Many people were surprised when rumors began to fly about the exclusion of the Note line from the release schedule. The Note is responsible for pushing larger screens and the resurgence of the stylus in modern devices. It is a triumph, no matter how you slice it.
The return of the GALAXY Note series should have been possible with the introduction of the GALAXY S22 Ultra.
I think this branding is very confusing. There was no reason for the company to do what it did. It would have made more sense if it had been released the same way as the Note 22. The design of the S22 is very different from the rest of the family, and it is clearly based on the design of the Note 20 Ultra.
The S22 Ultra pushes the boundaries of what a mobile phone can do. A cutting-edge display, incredibly powerful processor, substantially improved cameras, and even an S Pen inside the body. The Note enthusiasts have been waiting for this phone.
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That last thought precludes the S22 Ultra's audience. This phone is an enthusiast's phone. The S21 Ultra is $100 more than last year&s S21, despite the fact that the model with 33% less RAM and storage was offered.
Is the S22 Ultra worth it? Find out in our review.
The cheapest phone in the world, the Galaxy S22 Ultra, starts at $1,199 and only offers 8 and 128gigabyte of storage. The launch price is the same as the S21 Ultra but has less RAM.
The remaining models of the S22 Ultra have additional storage and more memory. The cheapest version of the S22 Ultra with 12 gigabytes of RAM and 512 gigabytes of storage is $1,299.
The four colors of the S22 Ultra are Phantom Black, Phantom White, Green, and Burgundy. Three additional colors can only be obtained by ordering the phone from the website. You can pre-order the S22 Ultra right now and it will be delivered around February 25.
You will know what to expect if you have ever used the Note 20 Ultra. The camera on the back of the Note 20 Ultra is the same as the camera on the S22 Ultra. Since this phone is the proper successor to that device, anyone who upgrades will feel immediately familiar with it.
Anyone upgrading from the Note 20 Ultra will feel immediately familiar with the Galaxy S22 Ultra. They're practically identical on the outside.
| Category | Galaxy S22 Ultra |
|---|---|
| Operating System | Android 12 with One UI 4.1 |
| Chipset | Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 |
| Display size | 6.8-inches Edge, Dynamic AMOLED 2x, 3088 x 1440 The refresh rate is 1-120Hz. |
| Frame | Gorilla Glass Victus+ front and back, Armor Aluminum frame |
| Memory | 8GB or 12GB |
| Storage | 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB |
| Expandable Storage | No |
| Rear Camera | 108MP, ƒ/2.2, 0.8μm, (85-degree wide-angle)12MP, ƒ/2.2, 1.4μm (120-degree ultra-wide)10MP, ƒ/2.4, 1.12μm, 3x optical zoom (telephoto) 10x optical zoom. |
| Front Camera | 40MP, ƒ/2.2, 80-degree wide-angle |
| Battery | 5,000mAh45W Fast Charging15W Wireless Charging 4.5W reverse wireless charging. |
| Security | in-display ultrasonic fingerprint scanner (4x9 mm size) |
| Wireless | Bluetooth 5.2, 5G, Wi-Fi 6E |
| Dimensions | 163.3 mm x 77.9 mm x 8.9 mm |
| Weight | 229g |
| Water and dust resistance | IP68 |
| Colors | Phantom Black, Phantom White, Green, Burgundy Red, Blue, and Grey are exclusive to the website. |
As someone who has owned multiple Galaxy Note devices over the years, I've never liked the boxier design the series took on, which began with the Note 10.
This design is not as comfortable as the regular S22. I think it is a step back from the S21 Ultra, with its lovely curves that make it more pleasant to hold, especially one-handed.
The boxier design of the series began with the Note 10 and I have never liked it. The S21 Ultra got S Pen support last year and I was happy to see it.
Too bad that was brief.
I don't like using 90-degree phone corners.
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I had thought I scratched up the back pretty noticeably. Thankfully, removing them was as simple as wiping the back of the phone with a microfiber cloth.
The fogged glass back and perfectly rounded edges of the phone make it difficult to hold onto in colder or less humid weather.
The S22 Ultra is the first phone in the world to have Gorilla Glass, and it seems to do an admirable job of keeping scratches at bay. I thought I scratched up the back in the image above. It was easy to remove the scratches with a microfiber cloth.
The camera module design is terrible. The five massive cameras protrude from the back of the phone, and when laid down on a table, toss the phone off balance. Many modern phones wobble because of their off-center camera modules, but this one is particularly annoying because it makes note-taking on a flat surface more difficult than it should be.
Since the S22 Ultra has no metal structure like the rest of the S22 family does, the camera modules are going to attract dust, lint, and hair in your pockets.
