The Galaxy S22 Ultra takes over Samsung Note with the best phone display and S Pen so far
Ten years after the OG Galaxy Note, Samsung just made the merger of its S and Note lines official by announcing the new Galaxy S22 Ultra, its first flagship S-series phone with a built-in S Pen stylus silo. There is so much more to the elegant handset, though, that you’ll get dizzy just reading about all the new S22 Ultra features:
- First S-line phone with a built-in S Pen silo
- Elegant new island-less camera design
- The best phone display: 1Hz-120Hz refresh, 1750 nits HDR brightness
- Up to 1TB storage
- 45W charger hits 50% battery in 20 minutes
- Durable Armour frame
- New Burgundy and Green colors
- Record low 2.8ms S Pen latency
- Ray-tracing AMD Radeon DNA graphics (Exynos 2200)
Galaxy S22 Ultra preorder pricing and launch date
Chip shortages be damned, the S22 Ultra costs the same
The base 8GB/128GB model carries the exact same price tag as its S21 Ultra predecessor – $1199 – chip shortages and extra features be damned, while the 12GB/256GB and 12GB/512GB models will set you back $1299 and $1399, respectively.
| S22 Ultra memory/storage | S22 Ultra Price |
|---|---|
| 8GB/128GB | $1199 |
| 12GB/256GB | $1299 |
| 12GB/512GB | $1399 |
| 12GB/1TB | $1599 |
With the Galaxy S22 Ultra, who needs a Note 22?
How the S22 Ultra design fit both an S Pen silo and a 5000mAh battery
Let’s start with the biggest piece of news coming from Samsung in a while, folding the Galaxy Note line into the S series. Instead of a Note 22 release, the true Galaxy Note 20 Ultra heir is now the Galaxy S22 Ultra. It is more elegant, what with the separate lens circles just slightly jutting out of the rear surface instead of an ugly camera island, or the ultrathin bezels at the front.
Fret not, the curved display (another Note 20 Ultra takeaway) makes the significant S22 Ultra width more palatable as it would lie snug and fit in the palm, with easier to perform back navigation gesture. Well, it is slightly wider and thicker as Samsung needed that extra girth to not only fit the 5000mAh battery pack that made the S21 Ultra the longest-lasting flagship in its class, but also add the S Pen silo.
S22 Ultra, the design
All about the Galaxy S22 Ultra S Pen and its record low latency
The S Pen stylus that the S22 Ultra comes with is unique among all Samsung styli so far in that it features a record low input latency – down to just 2.8ms from 9ms – and is supported by a new WACOM digitizer in the phone’s display. The WACOM digitizer now reads with 480 instead of 360 circuits per second, boosting the handwriting character recognition speed significantly.
Samsung has even equipped the new S Pen with “enhanced AI-based coordinate prediction” algorithms that can forecast where your hand will take you based on the positioning and speed of the stylus tip and react accordingly much faster.
Integration with Samsung DeX and and the new Galaxy Tab S8 series allows to use the S22 Ultra as a palette while you doodle on the large 14.6″ canvas of the Ultra tablet, too.
The record-breaking Galaxy S22 Ultra display
Samsung reclaims the best phone display title
The Galaxy S22 Ultra comes with perhaps the best phone display so far. Granted, flagship OnePlus and Oppo phones already do the granular battery-saving 1Hz-120Hz dynamic refresh rate dance. The S21 Ultra already has crazy 1500 nits peak brightness.
Vision Booster is there to analyze the ambient light in real time and maximize color and contrast for better visibility, even under direct sunlight. In short, there’s no phone display like the S22 Ultra phone display so far.
The Galaxy S22 Ultra camera cracks the night photography
All about the tough shots
Samsung doesn’t shy away from a challenge and took the Galaxy S21 Ultra hardware to elevate it to one of the best mobile cameras for shooting in low-light conditions, or snapping a moving object. Here are our first Galaxy S22 Ultra camera samples at night for a quick preview of its new camera performance.
Galaxy S22 Ultra camera samples
A main camera with an improved 108MP sensor and wider aperture leads the photon collection, while new HDR algorithms stack tons of different exposures in a fraction of a second for the cleanest, sharpest night photos on a Galaxy so far. There is a new Adaptive Pixel technology that combines nona-binned physical pixels (i.e. information from a 3×3 pixel grid forming one giant virtual pixel) with a full-res 108MP photos for the best in sharpness and detail.
