The testing for our Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra review reveals one of the biggest areas of improvement for this flagship phone: battery life. Yes, this handset packs the same 5,000 mAh battery as its predecessor, but we're seeing much better endurance this time around.
On the Tom's Guide Battery test, we take each phone and surf the web over a 5G connection at 150 nits of brightness. Phones that last at least 11.5 hours on this take test make it on our best phone battery life list. And the Samsung S23 Ultra now belongs on that list.
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Battery size | Battery life (hrs:mins) |
| Galaxy S23 Ultra | 5,000 mAh | 13:09 (60Hz) / 12:22 (adaptive) |
| Galaxy S22 Ultra | 5,000 mAh | 10:18 (60Hz) / 9:50 (adaptive) |
| iPhone 14 Pro Max | 4,323 mAh | 13:39 |
| Pixel 7 Pro | 5,000 mAh | 9:21 |
| Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro | 6,000 mAh | 16:27 (60Hz) /15:30 (adaptive) |
| Moto G Power | 5,000 mAH | 13:15 |
| iPhone 14 Plus | 4,325 mAh | 11:57 |
| OnePlus 10T | 4,800 mAh | 11:22 |
First we ran our battery test on Adaptive mode for the Galaxy S23 Ultra, which enables the screen to scale anywhere from 1Hz all the way up to 120Hz. Then, we ran the test again in 60Hz mode, which uses less power.
On adaptive mode, the Samsung S23 Ultra lasted a very good 12 hours and 22 minutes. That's a big jump from the 9:50 we saw from the S22 Ultra. This could be due to the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chip, which is designed to be more efficient. Though we're assuming Samsung made other optimizations as well.
The runtime got even better in 60Hz mode, as the S23 Ultra endured for an epic 12 hours and 9 minutes. That's only 30 minutes behind the iPhone 14 Pro Max's best result of 13:39.
There are other phones that last even longer on a charge. The Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro and its 6,000 mAh battery lasted 15:30 in adaptive mode and 16:27 in 60Hz mode. The Moto G Power 2022 ran for 13:15, though that's a budget phone.
So with this result the Galaxy S23 Ultra will definitely be among the longest-lasting phones you can buy. There are other phones on the horizon that could surpass this Samsung, such as the OnePlus 11, but we'll have to see what our testing shows.
When you consider how fast the Galaxy S23 Ultra is on top of its endurance, based on our Galaxy S23 Ultra benchmarks — not to mention what the powerful 200MP camera can do based on our photo tests — you could have the best Android phone yet.
