I just bought my S23 Ultra upgrade for $280 after tax and shipping! I obviously have to trade my beloved S22 Ultra in towards it, but I'm sure I'll love the S23u as well. Really, the only reason I did it is because I bought my S22 Ultra on launch day and I've done nothing but 45w charge it every night and whenever it needed a top off so I'm currently only getting about 5 hours of screen on time which is completely unacceptable for me as I work 9-hour days and there is a lot of cell phone usage in my industry. So I'm basically paying $280 for a brand new battery, a faster processor and a better camera.
I was planning on keeping my S22 Ultra until at least the S24 Ultra came out but I kind of myself over with the way I took care of the battery in this phone. I'll be much better on the S23, and I have no plans to download the beta. That thing is a nightmare on the S23 Ultra.
The last thing I didn't like too much about my S22 Ultra is how sharp the corners are in my palm when I'm holding it one-handed. The corners and rounding are much less pronounced on the S23 Ultra so hopefully it hurts a little less to hold it.
What I am not looking forward to is, I have so many accessories for the S22 Ultra that will not be compatible with the S23 Ultra. I have probably $250 in cases, I love high-end material cases like aramid fiber and real leather, wood grain stuff like that. That's all garbage now. I have about $50 in screen protectors in reserve that are now garbage. At least my Galaxy watch 5 Pro and buds 2 Pro are able to carry over. If it wasn't under $300, I wouldn't even be doing it. I do have a Samsung power bank that I take to work everyday so it's not like I absolutely have to upgrade, it's just really cheap for how much phone you're getting. It'll also give me a better trade-in value towards the S24 Ultra if it ends up being what it's been rumored to be (titanium frame, 16 GB RAM, 144 hz display).
I figured I would just post here that the S23 ultra is the deal of the day on Samsung shop website and app but the app gives you better deals. I used my first responder discount, S22 Ultra trade-in and the standard discount that's Samsung is offering on deal of the day. I got a free upgrade to the 512 GB model and after everything was all said and done it was exactly $280 and I should have it on the 20th
