40K+ Should I switch from iPhone 13 to S23 or S24 ?

mayank4823 · Apr 18, 2024

Why I’m thinking of the switch
1. Samsung website is offering me 39k for my 2 year old iPhone 13 if I buy the S24. Claiming GST and applying some coupon will cost me 35k approx after the trade in.
2. Fedup of iOS and average night camera. I used to have a Pixel and that has spoiled me. I trek and travel quite often and star gazing is below average on iPhone 13.
3. I paid around 45-50k for iPhone 13 2 years back because I claimed GST and used bank offers and what not. So getting 39k for it too tempting.

What i’m worried about
1. Battery. iPhone is great when it comes to battery optimisation.
2. Exynos on S24. I’ve heard S23 is a better choice.
3. I really need that lock folder option which is there in iOS. Have some very sensitive pics related to business and some private pics as well. *wink wink*.

Considering everything above, is the switch from iPhone 13 to S23 an upgrade ?

Devyansh · Tuesday at 2:15 AM

Battery life is better on S24.
Unless you're doing gaming or other intensive tasks, exynos will take things like a champ. Although it might run hotter.
Samsung knox is your answer for privacy.
S24 is definitely an upgrade, S23 not so much.

OMEGA44-XT · Tuesday at 9:34 AM

Devyansh said:
Battery life is better on S24.
Unless you're doing gaming or other intensive tasks, exynos will take things like a champ. Although it might run hotter.
Samsung knox is your answer for privacy.
S24 is definitely an upgrade, S23 not so much.

8 Gen 3 S24 has a noticable improvement over S23. Do note that S24 has a bigger battery & a better LTPO panel. Still in GSMArena review, Exynos S24 is just slightly better than S23 in battery life.

In a hot day when you are using 5G, drop in S24's battery life will be much faster than S23 (historically the case for Samsung vs TSMC fab SoCs). I purchased S23 256GB for like 41k. 15-20k extra for S24 surely didn't feel worth it. In general phones are having very small improvements each year. Even with 8 Gen 3 at 60k for S24 256GB, it will still remain a poor value over S23 at 40k-ish.

E2400 is surely much better than earlier, same can be said about E1480 of A55, so I hope Samsung fab SoCs get better. Samsung has a big pricing issue as well, hence losing market share. Oppo & Vivo have finally overtaken it individually in India.

rockstah · Tuesday at 10:00 AM

kalph09 said:
Battery: Below average, lasts about a day with 3hours of screen time. It drop pretty fast while using real time apps like Ola or google maps. A 45min ride saw battery drop by 12%

This is true, with Android auto it just drains battery like crazy.

awestorr · Tuesday at 12:26 PM

OMEGA44-XT said:
8 Gen 3 S24 has a noticable improvement over S23. Do note that S24 has a bigger battery & a better LTPO panel. Still in GSMArena review, it is just slightly better than S23 in battery life.

S24 comes with Exynos in india,right?

altair21 · Tuesday at 1:54 PM

awestorr said:
S24 comes with Exynos in india,right?

yep, only ultra has gen 3

blr_p · Tuesday at 4:34 PM

kalph09 said:
Camera: lots of noise under low-light, poor macro (can't scan documents well), lacks details under well lit conditions (check the photography thread I posted).

Post the link. Can't find your thread.

If you want details you should be defaulting to larger resolution. That's why your scans didn't come out well either.

Under Settings-Settings to keep, select high picture resolution so you don't have to keep toggling it.

The 12MP is for low light and won't preserve details in good light. There is an image softening option you can play with if you want photos to have less noise or appear more smoothened.

animishticomb · Tuesday at 5:10 PM

mayank4823 said:
Why I’m thinking of the switch
1. Samsung website is offering me 39k for my 2 year old iPhone 13 if I buy the S24. Claiming GST and applying some coupon will cost me 35k approx after the trade in.
2. Fedup of iOS and average night camera. I used to have a Pixel and that has spoiled me. I trek and travel quite often and star gazing is below average on iPhone 13.
3. I paid around 45-50k for iPhone 13 2 years back because I claimed GST and used bank offers and what not. So getting 39k for it too tempting.

