On paper that’s true, but how much does that actually translate to your day to day though, especially if OP has a snapdragon variant of the s21 ultra? I upgraded from a phone using a SD865 to one with a 8 gen 2. While it’s noticeably faster, I wouldn’t call the difference significant, and those chips are 4 generations apart. I believe you’re vastly exaggerating how big of a performance difference you’ll notice between modern smartphones that are a generation or 2 apart considering the fact that the average user is primarily using applications that don’t use more than a couple of cores.

Fair enough, but by that logic why not just get the base model then and save hundreds of dollars? The only difference a casual user would for sure notice between the two would be that the plus is bigger and perhaps that the battery is better if they had the 2 for awhile. My point was that the better value is to either spend a little more and get the ultra or to spend a bit less and get the base version which is very comparable to the plus. If we’re using your example here and talking about someone’s grandma, why wouldn’t you just get the base version and save yourself a bunch of money? The type of person you’re describing would be better off with the base s23. That’s what the model is intended for in the first rplace. A person who wants the newest, fastest phone, but doesn’t care about all the bells and whistles. That’s exactly what the s23 is.

I’ve seen people say that the s23+ is about 95% of the Ultra quite a few times, but I disagree with that. I would say that the base s23 is about 95% of the plus with the plus having a bigger screen, battery and charging speed while the plus is about 80-85%% of the Ultra. The plus is an excellent phone, but it’s not quite that close to the ultra. The s23 ultra has a bigger screen, a bigger battery, better cooling, more cameras, improved cameras, the s-pen, and a higher resolution display. This imo makes the plus the worst value of the lineup. This doesn’t mean the phone is bad, just the worst value in terms of everything you’re getting for the price. It’s a similar story for the s22 and s21 series as well. The s23 plus sold the least amount of copies of the entire lineup likely as a result of this. In terms of value the base version and the Ultra are the ones to go for unless there is a deal that leaves a much wider price disparity between the models.