Itel S23+ Review: A Solid Budget Contender Right Now

Itel, after being forgotten in the Indian lands for a few years, made a comeback and launched the Itel P55 5G along with the Itel S23+ under the catalog of budget Android smartphones. This smartphone has features that have never been seen in this price range. It features a curved AMOELD display with a built-in fingerprint scanner for just Rs 13,999. But what’s the catch? We will discuss that in this in-depth review of the Itel S23+ smartphone.

Itel S23+ Review

The Itel S23+ is available in two color options: Lake Cyan and Elemental Blue. The price tag of Rs 13,999 can be further slashed by Rs 1000 using card offers. With this smartphone, you get a free pair of itel T11 TWS headphones.

Itel S23+ Unboxing

Before we dive into the review, let’s unbox the itel S23 Plus and explore its contents.

Itel S23+
A hard, translucent case
An 18 Watt charger
USB Type-C cable
Quick start guide

Itel S23+: Design And Build

The Itel S23+ is made to dazzle anyone who is looking for a smartphone under Rs 15,000. The smartphone immediately greets you with a curved display. It is not only curved on the two sides but also the forehead and chin are ultra-thin. The punch-hole selfie camera is centrally aligned.

The smartphone’s rear is polycarbonate with a matte finish, giving the smartphone a premium look. It’s blue, but moving the phone through light reveals other shades of this beautiful color. The camera module takes one-third of the smartphone’s rear panel and protrudes a bit from the phone body.

Itel s23+ comes with a polycarbonate frame with a glossy finish all over. The top and bottom sides of the smartphone are flat to give it a premium feel, while the rear panel is curved on the sides to blend in perfectly with the frame. This makes the smartphone easy to grip and also improves the one-hand usage.

The left and top of the smartphone are empty except for the branding on the topside. The volume and power buttons are on the right side of the smartphone. Most of the ports and connectivity options are at the bottom, including the Type-C port, SIM tray, loudspeaker, and the primary microphone hole.

The Itel S23+ is only 7.5mm at its thinnest point, and even including the camera bump, it maxes out at 7.9mm. The smartphone also feels slimmer because of its curved front and rear panel, making it very lightweight at 178 grams and comfortable to hold.

Overall the smartphone looks and feels amazing to hold and use. Despite the material used, nothing in the design gives away the actual price of the smartphone. Itel also added a decent hard case to protect the smartphone from scratches and dents.

Itel S23+: Display

The brand added a curved display to the itel S23+ to lure the young generation looking for something fresh in the budget segment. The curved display is the new and fresh take that most smartphone manufacturers are currently trying. It not only looks great but at the same time improves the one-hand usability of the smartphone as well.

Itel S23+ comes with a large 6.7-inch AMOLED display with FHD+ resolution. It’s curved on both sides and comes with an in-screen fingerprint scanner. The display’s form factor is taller, and the bezels are also uniform, which looks awesome. It comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection with a basic screen protector applied to the screen.

This screen’s curve is very tight, which looks very premium. Other than the aesthetics, I found no interesting features related to this curved screen. I also checked this screen for palm rejection and found minor keyboard difficulties. That can be avoided by changing the keyboard settings.

Itel boasts 500 nits peak brightness; we tested this display on our brightness meter and got a 480 LUX score. This is a decent score for a budget smartphone, and it’s good that Itel’s claims are legit. The contrast is punchy, and this display’s color reproduction is excellent. Overall, this display is the best you can get at this price on a smartphone.

Itel S23+: Performance

The Itel S23+ has a Unisoc Tiger T616 processor with 8GB RAM and 256GB internal storage. The RAM can be extended to 16GB using the virtual RAM feature in the settings. There are some software features to boost the smartphone’s performance while gaming. It comes with 256GB storage, out of which 240GB is usable, which is enough for today’s standards, but it lacks an expandable storage option.

I ran the AnTuTu benchmark on this processor to see where it stands compared to budget-segment SoCs. The score was decent because, at this price, you get about the similar performance you are getting here. We got a 3 lakh score on AnTuTu, but you can easily get about 4 lakh score from Snapdragon 4 Gen 1. We can easily oversee this performance drop because Itel provides other amazing features at this price.

