Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra

amazon Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra reviews

Samsung often manufactures two lines for high-end phones, Galaxy Note and Galaxy S, and releases one line at the beginning of the year and another at the end of the year. The emergence of foldable phones prompted the company to think about keeping either the S or the Note series if it did not want to crowd the market with high-end phones vying against one another.

One year since there was no launch of a Note series by Samsung, it looks like the company has finally shelved this phone line. But lo and behold, the Galaxy Note is back after 2 years, all shaped and full of feature goodness, yet under the new name Galaxy S22 Ultra. By putting the Note with the Galaxy S series, Samsung would be able to keep two product lines.

Design: still the same Galaxy Note

It is hard to distinguish between the front view of Galaxy S22 Ultra and that of Note 20 Ultra. The phone itself generally is similar in design to the generation of Note before it. The only thing that has changed is the camera cluster at the back. The cameras of the S22 Ultra are placed individually on the back, not on the usual “induction cooker”. For me, this camera arrangement looks less heavy, especially when the device has up to 4 rear cameras and a laser focus sensor placed in the lens like a camera.

The same thickness and weight that afflicts this phone are shared with the S21 Ultra, at 8.9mm and 228g. Holding it casually in one hand should not be a problem, thanks to the rounded edges, not so baroque and tight like what the Apple iPhone 13 Pro does with its square edge design.

The quality of construction is excellent. On the product I tried, there were no gaps formed along the contact lines between the metal frame and the back or between the screen. Different materials have different shrinkage. If the quality of the processing is bad, one can easily see gaps present between the different materials, such as glass and metal on the phone.

He add, in terms of materials, the front and the back of the Galaxy S22 Ultra are Corning Gorilla Glass Victus +. The aluminum frame is called Armor Aluminum by Samsung. This is the type of alloy used on Fold3 and Flip3 folding phones, which Samsung advertises as the most rugged on today’s phones. The rear surface of the S22 Ultra is ever-so-slightly roughened to limit fingerprints.

Unlike other Note series smartphones, it comes equipped with an S Pen slot. This slot would be very much waterproof from the inside, similar to all other previous Note editions. IP68 certification is achieved by the smartphone itself. This means that water can be up to 1.5 meters in depth for a period of 30 minutes. Galaxy S22 Ultra has an introduction in 7 different colors.

Screen: high brightness, comfortable outdoor use

The three devices of the Galaxy S22 series indeed use AMOLED screens with a 120Hz refresh rate; but especially for S22+ and Ultra, a very high peak of 1750 nits can be achieved. However, the LTPO screen is the only feature on the Ultra version, allowing the screen to change the refresh rate relative to what it is displaying and thus saves battery even further.

The scanning frequency on the Ultra version may evidently be adaptively set at 1Hz, but personally, I have found that it works even at 24Hz in sleep because when you’re using it for browsing online, it operates at 60Hz while some games use a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz.

Regarding panel quality, the S22 Ultra screen is fantastic. All colors, as viewed under its vivid setting, come out loud without the danger of over saturation. The peak brightness of this display is incredibly high, so lovely outdoors even when it comes out of doors into strong sunlight. Apart from the considerable increase in peak brightness, the screen glass also plays an important role due to its low reflectivity.

Comparatively, I think the S22 Ultra is slightly brighter and a bit less hard to see than the iPhone 13 Pro Max under the blazing sun.

Under-screen ultrasonic fingerprint sensor of S22 Ultra works smoothly, almost instantly for fingerprint recognition and high stability that rarely needs a second touch to unlock the phone. Besides that, this phone is also opened by face recognition speed that is not inferior to fingerprint security but less secure than fingerprint.

Performance and Software

Similarly to previous generations, Samsung would still apply their 2 in 1 homegrown Exynos (Exynos 2200) and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon (Snapdragon 8 Gen 1) processors to the upcoming Galaxy S series. The only difference for this version is the selling of this year in many markets using the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.

Both Exynos 2200 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processors are made based on 4nm technology, have similar 1 + 3 + 4 CPU layout, and come integrated with 5G wave chips. As I haven’t had hands-on experience on the Ultra version using Exynos 2200, according to the technology pages, the one using Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip gets more praises.

As expected of a flagship, the S22 Ultra remains cream smooth in daily life. It switches between applications quickly and often plays quite heavy graphics games without any hitch, all marshmallow smooth with its refresh rate at the 120Hz line. After about half an hour of playing Pubg Mobile and Genshin Impact games, I felt the phone warm up, but it did not act in performance to balance the temperature.

For the “stress test,” I ran 5 times Antutu consecutively; the results showed that Antutu performance scores went down afterward, but not significantly-this was just approximately 10-13%. Prior to that, I conducted the same kind of “stress test” on the Galaxy S21 Ultra with Exynos 2100 and an iPhone 13 Pro Max, with these participants showing a significantly higher performance decrement, being from 18-22%. Thus, we can say that the S22 Ultra version using Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is indeed performing well in heat dissipation and does not squeeze performance when heavily loaded.

When it comes to memory, we have noted that the S22 Ultra does not have a memory card slot like the S21 Ultra. Therefore, if you are a heavy gamer and take photos and videos on your phone, the standard 128Gb version may not suffice for your storage needs. So at the time, the 256Gb or 512Gb version was a more reasonable option.