What i’m worried about
1. Battery. iPhone is great when it comes to battery optimisation.
2. Exynos on S24. I’ve heard S23 is a better choice.
3. I really need that lock folder option which is there in iOS. Have some very sensitive pics related to business and some private pics as well. *wink wink*.

Considering everything above, is the switch from iPhone 13 to S23 an upgrade ?

Go for the s23 ultra instead of iphone or s24...it was available for 70k during diwali sale...

Been using it for close to 2 years nown and everyday I feel so happy that I made this decision to buy the s23u...Nothing comes close to it in battery....locked folder is a very basic feature on android and you can get all sorts of apps to do it

At the risk of sounding like a samsung fanboi...Samsung has the best android implementation now and I think they give what 5 or 7 years of software support now which is crazy...plus battery replacement on even s23u costs close to 3-4k (I didnt have the need to exchange it but just checked prices) unlike 10s of thousands on an iphone....

awestorr · Tuesday at 7:16 PM

One thing that i will tell you regarding android is its low value retention rate.
Have a relative with s22u and the max amazon is giving is 22k while fk is around 15.8k.

kalph09 · Tuesday at 7:18 PM

blr_p said:
Post the link. Can't find your thread.

If you want details you should be defaulting to larger resolution. That's why your scans didn't come out well either.

Under Settings-Settings to keep, select high picture resolution so you don't have to keep toggling it.

The 12MP is for low light and won't preserve details in good light. There is an image softening option you can play with if you want photos to have less noise or appear more smoothened.

My bad! I meant the existing Photography thread. Sample 1 and Sample 2

At default settings on a flagship phones and price, I expected this to be on par with Pixels and iPhones. I have lowered by expectations with S23 ever since.

Regarding document scanning issue, its a known issue that can not be addressed entirely with a software update.

blr_p · Tuesday at 7:28 PM

kalph09 said:
My bad! I meant the existing Photography thread. Sample 1 and Sample 2

Sample 2 is an easy fix. Just reduce exposure slightly when taking the shot. Tap and hold until you see the exposure settingand nudge a little to the left. This will decrease ISO and as a consequence noise as well.

kalph09 said:
At default settings on a flagship phones and price, I expected this to be on par with Pixels and iPhones. I have lowered by expectations with S23 ever since.

Every phone camera has its quirks. Especially when dealing with trickier lighting.

I've see earlier pixels get focus wrong and its all in the exif details. So take the shot again and ensure you get it right.

kalph09 said:
Regarding document scanning issue, its a known issue that can not be addressed entirely with a software update.

That only affects 10% of phones.

Did you verify to see if yours qualifies?

kalph09 · Tuesday at 7:46 PM

blr_p said:
Sample 2 is an easy fix. Just reduce exposure slightly when taking the shot. Tap and hold until you see the exposure settingand nudge a little to the left. This will decrease ISO and as a consequence noise as well.

Every phone camera has its quirks. Especially when dealing with trickier lighting.

I've see earlier pixels get focus wrong and its all in the exif details. So take the shot again and ensure you get it right.

That only affects 10% of phones.

Did you verify to see if yours qualifies?

Think of me as a normal user for photography (must work well out-of-box-in-auto-mode). For someone used to Pixels/iPhones for the last 6-7 years. S23 camera just doesn't impress.

It does take impressive pictures at times after fiddling with the settings et al. It does not fully solve issues like color inaccuracies (pinks and blues are not right) and motion blur (I just need pics of my kids running in the park)

On the blur issue. I had posted samples here. A couple of updates have partly resolved the issue. It still struggles to get it right.

sauravghosh · Tuesday at 8:10 PM

kalph09 said:
It does not fully solve issues like color inaccuracies (pinks and blues are not right) and motion blur (I just need pics of my kids running in the park)

Samsung is for those who take photos and post them to those instamart and Facebook places where like-minded users prefer skys to be the deepest shades of blues and Reds to be deepest shades of orange and so on. And their shutter lag is amongst the highest compared to Apple's and Google's. You can't fix the shutter lag, no matter what. You can fix the gross colour inaccuracies by shooting in raw and tweak them later. Now imagine buying a mobile phone for raw photography.

