Samsung Galaxy M23 5G, affordable 5G at its best

[ian87w]

Done with my Poco X3. It's too "heavy", making it unwieldy for me.
Enter the Samsung Galaxy M23 5G. It's ~$230. Yes, it's less than $250, but it packed quite a phone for the price.

Quick impressions

+ Snapdragon 750 with UFS storage, the same SoC as my S7 FE Tablet. It's quite snappy, much more than Snapdragon 730/732
+ 5G, for $230!
+ 6/128. See Apple, a $230 phone can have more RAM than your $1000 phone. (in my country, the regular iPhone 13 is $950).
+ triple slot with dedicated SD card slot
+ 5000mAh battery
+ headphone jack! With Samsung eliminating headphone jack even on their mid Galaxy A lineup, this is becoming a rarity.
+ lighter than my Poco X3. It's still a large phone, but being lighter makes it more holdable.
+ 6.6" 120Hz LCD for those who cares.
+ Samsung bundles in a 25W USB-PD charger! The default box doesn't come with one, so the gesture is highly appreciated.
+ The side fingerprint scanner is ultra responsive.

- No IP rating.
- No case nor screen protector included.
- Mono speaker at the bottom.
- Not OLED screen
- Might be too large for some.
- 2 years of Android upgrades. Not great, but actually class leading for the segment. Most Chinese phones in this segment or higher only do 1, if none at all in terms of OS upgrades.
Seriously though, for the price, it's quite nitpicking for the negatives.

In comparison, Apple's "cheapest" 5G iPhone is the 2022 SE. The 128GB model is $650 here. This is even a good deal amongst the Android phones as some phones in the price segment are still sporting slow eMMC storage.
This also makes me think that 5G will be more widespread sooner than we think. I remember back with 4G, how it takes a while for a 4G phone to be this cheap. Now, even with 5G coverage still being scarce, we already have $200 5G phones on the market. Considering that carriers in my country are switching off 3G as we speak, 5G will probably be preferable than the ultra-congested 4G.

In the days where we see flagships getting more expensive, it's very nice to see great bang for the buck like this, especially coming from Samsung.

 

[Smellmet]

It's a lot of phone for the money.

 

[Carlson-online]

this is my "temporary" phone while my iphone arrives.

150 quid, not bad for the money. but the RAM is a lie. It actually takes some of your phones storage to increase the ram.
And it lags like hell still - it's better now i've removed the samsung one ui and replaced it with the pixel launcher, but god i miss ios. It's the little things:
1) reachability. i had no idea how much i used this
2) app switcher in last used order. this drove me mad earlier while copying a password from bitwarden and it was 20 apps over from chrome
3) why do i need to "clean my ram" to make the phone responsive. come on .

 

[ian87w]

this is my "temporary" phone while my iphone arrives.

150 quid, not bad for the money. but the RAM is a lie. It actually takes some of your phones storage to increase the ram.
And it lags like hell still - it's better now i've removed the samsung one ui and replaced it with the pixel launcher, but god i miss ios. It's the little things:
1) reachability. i had no idea how much i used this
2) app switcher in last used order. this drove me mad earlier while copying a password from bitwarden and it was 20 apps over from chrome
3) why do i need to "clean my ram" to make the phone responsive. come on .

Not my experience. It’s zippy and smooth. It’s not S21 level smooth, but I have not experienced lags. Then again, I clean up quite a bit off the preinstalled crud. Don’t use any 3rd party launcher. OneUI is highly optimized and any other launcher is only a RAM hog.

The RAM is not a lie. Mine is the 6GB model. I believe in some markets, there are models with 4GB RAM. The system do use up RAM quite a bit. Mine has less than 3GB free on clean boot. Those with just 4GB RAM might struggle.

1. Reachability is called one-hand mode. It’s in Advanced features. There are two options, double tapping the home button or swiping down on the middle bottom part of the screen.

2. Not sure how is this different than iOS. Just open the app from the app drawer instead of trying to find it in the task switcher.

3. You don’t. It’s there to help with games that sometimes need the headroom ahead of time to load up. I never use the clean RAM feature in any phone that I have ever had.

If yours is laggy, it could mean you have rogue apps taking up RAM and processes, or your Pixel launcher misbehaving.

And do not confuse the M23 with the A23 4G. The A23 4G is much slower, using eMMC storage. If that’s what you have, then I am not surprised it’s laggy.

 

[Carlson-online]

Not my experience. It’s zippy and smooth. It’s not S21 level smooth, but I have not experienced lags. Then again, I clean up quite a bit off the preinstalled crud. Don’t use any 3rd party launcher. OneUI is highly optimized and any other launcher is only a RAM hog.

The RAM is not a lie. Mine is the 6GB model. I believe in some markets, there are models with 4GB RAM. The system do use up RAM quite a bit. Mine has less than 3GB free on clean boot. Those with just 4GB RAM might struggle.

