fi battery test, one which we’ve relied on for years. This custom test loads a predefined list of webpages and simulates scrolling up and down each of those, allowing us to emulate a fairly standard web browsing experience. Before we run the test, we always set up every phone’s brightness as close as possible to 200 nits so that we have an equal playing field with all the phones we test. What’s more, in the test below, all phones ran the test with their screens turned set at 120Hz refresh rate.

So, what does this test tell us?

The Galaxy S23 Ultra, with its massive 5,000mAh battery and efficient chip but a power-hungry QHD+ screen, fares extremely well against the competition. As evident in the table above, Samsung’s latest pride and glory is up there with the very best among its competitors and lasts just shy of 19 hours in our custom web browsing test. That’s in the exact same ballpark as the iPhone 14 Pro Max, which both scored results in the 19-hour vicinity.

Compared with some of its other rivals, like the new OnePlus 11 and the Pixel 7 Pro, the Galaxy S23 Ultra is way, way ahead, scoring four to five hours more than those competitors. Those results are actually comparable to what the Exynos-powered Galaxy S22 Ultra and the Galaxy Z Fold 4 scored as well, highlighting the big jump in efficiency that the Galaxy S23 Ultra brings forward.

What about the Galaxy S23 Plus? The middle-of-the-road flagship phone is also powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip but has a slightly smaller 4,700mAh battery, but it also has a display with a lower resolution, so the overall power draw is smaller than on the Galaxy S23 Ultra. The most compact new Galaxy, the S23, comes with the smallest battery at just 3,900mAh, but thanks to the efficient chip and the 6.1-inch display, it still delivers excellent battery life, all things considered.

How does the trio fare against last year’s Galaxy S22 with Exynos on deck? Way, way better, all things considered.

Galaxy S23 series 3D gaming battery test

Our 3G gaming test puts a lot more stress on the GPU of a phone and aims to recreate a true-to-life gaming scenario. The same 3D gaming environment is loaded up on all phones we test, with their displays set at the same 200-nit brightness in order to achieve a fair comparison.

The Galaxy S23 Ultra, just like its peers from the rest of the galaxy lineup, is a graphics-crunching monster thanks to the superb Snapdragon chipset inside. This one definitely puts the Galaxy S23 on the same pedestal as even the latest iPhones when it comes to graphics performance, which is a significant improvement in comparison with previous Galaxy flagships. But how long does the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s battery last when gaming?

Our battery benchmark test shows that Samsung’s top flagship is more than reliable when it comes to battery backup during intensive gaming sessions and only falls short of the iPhone 14 Pro Max, which ekes out roughly an hour and a half more. Still, at 7 hours and 13 minutes, it’s unlikely that you’ll be disappointed with the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s battery life.

The mid-sized flagship also fares relatively nicely in terms of battery backup during gaming, only trailing to phones with much better efficiency, like the iPhone 14 Plus and the iPhone 14 Pro Max, but fares much better than its similarly-sized rivals like the Pixel 7 Pro, and even beats last year’s Galaxy S22 Ultra. This can be attributed to the way more efficient chip on board.

Finally, the most compact Galaxy S23 beats many, many phones, including all of last year’s Galaxy S22 phones, the iPhone 14 Pro, and Google’s new Pixels. A very serious result for a compact Android flagship phone!

Video playback

Finally, our video playback benchmark test has us loop a playlist of the same videos on all device we test, giving a very real estimate of how big of a toll this popular activity is on the latest flagship phones. As usual, with this test we have the displays set at 200 nits of brightness as well, and the volume is set to maximum loudness as well.

In this test, the Galaxy S23 Ultra loses to most of the iPhone 14 series as well as Google’s new Pixel 7 phones, as it only achieves a battery life measurement of 8 hours and 54 minutes. Don’t get us wrong, that’s impressive, but short of the iPhone 14 Pro Max and iPhone 14 Plus’ result of nearly 11 hours in the same race. Meanwhile, the Pixel 7 and the Pixel 7 Pro achieve upwards of 9 hours in video playback, a respectable result in itself as well.

What about the Galaxy S23 Plus and the regular Galaxy S23? They don’t fare very well. Even though both achieved upwards of 8 hours in our dedicated battery life test, they were still surpassed by their rivals. Not a very inspiring result, but at the same time, you get more than 8 hours of battery life while streaming video, which is still an excellent result.

Conclusion

The new big bad boy on the Android scene, the Galaxy S23 Ultra, fares quite well in our tests. Samsung’s new showpiece shines in the web browsing and 3D gaming test we ran, which means that it’s up there with the best and helping set new benchmark for its rivals to beat. Alas, it fared slightly worse in our video playback battery test, but still delivers an excellent result of nearly 9 hours, which is only bested by Apple’s top iPhones and Google’s new Pixes.

While some of our tests reveal that the Galaxy S23 Plus and the Galaxy S23 still lose to some of their direct rivals (or predecessors), you will most certainly be hard-pressed to be disappointed by their battery life figures. Indeed, while they didn’t fare exceptionally impressive in the video playback and 3D gaming test, the duo actually fares quite nicely in our web browsing test, which means that you have absolutely nothing to worry about if you wouldn’t game on your phone or watch lots and lots of media. Again, regular everyday usage on either the Galaxy S23 or the Galaxy S23 Plus delivers more than excellent results.

Overall, compared to last year and the Exynos-powered Galaxy S22 series in particular, Samsung’s Galaxy S23 Ultra, Galaxy S23 Plus, and Galaxy S23 are a great leap in the right direction, finally delivering more than acceptable battery life not only in the US, but in all regions across the world. Here’s to hoping this will be a trend that will stick on for years to come!

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