If you’re on the hunt for your next smartphone, then you would be right in thinking that the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is an excellent choice. It’s got an amazing screen, best-in-class battery life, superb cameras, and a storable stylus to take notes. It’s even number one on Express.co.uk’s best phones roundup. So, why is buying one right now a bad idea?
You can blame the relentless annual cycle of technology in this case. The S23 Ultra is a mighty fine phone, but Samsung has just confirmed the Galaxy S24 series will launch on 17 January, meaning the S23 Ultra will no longer be the jewel in the Android giant’s crown.
Of course, the imminent existence of what will likely be called the Galaxy S24 Ultra doesn’t make the S23 Ultra a bad phone. If you have one, we are not saying you should throw it directly into the nearest bin. The same applies to the current Galaxy S23 and S23 Plus, both of which are also great phones.
But if you are about to part with your hard earned cash on as expensive a phone as the £1,249 S23 Ultra, it’s worth knowing that its sequel is mere days away. Thanks to the consistent improvements in modern smartphones (even if huge leaps are few and far between these days), it’s likely the S24 Ultra is worth waiting for – particularly if Samsung can keep the price the same or lower.
Rumour has it the S24 Ultra will have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, improved cameras, a flat OLED display, new colour options, and new Samsung AI features. The expected S24 and S24 Plus should also have most of these improvements, too.
It’s always best to wait to see what the newest smartphone release has to offer before spending big, and though the new Samsung phones may well look like last year’s, the changes under the hood could be significant.
That said, the S23 Ultra is pretty much the best Samsung phone ever, with not much room for improvement. But if the S24 Ultra can eke out a few more hours battery life, refine the design with its rumoured flat screen and improve image and video quality then it will be hard not to crown it the best phone out there – Apple’s iPhone 15 Pro Max is right up there too, but for pure do-everything kitchen sink functionality, Samsung may well have the advantage.
The other thing to bear in mind is if the S24 Ultra is an iterative update with not much new, then you are best to wait nevertheless and hold out for an attractive S23 Ultra price drop. There will probably be permanent savings when it’s no longer the so-called ‘latest and greatest’, but it’ll still be a superior smartphone to last you years.
