Nothing CEO Carl Pei reviewed Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, feels it isn't much of an upgrade

Nothing CEO Carl Pei has released another smartphone review on YouTube. And this time, it's the Galaxy S23 Ultra that Samsung launched earlier this year. Carl has reviewed various flagships in the past, including the iPhone 14 Pro and OnePlus 11. Here's Neowin's own review of the phone if you were interested.

The CEO said he wanted to do the S23 Ultra review sooner but his "YouTube career is difficult to balance with a CEO career." He would like to source devices before launch just like influencers and media do and release the review at the embargo. Back in the day, Carl was an early adopter of Samsung devices and was the first among his friends to buy Samsung Galaxy S2 and S3.

After using the S23 Ultra for almost a month, Pei said he doesn't see much difference in the S23 Ultra's design when compared with its predecessor S22 Ultra. When talking about the hardware design, he describes the device as a "perfect straight A student. Pure science and no art."

Speaking of the One UI software on the device, he finds it "a bit dated in some of the interaction logic" and said it has a lot of similarities to when he used Samsung devices around 12 years ago. But the part he can't stand the most is the bloatware on the S23 Ultra. He counted a total of 35 pre-installed apps in the video, including Facebook and Spotify.

When asked about the S Pen, Carl said that Samsung has done a lot of work on the tech but he doesn't fall among the target audience for the S Pen as it's not of much use to him. However, Carl thinks that "everyone in our industry should respect Samsung because they built the Android ecosystem together with Google. So, if it wasn't for Samsung, we wouldn't be here."

"I just don't feel like the S22 Ultra and S23 Ultra...there's not enough progress between these two for it to be a compelling upgrade for consumers," he said. However, his overall verdict is that Galaxy S23 Ultra "is one of the best flagship phones on the market right now if you're okay with the size." You can read about the differences in our review.