And apparently according to gsma, Samsung has now done away with the oversaturated colours and this is their natural version lmfao.

blr_p · Tuesday at 8:17 PM

kalph09 said:
Think of me as a normal user for photography (must work well out-of-box-in-auto-mode). For someone used to Pixels/iPhones for the last 6-7 years. S23 camera just doesn't impress.

Is there such a camera? The lg g4 could hold its own against any other but i still had to tweak settings from time to time.

In fact since 2014, I've never had a phone camera that didn't have a full manual node. Because some things auto will never get but more creative options open up with manual settings.

The other thing I don't get is people expect that perfect shot in any lighting condition and expect to get it in just one attempt. Is that a reasonable expectation? Some times you get lucky. More times you don't.

kalph09 said:
It does take impressive pictures at times after fiddling with the settings et al. It does not fully solve issues like color inaccuracies (pinks and blues are not right)

Tints can always be fixed in post. In my experience every phone camera I've ever had would over expose a little.

Earlier you could mimic the iPhones exposure by changing metering from centre weighted (Samsungs default) to fully weighted (Apples default). I don't find those metering settings anymore.

kalph09 said:
and motion blur (I just need pics of my kids running in the park)

People ask for this all the time. It's got harder without xenon flashes that could freeze motion in a way led flashes just cannot.

So you go with a faster shutter speed and set focus at infinity and shoot no closer to the than six feet away. Then crop. You won't get every shot but at least your odds will improve.

You could just cheat and shoot 4kf60 and pull out the right 8MP frame after. Motion tracking enabled.

The reason the iPhone & pixel have a slight edge here is apparently they can detect motion and pick a faster shutter speed when applicable. Samsung does not have this facility and will try to go for best quality when what you want is a faster capture. Manual to the rescue and once you figure that you will outdo auto on iPhone & pixel.

You need to spend time with any camera to understand its pros & cons.

kalph09 said:
On the blur issue. I had posted samples here. A couple of updates have partly resolved the issue. It still struggles to get it right.

How far away were you when you took these photos?

Dated jul 2023. A year and a half later is the problem still there.

animishticomb · Tuesday at 8:17 PM

sauravghosh said:
Samsung is for those who take photos and post them to those instamart and Facebook places where like-minded users prefer skys to be the deepest shades of blues and Reds to be deepest shades of orange and so on. And their shutter lag is amongst the highest compared to Apple's and Google's. You can't fix the shutter lag, no matter what. You can fix the gross colour inaccuracies by shooting in raw and tweak them later. Now imagine buying a mobile phone for raw photography.

And apparently according to gsma, Samsung has now done away with the oversaturated colours and this is their natural version lmfao.

@kalph09 Google pixel is the best camera as voted by millions of humans in the last 2-3 year of MKBHD's blind camera tests....apple or samsung nobody comes close...pixel is the king if you just need a no fuss camera and the one preferred most by humans....saturated unstaturated bright dim etc. are just subjective criteria...this blind test takes everything into account vs any other subjective criteria that has inherent confirmation bias of the user

blr_p · Tuesday at 8:21 PM

Rather than have some 'perfect' camera that does not and never will exist. Id rather know what to tweak with any camera to get the shot. These days most of them have a manual node.

That way if you don't have a pixel you can make the most out of whichever phone you chose.

rockstah · Wednesday at 2:04 AM

kalph09 said:
On the blur issue. I had posted samples here. A couple of updates have partly resolved the issue. It still struggles to get it right.

This looks like a defective unit, so far I've never had this issue.

sauravghosh said:
Now imagine buying a mobile phone for raw photography.