1. Reachability is called one-hand mode. It’s in Advanced features. There are two options, double tapping the home button or swiping down on the middle bottom part of the screen.

2. Not sure how is this different than iOS. Just open the app from the app drawer instead of trying to find it in the task switcher.

3. You don’t. It’s there to help with games that sometimes need the headroom ahead of time to load up. I never use the clean RAM feature in any phone that I have ever had.

If yours is laggy, it could mean you have rogue apps taking up RAM and processes, or your Pixel launcher misbehaving.

And do not confuse the M23 with the A23 4G. The A23 4G is much slower, using eMMC storage. If that’s what you have, then I am not surprised it’s laggy.

Thank you for 2) that works a treat.

It's definitely an M23, i've just checked under 'about phone'. And yes, it's the 'amazon exclusive' version with less RAM sadly

re 3), in ios the apps are in last used order, so if you went chrome, bitwarden, then chrome would be the next in the list. however on android it doesnt move those 2 together. i guess I could use the app launcher but muscle memory and the similarity to ios made me use the open apps button

 

[jimmy_uk]

I've just started looking at options for Samsung phones with no PWM as I cannot use any of the OLED iPhones so equally won't be able to use any flagship Samsung phone. I need to have at least 1080p resolution and a plus sized display. So the iphone XR, 11 and SE 2022 are out of the running.

The M33 looks to tick alot of boxes for me although the lack of stereo speakers is disappointing. Is this a tier up from the M23? I'm a UK buyer so not sure what processor I'd actually be getting.

 

[ian87w]

I've just started looking at options for Samsung phones with no PWM as I cannot use any of the OLED iPhones so equally won't be able to use any flagship Samsung phone. I need to have at least 1080p resolution and a plus sized display. So the iphone XR, 11 and SE 2022 are out of the running.

The M33 looks to tick alot of boxes for me although the lack of stereo speakers is disappointing. Is this a tier up from the M23? I'm a UK buyer so not sure what processor I'd actually be getting.

The M33 has Exynos 1280, the same SoC on the more expensive A53. It is supposedly a bit better performant than the Snapdragon 750G as it has newer performance core. Also, based on gsmarena, the M33 comes in 6GB and 8GB RAM models, while the M23 comes in 4GB and 6GB. So pay attention to which model that is available to you. I would advise against buying anything less than 6GB of RAM unless you’re really on a budget. Like I mentioned above, during fresh boot, my M23 already only have less than 3GB RAM free.

Between the two, assuming same RAM config, it’s a tossup. I prefer Snapdragon as games tend to be optimized more for Snapdragon GPUs. Also, I prefer the camera design of the M23 as it follows the design of the new A series. The M33 camera design follows more of last year’s M series design. It’s just personal preference though. They’re almost the same phone hardware wise.

 

[ian87w]

I switched my main SIM to the M23 for a few days, replacing my S21 as a main phone. Here are my findings

- battery life is great. For my usage (navigation, browsing, chatting), I still ended with at least 40% battery at almost midnight. My iPhone 7+ would’ve reached 40% or less by noon, in comparison if I put it through similar usage.
- screen is mediocre. I guess this is the difference between low end phone and flagship phone. Compared to my S21, the LCD screen on the M23 is not bright enough for comfortable outside use. Even the iPhone 7+ LCD is much brighter. Also, it doesn’t have an actual light sensor, so it relies on the front camera for auto brightness, resulting in slow responses to changes in environment lighting. The good thing is, high refresh rate is quite tolerable on the LCD. I had dizziness issue with high refresh rate on my S21 (thus I disabled it), but less of that effect on the M23 LCD.
- lack of my IP rating is concerning, especially with rainy season coming. I wish any phone would at least have IP53 rating, but I guess it’s too costly to get IP certification.
- performance wise, no complaints. The SD750 is zippy, and I find it to perform better than my S7 FE tablet beside both having the same chip. Never felt anything to “slow” down.
- size is quite big, especially if you put a case on. I decided to go naked with it, and it’s alright. Still not as comfortable as my S21 though. But doesn’t feel unwieldy like the Poco X3.
- the capacitive fingerprint sensor is awesome. It performs better than the under display sensor on my S21. It’s fast and accurate.
- the mono speaker at the bottom is annoying, especially if one is used to phones with stereo speaker. The 3.5mm jack is great though.
- 5G works. But it uses the older modem as it cannot have dual 5G DSDS. Only one SIM can be on 5G while the other is 4G.

In the end, it’s a highly competent phone for the price. The only thing I would criticize is probably the not so bright LCD screen for outdoor usage. It can be a dealbreaker for those who use the phone a lot outside.

Making a phone for $1000 is easy as you have a lot of room to throw in any kind of hardware you want. But things are a lot more interesting in the budget segment to see what OEMs are trading off to reach that price point.