I purchased the S23 Ultra outright from Samsung, using credits I’d accumulated to get a decent discount and also utilised the trade in deal. Never-the-less I still had to put down a considerable amount of money to get this device. Flagship smartphones were becoming eye wateringly expensive.
Make no mistake this was the most capable phone I’d ever owned, and I absolutely loved the party piece of it’s 100x digital zoom. I’m just not sure it justifies it’s hefty price tag. It started at £1249, I think I still had to pay around £800-900 with my discount and trade in.
I went full in with customising OneUI with Goodlock and all the other add-ons that Samsung provides to really make the phone my own. I still don’t think any manufacturer comes close to this level of tweaking without having to revert to third party apps. I do remember having problems with some of these apps though. I had apps disappearing from my app drawer, my home screen would sometimes just show blank amongst other little glitches.
This was also around the time I was going out hiking a lot with a group of friends, the pictures I’d bring back were phenomenal and it saved me lugging my DSLR around with me. In the back of my mind though, I was always worried about dropping and damaging this valuable phone. This wasn’t helped by the curved screen. Yes I had a rugged case, but trying to find a quality tempered glass screen protector that fit properly was nigh on impossible. In the end I opted for a TPU film protector, however this slid around the screen and doesn’t offer the protection of glass.
In the end I resold the device after a few months as the worry of damaging the phone and losing its value was weighing me down. This was replaced with a Pixel 7a which I’ve already written about, a mistake that at the time I wasn’t wise to.
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