Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra preview

Intro

Samsung might have stopped making the Galaxy Note phone series in 2021, but that doesn’t mean that the Note idea is gone. The company has taken the best out of the Note lineup, with S Pen and stand-out design, and merged it with the essence of the Galaxy S series, powerful cameras and all, to finally arrive at the ultimate all-in-one phone: the Galaxy S22 Ultra.

Design

Extra large, extra durable

The Galaxy S22 Ultra is easy to recognize in a crowd: its signature sharp edges and camera styling stand out. It’s a glass and metal sandwich design, like you’d expect, due with Corning’s tough Gorilla Glass Victus on both front and back, with an aluminum frame in the middle.

The sharp edges and slightly wider form factor, make this phone appear bigger than even some quite large phones. Those looking for something more compact would definitely have a hard time with the size of the S22 Ultra (the smaller Galaxy S22 might be the best fit).

Power and volume buttons are on the right, you get a USB-C port on the bottom, no headphone jack is present, and you won’t find a microSD card slot either. On the plus side, the whole package is water and dust protected with an official IP68 certification.

Display Quality

Latest generation AMOLED panel with adaptive refresh rate

The screen is a giant 6.8 inches in diagonal, the latest generation Super AMOLED technology, with tiny bezels and an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate. There is a tiny punch hole camera at the center top.

What hasn’t changed is the fingerprint scanner. Samsung uses an in-screen fingerprint reader with ultrasonic tech, which has the benefit of not blinding like optical scanners when you unlock your phone at night. Face recognition uses a 2D image, so it’s not quite as secure as say Face ID on iPhones, but it gets the job done nonetheless and we appreciate having it.

S Pen

Lowest latency for a pen-to-paper feel

Just like a Note phone, the Galaxy S22 Ultra will have an S Pen tuck neatly inside the phone, so you can take it out and use it easily at any time.

Physically, the S Pen is projected to look identical to the one on the Note 20 Ultra, the last available Note. However, it will have a much faster, 2.8ms response time. This is a 3X improvement in latency compared to the 9ms on the Note 20 Ultra. Impressive stuff and clearly the best that Samsung has done so far!

S Pen software is expected to remain extremely similar to what we have on the Note series, including cool features like lockscreen notes and Air Gestures.

Performance and Software

Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 in the US, but Europe gets an Exynos model instead

As always with Samsung flagships, there is a bit of a controversy with the processor under the hood. The Galaxy S22 Ultra will have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 in the US, but the UK and Europe seem to be getting a Samsung-made Exynos 2200 processor instead, and traditionally those Exynos chips have been a bit slower and a bit less power efficient as the Snapdragon counterparts. 

As you can see on the image above, the Snapdragon chip has a nearly 10% CPU advantage over the Exynos 2200 model (less in multi-core performance), and we wouldn’t be surprised to see a difference in battery life and even camera quality. Of course, more testing is due this year and no assumptions should be made until the phone actually launches, but that’s the early scoop.

Interestingly, the base model Galaxy S22 Ultra will have less RAM than last year: with an 8GB RAM version being the base one vs 12GB RAM on the previous edition. You will be able to get a 12GB S22 Ultra for a slight premium, though, and it might just be that the US will get a 12GB RAM version as the base while other markets will only get 8GB, but again, time will tell with more certainty.

Camera

Nearly identical hardware, but with software improvements 

The camera specs of the S22 Ultra also haven’t changed much at all, they are virtually identical to the ones on the S21 Ultra:

With sensor size and pixel count remaining the same, the only slight hardware change seems to come in the form of a rumored slightly wider field of view on the main camera. The S21 Ultra already had a wider-than-usual 24mm lens, and the S22 Ultra might go for an even wider 23mm main camera.

There is also a lot of excitement around the new Samsung Expert RAW feature that provides 16-bit RAW capture and professional level camera controls, and we’re eager to test this in more detail.

Teasers also mention big improvements in low-light video recording, and those are all things that we will test once we get a hold of the phone.

Audio Quality and Haptics

It’s not a surprise that the S22 Ultra will not feature a headphone jack, just like the previous model. If you want to use wired headphones, you’d need to buy an adapter or get a pair of USB-C headphones (not included in the box with the phone).

For phone audio, you have two loudspeakers: a bottom-firing main one and a helper speaker in the earpiece. We are yet to test them, but with the larger size of the phone chances are we will get improvements in audio quality.

Battery Life and Charging

5,000mAh battery with fast charging

However, don’t expect exactly the same real-world battery life, as expectations for a more frugal display panel and a more power-efficient chip, should help get slightly higher battery numbers than previously.

We will update this section with our independent battery tests once we actually test the phone, so stay tuned for that.

Samsung has done a bit of a back and forth with charging: it supported 45W charging speeds a couple of years ago in the Note 10 series, only to remove support in later flagship phones and limit them to 25W. But this year, the Galaxy S22 Ultra is said to get the full 45W charging goodness. Of course, in line with modern trends, don’t expect a charger included in the box. Samsung is expected to launch a new and more compact 45W charger, though, and that would be a perfect fit with the S22 Ultra.

Competitors

With a leaked base price of some $1,300, the Galaxy S22 Ultra is a premium phone through and through.

The competition, at least in the US, currently comes from two places: the iPhone 13 Pro Max being the big seller, and the Google Pixel 6 Pro being probably the best Android alternative.

Summary and Final Verdict

Samsung has teased an Unpacked event where it will show the Galaxy in all its glory for early February, and you’d better wait out our detailed review, with camera samples and battery tests, that is coming soon. 

But if there was one Android phone to be excited about in 2022, this new Galaxy has got to be it.