Samsung Galaxy S23 series battery life: Here's what you need to know

Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S23, S23 Plus, and S23 Ultra smartphones won our favor as some of the best Android phones released in 2023. The South Korean giant typically launches three devices every year, each competing in a different price class. In 2022, the S22 series delivered the well-rounded Android experience we’ve come to expect from Samsung, but we were left a bit disappointed with the battery life results.

Luckily, Samsung learned from its mistakes and improved battery life wholesale with the S23 series. So in this article, let’s take a closer look at the runtimes you can expect from each S23 smartphone as well as their respective charging performance.

Samsung Galaxy S23 series battery specs

In 2022, Samsung inexplicably reduced the battery capacities of the regular and Plus Galaxy S22 models. Unsurprisingly, many reviewers and users reported a nearly proportional drop in real-world endurance. Luckily, Samsung issued a course correction with the Galaxy S23 series.

Galaxy S23 series battery life: What to expect?

Galaxy S23

The vanilla Samsung Galaxy S23 features a 3,900mAh battery — that’s up 200mAh compared to its predecessor.

After using the Galaxy S22, we criticized it for delivering sub-par battery life — often under four hours of screen-on time in our testing. Even if you stayed away from demanding tasks like navigation or gaming, the phone would rarely last the entire day. Thankfully, the Galaxy S23 has fixed that problem with a larger battery and Qualcomm’s rather efficient Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset.

If you take Qualcomm’s claims at face value, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is roughly 40% more efficient than its predecessor. How is that possible? Simply put, this new chip is being made on a more efficient TSMC node (rather than Samsung Foundry).

In our Galaxy S23 review, we found that the smartphone can last the entire day without breaking a sweat — even maintaining 40% headroom at the end of it. That’s not just a big improvement over the previous generation, it’s also a great result for such a diminutive form factor.

All-day gaming or navigation will push the battery to its limits, however, and you will have to recharge every night. For those use cases, we’d recommend the S23 Plus for its larger battery and better heat dissipation.

Galaxy S23 Plus

The middle of the pack Galaxy S23 Plus houses a 4,700mAh battery — a step up from the Galaxy S22 Plus’ 4,500mAh capacity. That’s a smaller upgrade in percentage terms compared to the base Galaxy S23, but it’s still a welcome improvement.

We weren’t nearly as critical of the Galaxy S22 Plus as the vanilla model last year. In fact, it often exceeded our expectations, especially compared to the other two models.

The larger battery in the Galaxy S23 Plus, coupled with the efficiency improvements from the chipset, has resulted in a comfortable two-day smartphone experience. You should get upwards of seven hours of screen-on time over that time, based on our Galaxy S23 Plus review’s findings. This battery life record exceeds much of the Android competition such as Google’s Pixel 7 Pro and is about on par with the iPhone 14 Pro.

Galaxy S23 Ultra

Samsung didn’t give its top-of-the-line Galaxy S23 Ultra a larger battery this generation. At 5,000mAh, however, it already leads most of the flagship smartphone market. Like other S23 models, the Ultra benefits from the new Snapdragon chipset globally. It also uses the latest AMOLED tech from Samsung Display, which likely draws less power and enables longer screen-on times between charges.

With this generation, Samsung has also partnered with Qualcomm to use its chips globally. In other words, the European market won’t have to deal with a potentially inferior Exynos chip as we’ve seen in previous generations. You can expect this single change to result in a big battery life uplift going from a European-spec S22 Ultra to the S23 Ultra.

In our review, we found that the efficiency gains actually delivered noticeable dividends in the real world. More specifically, we were able to extract two full days of battery life out of the Galaxy S23 Ultra, with an impressive screen-on time of eight hours over that period. To put that figure into context, the previous-generation S22 Ultra ended the first day with just 20% charge left under similar usage conditions.

That said, we’ve historically found that the Ultra model doesn’t always deliver the longest battery life. The large 6.8-inch QHD+ display might be the culprit here, so consider the Galaxy S23 Plus if you want to squeeze every last bit of longevity.

Does the Galaxy S23 series charge faster vs the Galaxy S22?

If fast charging matters a lot to you, the Galaxy S23 series might disappoint you. The vanilla Galaxy S23 can handle just 25W of charging power, while the higher-end models peak higher at 45W. These are the same figures as the last-gen Galaxy S22 series, but thankfully, there’s more than what meets the eye. While we found little difference between Samsung’s 25W vs 45W fast charging in the past, that has changed somewhat this generation.

The 45W adapter fully recharges the Galaxy S23 Ultra six minutes faster than its predecessor. It’s not a significant difference, but it does bring the 0-100 time down to under an hour. You’ll still have to bring your own Super Fast Charging adapter as Samsung doesn’t provide one in the box. Alternatively, you can use any third-party brick that supports the USB PD PPS standard.

As for wireless charging, Samsung continues to rely on the universal Qi wireless charging standard, which maxes out at 15W. A full charge will take you somewhere between 90 and 120 minutes. We can’t blame Samsung here as the Wireless Power Consortium is still working on the Qi2 charging standard and higher power profiles.

All three Galaxy S23 smartphones also feature reverse wireless charging, or as Samsung calls it: Wireless Power share. The feature allows you to charge another device wirelessly, at a maximum speed of 4.5W. While that’s too slow to fill up another smartphone, it’s handy for short top-ups and charging smaller devices like wearables.

Galaxy S23’s battery tech vs the competition

In summary, the top-of-the-line Galaxy S23 Ultra delivers great battery life for almost all use cases. At the very least, it matches or surpasses most other flagship smartphones on the market.

The vanilla Galaxy S23 puts up a strong showing too, even though it doesn’t top the charts. In the compact smartphone segment, we’ve observed better battery life from the similarly-sized ASUS Zenfone 9, thanks to its larger 4,300mAh battery. And if you don’t mind a slightly taller display, the Sony Xperia 5 IV delivers even better endurance with its 5,000mAh battery.

Unfortunately, you won’t find the Galaxy S23 series breaking any fast charging records. While we appreciate Samsung’s continued commitment to the universal USB PD PPS protocol, most flagship smartphones exceed 25W these days. That’s also true for the larger models, which max out at 45W instead.

Rival manufacturers have delivered faster charging times for years now. The OnePlus 11, for instance, can be fully charged within half an hour. And even though it relies on the proprietary SuperVOOC charging protocol to reach 100W peak power, you at least get an adapter in the box to ease the sting.

Similarly, the Xiaomi 13 Pro charges at a blistering 120W when plugged in or 50W wirelessly. And it’s worth stressing again that both companies also ship a charging adapter in the box — no separate purchase necessary.

That said, if you’re coming from an older Apple or Google smartphone, you won’t find any reason to complain. The three Galaxy S23 models charge about as quickly as the Pixel 8 and iPhone 15 series, even if it’s only a slim victory. Even Samsung’s own Galaxy Z Fold 5 only charges at 25W.

Overall, Samsung’s 2023 flagships may fall short of some enthusiasts’ lofty expectations but still deliver strong battery life and a decent baseline charging performance. If you’re looking for even better battery life, though, consider checking out Samsung’s latest Galaxy S24 series which packs even better battery life despite minimal hardware changes between generations.

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