Samsung S23 Ultra
⬤ From £1,249 ⬤ samsung.com/uk
So far nothing has quite managed to topple the Samsung S23 Ultra as our pick for the best overall smartphone this year. With its multiple lenses, comprehensive camera app and excellent screen it’s a fantastic all-rounder.
It has a dedicated Portrait mode which you can use to either take headshots or leave a little more context. It puts in a good job with portraits here, creating fairly natural outlines and also works well with other non-human subjects such as pets.
You don’t have to shoot in Portrait mode if you don’t want to, with the standard setting also producing excellent results – albeit without the same kind of shallow-depth-of-field effect you might wish to have. If you want to shoot in raw format, you can, but again not in Portrait mode – head to the Pro mode and enable DNG recording to do that. You can shoot with the 3x telephoto lens in Pro mode to get a typical portrait focal length, while also taking advantage of the flexibility of raw shooting.
One of the key headlines of the S23 Ultra is its 200-megapixel main sensor. Images are only actually output in 200MP if you choose a specific mode, otherwise the standard output is 12MP. In theory this sounds useful for portraits, but in practice, extra detail isn’t hugely obvious and unless you want to print your portraits at a huge size, 200MP is overkill.
If you’re shooting after dark, Night and Portrait mode can be combined together to great effect, though here it’s the 1x setting, rather than the closer 3x setting, which produces the best results.
One last useful specification here for portraits is the inclusion of an ‘S-Pen’ stylus, which can be used to remotely trigger the camera shutter. That’s helpful for self-portraits and group portraits, where you can frame up from a distance.