In terms of software, the S22 Ultra currently ships with a customized One UI 4.1 version based on Android 12. Samsung has promised to bring the Galaxy S22 series four Android updates; hence the device will be upgraded to Android 16. The security updates will also come for five years. This is the best commitment to updates found in Android phone makers these days, surpassing even Google.

where can you get a Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra online

SAMSUNG Galaxy S22 Ultra Cell Phone, Factory Unlocked Android Smartphone, 128GB, 8K Camera & Video, Brightest Display Screen, S Pen, Long Battery Life, Fast 4nm Processor, US Version, Phantom White: Buy it now

SAMSUNG Galaxy S22 Ultra Cell Phone, Factory Unlocked Android Smartphone, 128GB, 8K Camera & Video, Brightest Display Screen, S Pen, Long Battery Life, Fast 4nm Processor, US Version, Phantom Black: Buy it now

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra 5G 512GB 12GB RAM Factory Unlocked (GSM Only | No CDMA – not Compatible with Verizon/Sprint) Global Version – Green: Buy it now

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra S9080 5G 512GB 12GB RAM Factory Unlocked (GSM Only | No CDMA – not Compatible with Verizon/Sprint) Global Version – Burgundy: Buy it now

S Pen

The S Pen of the S22 Ultra is equivalent in size and function to the Note 20. Samsung asserts that the S Pen of S22 Ultra’s latency is improved by 70% when compared with the latency of its predecessor and older generations. The very slightest difference is felt during active usage between S Pen of S22 Ultra and Note 20 Ultra, because we are talking about a time lapse in milliseconds.

S Pen writes beautifully on Ultra S22 with high recognition speed, setting Galaxy Note series apart from Samsung’s other products and any other brand in the market. It is ideal for jotting down quick notes or sketching out to-dos directly onto the phone with a pen much more quickly than with a virtual keyboard.

Also, the S Pen will appeal to phone artists with its support for a wide range of strokes and high responsiveness and flexibility. Apart from note-taking or drawing, I also tend to use the S Pen a lot during photo editing, area capturing on the screen, or circling some vital things, among others.

Camera

The camera specifications of the S22 Ultra are at par with those of the S21 Ultra, namely, the Quad-System Rear Camera comprised of 108MP main, 12MP super wide, 10MP telephotographic with 3X zoom and 10X tele, 40MP front camera. The camera mainly changes through the software algorithms and image processing chips that are embedded within the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 or Exynos 2200 processors.

I have been using the S22 Ultra side-by-side with the iPhone 13 Pro Max, iPhone 13 Pro, for the last two weeks for quite a large number of scenes. The S2 Ultra, the iPhone 13 Pro Max, and iPhone 13 Pro do have their pros and cons. I consider the S22 Ultra to slightly precede the iPhone 13 Pro in the night shots, backlit shots, front camera-selfies, and telephoto zoom shots.

Both one does an excellent job of blurring the subject in portrait photography. But I would say that S22 Ultra looks more natural when it renders skin color compared to being so red on iPhone 13 Pro Max. Nonetheless, when in good daylight, I have found that the S22 Ultra main camera tends to overexpose images relatively more than usual compared to the iPhone 13 Pro Max.

In conjunction with the launch of the S22 Ultra, Samsung also launched the Expert RAW application for people interested in RAW photography. The app is available for download on the Galaxy Store. This is a separate application; not pre-loaded. Expert RAW takes a burst of images and stitches them together into one DNG image file. This app should interest photographers because it allows producing images with a lot of editing information to make a better photograph than that obtained from a normal camera.

Battery Life

The S22 Ultra offers a powerful battery capacity of 5,000 mAh with full support for 45W fast charging and 15W Qi/PMA wireless charging along with 4.5W wireless reverse charging. There is only a cable inside the box, so you will need to purchase a 25W or 45W charger to charge the phone quickly. During charging, I tested the device with a 25W charger and the full battery in 72 minutes; I have not tested the 45W charger, but I have seen a great number of reviews claiming that the 45W charging gives about 7-10 minutes less time on the whole. So it is not really necessary for anybody to go out of their way to buy a 45W charger if he already has a valid 25W charger.

The battery life of the S22 Ultra is almost the same, as experienced with the S21 Ultra last year. No doubts can arise regarding the S22 Ultra being good enough to be easily used for a long day of hard work. Uses like web surfing and online movies account to about 9 percent battery drain per hour over Wi-Fi network at half screen brightness. Battery-draining graphic-intensive hours of gaming gives 16 percent drain per hour. In the sleeping mode, the phone drains quite slowly, about 3-4 percent overnight.

Summary

After two years, the Note series’s fanatics have been blessed with a huge upgrade. This is a smartphone that has an AMOLED display with support for today’s elite S Pen stylus, great performance, massive battery capacity, and flexible camera systems. The finish of the build is equallygood. The lack of a memory card slot and no bundled charger are easily overlooked as they are a general trend amongst those top-end smartphones today.

If Samsung were to look at an area where it needs to do better regarding the S22 Ultra, I would place my finger on the issue of overexposure on sunny days in outdoor photos. It would be great if the company would work to rectify this in a future software update.