Did you hear? The iPhone 14 comes in a new yellow color, and it's available to pre-order now. I do find the new hue attractive, but there's just something about the timing of the announcement. It's because it's spring, right? Well, yes.
But this release also just happens to come on the heels of the Samsung Galaxy S23 launch, and this could very well be a way for Apple to try and steal some of Samsung's thunder. As you'll see in our Samsung Galaxy S23 review, there's good reason for the iPhone 14 refresh at this particular moment.
Don't get me wrong. Our iPhone 14 review is quite positive — and both handsets earn a spot on our best phones list. But the Galaxy S23 beats the iPhone in some pretty substantial ways.
4 ways Galaxy S23 Ultra beats iPhone 14
Better zoom
Some day a telephoto zoom will stop being a Pro feature, but for Apple right now if you want optical zoom you have to spring for an iPhone 14 Pro or iPhone 14 Pro Max.
The iPhone 14 makes do with a measly 5x digital zoom. That's super low compared to the 30x digital zoom offered by the Galaxy S23. More important, you get a 3x optical zoom for the Samsung S23 compared to nothing on the iPhone 14. So if you want to get in close, go Galaxy.
120Hz display
I'm not going to say this is a dealbreaker or anything, but I appreciate the fact that the Galaxy S23 has a 120Hz display, which means you can enjoy smoother scrolling and more fluid animations in supported games. The iPhone 14 is stuck at 60Hz.
Once again, Apple reserves this feature for its more premium iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max. This means you also can't have an always-on display for showing the time, battery status and more because the iPhone's screen can't scale down low enough to enable this feature.
The Galaxy S23 display is also brighter than the iPhone 14's — 1,158 nits versus 757 nits when we measured both phones on a light meter. It certainly makes the Galaxy S23 easier to see in bright sunlight.
Longer battery life
Samsung's phone should last longer on a charge based on our Galaxy S23 battery life testing. On the Tom's Guide Battery test, which involves continuous web surfing at 150 nits of screen brightness, the Galaxy S23 endured for 10 hours and 27 minutes in adaptive mode. That runtime grew to 11:20 when we switched the screen to 60Hz mode.
Meanwhile, the iPhone 14 lasted 9:28, so you're getting at least an extra hour of juice and up to nearly 2 hours if you switch display modes. To be fair, neither flagship makes our best phone battery life list because they don't last 11.5 hours or longer, but the S23 has more staying power.
Better graphics
The iPhone 14 is a great phone for gaming, but if you're looking for the best possible performance, it's hard to ignore Samsung's advantage. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chip delivered better framerates than the iPhone 14's A15 Bionic chip.
| Phone | CPU | Wild Life Unlimited (FPS) | Wild Life Extreme Unlimited (FPS) |
| Samsung Galaxy S23 | Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy | 87.3 | 22.9 |
| iPhone 14 | A15 Bionic | 69.1 | 15.5 |
| iPhone 14 Pro | A16 Bionic | 74 | 19 |
In the 3DMark Wild Life benchmark, the Samsung S23 reached 87 fps in the Wild Life Unlimited Test, compared to 69.1 fps for the iPhone 14. And in the more demanding Wild Life Extreme test the S23 hit 22.9 fps vs 15.5 fps for the iPhone. Even the iPhone 14 Pro's might A16 Bionic was a bit behind the Galaxy S23.
Bottom line
As a reasonable person, I know that most people are not going to jump from iOS to Android. But if you're open minded about your next phone I think the Samsung Galaxy S23 makes a very good case for why it's the superior handset to the iPhone 14. You even get USB-C charging now, as opposed to waiting for the iPhone 15.