The only thing I found disappointing is that this SoC features a 4G modem. This could be a deal breaker for many people since 5G is widely used in India. If you keep this aside, the smartphone ran smoothly during my testing, and I found no glitches in performance. I also ran a few games like PUBG Mobile, and it ran smoothly at low graphics.

Everyday tasks are handled pretty effectively, and can multitask multiple apps simultaneously on the S23+. I found no performance drops or stutters throughout the testing period. So, if you can oversee the lack of 5G connectivity, this phone will not disappoint you in everyday performance.

Itel S23+: Operating System

Itel S23+ runs on the highly themed Itel OS 13 based on Android 13 but, at the same time, packs a lot of features. It has features like app lock, Social Turbo, and more personalization options. I found a few of these features useful in certain situations, while others are not.

I loved the Social Turbo set of features, which includes Video retouching to make you look good in video calls. Voice recorders let you record WhatsApp calls, which many people need. You can even easily save WhatsApp status to your smartphone without a third-party app. The default dialer app also lets you record voice calls automatically if you need it.

Apart from the features listed above, there are more features to explore in the ItelOS 13, which may sometimes come in handy for you. I found some glitches in the UI, like AOD crashing and more, but I don’t think that is a big issue because these issues aren’t consistent, and I didn’t find more anywhere in the OS.

Itel S23+: Camera

Itel packs a dual camera setup at the back and a single shooter at the front for selfies. The rear camera setup includes a 50 MP camera and a depth sensor. Some decent selfies can be captured using its 32MP front-facing camera. The itel S23+ can record up to 1080p FHD videos at 30 fps, which is decent for a smartphone at this price.

The camera app is also highly packed with features to try out in different situations. While we can’t expect OIS at this price point, the camera can still capture stable videos using some software tricks, and I must say that the results are good enough.

Itel S23+’s main 50 MP sensor can capture good shots in well-lit conditions and handles exposure well. The photos that come out of this camera setup are good, with sharp details and nice colors. Though it does post-process the pictures a bit, the results are very social media friendly.

: Shot from behind the window glass

You also get some features in the camera app like portrait, beauty, ultra steady, and Ultra HD. There is a Super Night mode that disappoints in low-light conditions as the image comes out grainy and lacks details. The selfies also come out great, and it also feature a portrait mode, which looks fantastic.

Itel S23’s 50MP shooter is perfect for anyone who loves to share pictures on social media. Even though it comes with Electronic Image stabilization, the video quality is not impressive. Overall, the camera quality is good enough for a smartphone coming at this price. You can check out the embedded pictures captured by Itel S23+ and decide for yourself.

Itel S23+: Battery and Charging

Itel S23+ comes with a 5000 mAh cell with some smart features to keep the battery healthy for longer. It supports 18-watt fast charging, and the charger is available in the box. According to Itel, the smartphone tops up to 100 percent in about 2 hours, and we found this claim correct in our testing.

And as far as the battery backup is concerned, I can easily get a whole day of usage with a full charge. You can also optimize the battery performance with some features in the settings, and an Ultra Power Saving mode is also available in extreme situations. Overall, the battery performance is pretty decent on this smartphone.

Itel S23+: Pros and Cons

After spending time with the itel S23+, here are the pros and cons to summarise my review.

Pros

Beautiful design and build.
Amazing display.
Decent camera performance.
Lots of software features.
Decent battery performance.

Cons

Mediocre performance.
ItelOS is a bit buggy.

Itel S23+ Review: Final Verdict

Itel S23+ is a great smartphone when it comes to the price-to-feature ratio. You get a great display with premium design and features. The 2-year warranty and free screen replacement make it a great value-for-your-money option in the segment. Lack of 5G connectivity may be a deal breaker for the majority since 5G is becoming very common. But I will still recommend this phone if you are looking for a good-looking smartphone with many software features and a decent camera at this price.

Check out our other reviews:

You can also follow us for instant tech news at Google News or for tips and tricks, smartphones & gadgets reviews, join the GadgetsToUse Telegram Group, or subscribe to the GadgetsToUse Youtube Channel for the latest review videos.