Camera comparison: Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra vs Galaxy S22 Ultra

2023-02-04

If you hadn"t managed to take a look at our ever-evolving hands-on with the Galaxy S23 Ultra, we"ve added an impromptu camera shootout to its predecessor, the Galaxy S22 Ultra. Here it is, cropped from that article in full.

Now that we"ve had a few extra minutes with the new Galaxies, we decided to do a quick camera shootout between the new Ultra and the old one. We took a few snaps outside in well-lit conditions and inside in not-so-well-lit ones.

Quick camera comparison - Galaxy S23 Ultra vs Galaxy S22 Ultra

This will be a quick side-by-side. You should wait for our detailed review where we"ll do a deeper dive in all the Galaxy S23 Ultra"s new cameras.

With that out of the way, let"s look at samples. We captured two scenes at the Galaxy S23 Ultra"s 1x, 3x, and 10x zoom level to compare to the Galaxy S22 Ultra"s equivalent cameras. The 200MP sensor outputs more detail than the 108MP one even at the pixel-binned 12MP resolution. Sharpness is ramped up on the Galaxy S23 Ultra shots compared to the S22 Ultra ones, which augments the feel of higher detail.

The 3x and 10x images are also sharper on the Galaxy S23 Ultra, noticeably so at that. There"s a bit more noise but we"ll gladly accept it in exchange for the higher level of detail. The Galaxy S23 Ultra retains fine textures, which its predecessor has simply smeared to nonexistence.

Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra: 1x • 3x • 10x

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra: 1x • 3x • 10x

The next few images are taken inside. The image of the sofa is in relatively good light. The photo of the shelves is in dimmer light, while the final image of our studio is in almost complete darkness.

The Galaxy S22 Ultra images are cleaner but less detailed. The Galaxy S23 Ultra captures a much higher level of detail in exchange for some noise. Once again, we like the tradeoff. It"s impressive just how much more detail you get from the new 200MP sensor - notice the Kodak Instamatic 33 lettering (if you can spot it) - it"s nearly unreadable on the Galaxy S22 Ultra and is fully readable on the Galaxy S23 Ultra.

Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra: Inside daylight • Inside dim light • Inside low light

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra: Inside daylight • Inside dim light • Inside low light

Finally, we shot full-res 200MP and 50MP images so you can see what the highest possible resolution has to offer. These took a few seconds to finish after we tapped the shutter.

Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra: 200MP • 50MP