Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Review: Expensive But Ingenious

Three new Samsung S22 models have hit the market this month. And the most generous of them all is, the Samsung S22 Ultra model. Upon the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra review, our users found many ingenious functions that we are going to share.

The all-new Samsung S22, has advanced specifications, the largest screen, many cameras, and more. Besides, this new model has fully supported with the S Pen, which was previously reserved for Samsung’s Note phones.

Moreover, the new S Pen also functions with the predecessor S21 Ultra, but the S22 Ultra is the first S model to have a chamber for the pen-like Samsung Note phones.

Is this an indication that Samsung will no longer continue to make its Note models? At least it Notes are not coming in the market because the autumn launch is now reserved for phones that can be folded.

Greatest Screen Ever

In the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra review, its display comes first because it is what people check at the beginning. There has rarely been any doubt that Samsung makes good mobile displays.

All the three S models have brightness further screens. In particular, the new S22 has got an upgrade from a maximum of 1500 nits in the S21 Ultra to a maximum of 1750 nits. Brightness is especially good on sunny days, and regardless of lighting conditions, you will have no problems seeing the content on the screen.

Like its predecessor, it has a Dynamic AMOLED screen. But it has a higher resolution than the S21. It has 1440 x 3088 pixels. Moreover, the display comes with a 500-pixel density per inch which is 99 pixels higher than the S21. Therefore – it appears very sharp.

As befits a top model in 2022, the screen has a 120 Hz image refresh rate. But the most interesting thing about the S22 is, you can adjust it down to 1 Hz if nothing happens on the screen. And it can save your battery significantly.

Superior Battery Power Enough for Two Days

On this Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra review, the battery comes second. It has a staggering 5000 mAh battery, as big as on the S21 Ultra. It means the S Pen chamber has not made it necessary for Samsung to cut down on the battery capacity.

Though there is nothing much to say about this, there is something significant. It can be charged with 45 watts of power (vs 25 watts on the S21 Ultra). In that case, it requires a specific charger and you cannot use someone else’s. On the other hand, wireless charging has a maximum charging capacity of 15 watts.

It is admittedly not as generous a charging effect as several of the Chinese manufacturers offer. Some can go over 100 watts.

According to our Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra review, it takes you at least around 20 minutes to reach 0-50% charge. Our experience is that we typically go to bed with 30-40 per cent battery left after 3-4 hours of screen time during the day. So with moderate use, you can manage two days here. If you only play or do heavier things on the phone, you will probably be able to drain the battery before bedtime as well.

Protected By Gorilla Glass Victus

The phone is also protected by Gorilla Glass Victus + on both sides. It is glass so new that we do not even find information about the improvements on Corning’s website. Samsung has also used what they call “armoured aluminium” in the construction of the chassis. And both the phone and the pen are IP68-certified. Therefore, it can withstand a dip, though Samsung warns against pool and saltwater.

In other words, in terms of construction, there is little to complain about on the S22 Ultra.

Another thing to say in this Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra review is the fingerprint reader. It is located behind the glass. And it is an ultrasonic fingerprint reader. Though it is not the fastest but should be the safest after signing.

On the S22 Ultra, the screen curves slightly at the edges. Maybe it would be better if it had a perfectly straight screen, like the other two S22 models since it has a drawing pen, and curved edges have a lot of disadvantages.

All New S Pen: Smartest till Now 

Samsung has always made small improvements to the S Pen from generation to generation. And those improvements are both in terms of technology and features.

This time, for example, the delay is reduced from 9 ms to 2.8 ms (milliseconds). It means that the line displayed on the screen follows the movements better than ever without much visible delay. Still, the phone can also detect how hard you press the pen against the screen with 4096 different levels.

Functionally, we have seen a lot before. But the new can take a quick note. For example, link it to a website, an SMS call, or social likes, it typically works with Samsung’s apps. But it will not do this if you use Chrome as a browser, for example.

If you love to draw, colour, or whatever it is, you will find many nice drawing features in the PenUp app that comes with it. And the Samsung Notes also has a lot of pen functionality. For example, if you want to translate handwriting into typescript, it works well, but for the undersigned’s is much slower than just using the on-screen keyboard.

The New and Powerful Processor

Processor is one of the focal points of every review and the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra review is not different from that.

Samsung S22 phones are the first with Samsung’s new Exynos 2200 processor. It is made on 4 nm (nanometers) production technology. In the US and some other regions, Samsung usually uses a Snapdragon processor from Qualcomm. For S22, Samsung used Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, which is also a 4 nm type technology. The reason for this is said to be that Qualcomm has patents that make it more expensive for Samsung to use its processors in these countries.

The first tests we have seen of the two show no dramatic differences. And to be honest, there are also no dramatic differences in the results we get in performance tests this year versus last year’s models.

The processor performance has been slightly improved, the graphics performance is a bit more. But it is the so-called NPU (neural processing unit), used for artificial intelligence. Moreover, it has received a significant boost this time. Samsung claims that it doubled its performance. 

The boost in the processing power is helping with image processing, calculation of depth information in the image, and more. Besides, the improved performance is also partly responsible for the shorter delay on the pen since artificial intelligence features are constantly working to predict your movements with the pen.

Extreme Camera Rig

Last but not least, the camera is the last topic of the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra review.

The all-new S22 has four cameras on the back. But they have roughly the same layout as last year’s S21 Ultra. Besides, the main camera has the “largest pixel sensor so far” according to Samsung’s marketing.

But ultimately, it has the same chip as last time. Though, the focal length on the S22 is shorter than S21 by 0.3 (physical) millimetres. So, the image section is a bit wider on the S22 Ultra than on the S21 Ultra.

The main camera still offers a slightly insane 108-megapixel resolution, with an aperture of f / 1.8 and a chip size of 1 / 1.33 “. On the other hand, Nine and nine pixels are combined into one by default. So, the images that come out are 12 Mp, unless you actively select full resolution.

When it comes to the 3x and 10x lenses, S22 has slightly smaller sensors than the S21 Ultra. Moreover, the resolution and aperture on the two are the same as last.

According to our review, though the image quality is virtually the same on the telephoto lenses, there are some more details in the images from last year’s S21. 

Our Overall Opinion

Now let us provide our overall opinion and draw an end to the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra review.

We did not find enough improvements rather than the NPU performance and S Pen. On Samsung S22, the first and foremost improvement is its increased performance in the NPU, because it has a better signal processing capacity than S21. 

We think difficult backlight situations are handled very well in this model. And we see in the night photos that the S22 Ultra lasts up with very good quality. The phone is more able to preserve the colours when it gets dark than the S21 Ultra. On the other hand, it gives us better details and control of the light sources.

Samsung S22 Ultra Pros and Cons