Camera is just a part of the phone, for anyone looking to do photography with mobile there are other better camera centric phones.

kalph09 · Wednesday at 2:39 PM

blr_p said:
Is there such a camera? The lg g4 could hold its own against any other but i still had to tweak settings from time to time.
In fact since 2014, I've never had a phone camera that didn't have a full manual node. Because some things auto will never get but more creative options open up with manual settings.

The other thing I don't get is people expect that perfect shot in any lighting condition and expect to get it in just one attempt. Is that a reasonable expectation? Some times you get lucky. More times you don't.

I understand there is no such thing as a perfect camera. My expectation is to have it on par or slightly better than competition at that price point (Rs.80k or higher). When you are paying top $$ one should expect their best product with little to no compromises. IMO, this is a fair ask from a brand that pokes fun at its competition.

Regarding tint. Blues were darker, Pinks were washed out or lighter. The updates over time appears to be addressed but there are gaps. Perhaps best explained with a comparison.

blr_p said:
The reason the iPhone & pixel have a slight edge here is apparently they can detect motion and pick a faster shutter speed when applicable. Samsung does not have this facility and will try to go for best quality when what you want is a faster capture. Manual to the rescue and once you figure that you will outdo auto on iPhone & pixel.

Samsung could have added this on their flagship devices?

How far away were you when you took these photos?

Dated jul 2023. A year and a half later is the problem still there.

About 30 cms, The issue is mostly addressed, there are some imperfections where sections of the document are soft.

rockstah said:
This looks like a defective unit, so far I've never had this issue.

My devices is from early 2023 batch. The internet refers it as banana-gate lol. Samsung refused a warranty replacement asked me to wait for a software update.

animishticomb · Wednesday at 2:59 PM

awestorr said:
One thing that i will tell you regarding android is its low value retention rate.
Have a relative with s22u and the max amazon is giving is 22k while fk is around 15.8k.

for apple the same nowadays, look at the crazy bbd offers every year and even the latest phones go on high 20-30% discounts....also it is best to sell phones offline instead of exchange esp with the shananigans of exchange prices due to the slightest of bumps scratches

awestorr · Wednesday at 4:17 PM

animishticomb said:
for apple the same nowadays, look at the crazy bbd offers every year and even the latest phones go on high 20-30% discounts....also it is best to sell phones offline instead of exchange esp with the shananigans of exchange prices due to the slightest of bumps scratches

Yeah offline is better .
However if its 22k online, selling even for 30k will be a challenge.
The best u can expect is around 25k.
And thats for a 1.2lkh 2.5ish yr old phone.

blr_p · Wednesday at 5:14 PM

kalph09 said:
I understand there is no such thing as a perfect camera. My expectation is to have it on par or slightly better than competition at that price point (Rs.80k or higher). When you are paying top $$ one should expect their best product with little to no compromises. IMO, this is a fair ask from a brand that pokes fun at its competition.

I've heard this argument for over ten years and back then they would say for 50k it should be able to do x, y & z.

The camera can do it. You just need to tweak it. As opposed to the days there was no manual and you had to resort to other tricks.

And here there is resistance.

It should be able to do it on its own

Why? Protogs don't expect it from their top of the line gear which can be very expensive

Why do consumers then do because it cost x.

Attitude.

The bestfix for that is this series of vids is the protog cheap camera challenge.

What can you do when all you have is a toy camera

kalph09 said:
Regarding tint. Blues were darker, Pinks were washed out or lighter. The updates over time appears to be addressed but there are gaps. Perhaps best explained with a comparison.

Go ahead

kalph09 said:
Samsung could have added this on their flagship devices?

It's something they do internally. I don't know if the ultra is better here or not as it has a sensor that is missing on the other two variants.

kalph09 said:
About 30 cms, The issue is mostly addressed, there are some imperfections where sections of the document are soft.

Yeah, most of the posts talking about this problem are from a year and a half ago or earlier.

Any improvements using other apps. Meaning not stock. I'd think stock would give the best results

Try to ensure the document being scanned is parallel to the camera. That's how a scanner works.

Instead of an angle which the phone allows for convenience and then has to counteract physics.

40K+ Should I switch from iPhone 13 to S23 or S24 ?

ithehappy