Not that the 12MP ultrawide camera with macro mode, or the 10MP 10x periscope and 3x telephoto zoom cameras aren’t benefiting from the new camera algorithms made possible by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset’s image processor, but they were already doing their niche duties with top-shelf performance to begin with.
The Galaxy S22 Ultra video capture performance is no less impressive, with a new Automatic Frame Rate feature that adjusts the frame count based on the surrounding light. The new Super Steady optical image stabilization system is up to 48% more effective than the OIS on the S21 Ultra while shooting videos, hence nearly eliminating the need for a tripod, too.
The S22 Ultra performance, in partnership with AMD
The Snapdragon 8 vs Exynos 2200 specs dilemma
For the first time since Samsung started equipping its phones with homebrew Exynos chipsets, the S22 Ultra with Exynos 2200 is the more interesting model than the one with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 we get in the U.S.
Not because of the throttling and heat performance under sustained load benchmarks, but because the Exynos 2200 is the first Samsung chipset after the partnership with AMD that carries a GPU with its mobile Radeon DNA 2 architecture. You know, the ray-tracing one that is in the PlayStation 5 or the Xbox X.
S22 Ultra Snapdragon vs Exynos chipset specs and features
| Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 | Exynos 2200 | |
|---|---|---|
| Production process | Samsung 4nm EUV | Samsung 4nm EUV |
| Processor cores |
1xCortex-X2@3GHz |
1x Cortex-X2 3x Cortex-A710 4x Cortex-A510 |
| GPU | Adreno 730, 30% faster and 20% more frugal | Ray-tracing Samsung Xclipse 920 with AMD RDNA 2 architecture |
| Modem |
X65 5G modem (integrated) up to 10 Gbps over 5G Global iSIM multi-SIM card support |
Samsung 5G modem (integrated) 5G downloads up to 10Gbps (mmWave), 5.1Gbps (sub-6GHz), or 3Gbps (4G LTE), 8xCA Uploads: up to 3.67 Gbps |
| AI co-processor | 7th Gen Qualcomm AI Engine | FP16 NPU |
| Video encode | 8K HDR10+ |
Up to 8K decoding: 60fps with 10-bit HEVC(H.265), 30fps with 10-bit VP9, AV1 Up to 8K encoding: 30fps with 10-bit HEVC(H.265), VP9 |
| Features support |
QHD+ @144Hz or 4K@60Hz display refresh Demura and subpixel rendering for OLED uniformity First 18-bit ISP, mega low light capture merges 30 images in one shot for brighter, sharper pictures Qualcomm FastConnect 6900: Bluetooth 5.2, Wi-fi 6E (up to 3.6GBps) |
4K@120Hz or QHD+ @144Hz display refresh up to 200MP in single camera mode, Single-camera 108MP @30fps, Dual-camera 64MP+ 32MP @30fps Integrated Secure Element (iSE) to store private cryptographic keys AMIGO performance optimization technology |
The AMD-based Xclipse 920 GPU of the Exynos 2200 doesn’t shine in benchmarks compared to the Adreno 730 in Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, but the ray tracing and variable rate shading support more than makes up for the synthetic scores. Moreover, it supports 4K resolution displays with up to 120Hz refresh rate, whereas the Snapdragon 8 makes do with 60Hz refresh support at that resolution only.
S22 Ultra is the fastest charging Galaxy S… or Note
5000mAh/50%/20 minutes
Recycled materials and cardboard packaging aside, the eco-friendly trend sweeping the tech industry will force you to buy at least one 45W charger from Samsung, the one you’ll need to charge the S22 Ultra.
Samsung finally caught up to the Chinese phone makers by introducing ultrafast charging on the S22 Ultra that can take the sizeable 5000mAh battery to 50% full in just 20 minutes, and top it off in under an hour.
We expect nothing short of greatness from the S22 Ultra battery life, too, as the phone ships with the newest frugal LTPO display and 4nm processor technologies, not to mention a screen refresh that can dip to just 1Hz when higher rates aren’t needed, like when you look at a static photo or read a document.
Samsung nailed the Note line merger into the Galaxy S22 Ultra highway with a phone just a Benjamin more than, say, an iPhone 13 Pro Max, yet offering the best mobile display or night camera kit, and a unique S Pen stylus integration. Check out our
to read how the phone looks and feels in reality while we put it through its review paces. Any takers from the Note camp?
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