It would be better if they were easy to clean off. The only way I could remove the dust was to wash it off, and the only way I could dry it was to use a microfiber cloth. It is difficult.
The metal design around the camera of the S21 and S22+ is very attractive to me. The disconnected lens design of the S22 Ultra is ugly. I don't like the design of this phone.
Overall, I'm not a huge fan of this phone's design.
If this will make you crazy, I'm sure to get one of the best cases for the S22 Ultra. Personally, I prefer the Case Borne case and the Wallet Slayer case, both of which will make the S22 Ultra even more comfortable to hold.
The design is good for housing the S Pen inside. The S22 Ultra is 2mm shorter and 2mm wider than the S21 Ultra, which is impressive.
Given there's little difference in the size of the S22 Ultra compared to the S21 Ultra, it's impressive to see Samsung somehow got an S Pen to fit inside.
The S Pen has been improved with a nice finish that makes it easier to hold onto than previous Note S Pen models. It is still the same pen, so don't expect a big redesign or even a particularly comfortable pen for larger hands.
The S21 Ultra and S22 Ultra had a reduction in the time taken from 9 ms to 2.8 ms. The S Pen feels even closer to writing with an actual pen on paper as it only takes 2.8 milliseconds to draw from the moment you place the pen on the display. In our video review, Tshaka shows this in his slow-mo comparison between the S22 Ultra and the Note 20 Ultra.
The rubber tip of the pen feels much less like glass than it did in the past. The hardware got some noticeable improvements that make the difference, even though the S Pen software is the same.
The S Pen now feels even closer to writing with an actual pen on paper.
A year goes by when there is no improvement to its displays. The rest of the display has been further improved despite the fact that this is still an Edge curved display.
This year's LTPO tech lets the device drop to as low as 1Hz when static images are displayed on the screen.
It might retain the same WQHD+ resolution and 120Hz refresh rate as last year's S21 Ultra, but this year's tech lets the device drop to as low as 1Hz when static images are displayed on the screen. All of the displays supplied by Apple, as well as the ones supplied by OnePlus, are supplied by the same company.
The refresh rate changes are based on what is happening on the screen. If you prefer the best battery life over the prettiest display, it is easy to lock the refresh rate to 60Hz at all times.
You can get a good balance between smooth game play and better battery life with the help of the gaming toolkit from SAMSUNG.
There are two new display technologies inside the S22 Ultra: Vision Booster and blue light blocking. The most harmful types of blue light are eliminated through an artificial intelligence method.
Vision Booster will increase the brightness of the display by up to 1750 nits when the phone is in direct sunlight. Most displays max out around 800 nits of brightness, while bright displays can go up to 1,000 or even 1,200 nits.
You won't have any trouble seeing this display in any lighting conditions. Ever.
The device was able to achieve 1358 nits of brightness when running a fully white video with adaptive brightness enabled. In any lighting conditions, you will be able to see this display. Ever.
The OneUI 4.1 is built atop of Android 12 and introduces a number of new features. The most monumental change in the history of smartphone development is what I want to address.
Samsung is committing to five years of software updates. That includes four major Android updates — up to Android 16 in 2026 — and five years of security updates in total.
Five years of software updates are promised by the launch of the S22 family. Five years of security updates and four major updates are included.
It means that you can rest assured that your phone will get the latest features and be secure for the next five years, and that's because it's the cream of the crop when it comes to software support. That is even better than what the company has promised so far.
The default messaging app of the GALAXY S22 will be the Google Duo Live Sharing and Google Messages.
Duo Live Sharing is a new feature that allows you to share your screen with others on a Duo video call. The current list of compatible apps seems a bit short, with Jamboard, Samsung Notes, Google Maps, and a few others announced as compatible for now.
Duo is the built-in video calling app for most phones, but it is not available on the other two phones.
When compared to other phones, the look of the S22 series looks very different from the other phones. I was overjoyed that it finally worked on it, and I thought it was a message from SAMSUNG.
The default choice out of the box is Google Messages, which is why the messaging app is sunsetting. That is good news for the future of RCS messaging.
Google Messages is the default choice out of the box. That's excellent news for the future of RCS messaging across Android phones.
As part of its new strategy, the company is offering up a Material You theme engine. When they support the Material You theme engine, the version of this now themes individual apps, including 3rd party ones.
The color picker screen shows a more detailed color scheme. Six colors are displayed in a vertical graph instead of the three-color pie chart from the original OneUI release.
I wish they would have swapped out the default launcher for something better as it is still garbage. It has an annoying bug that takes a good second or two for a 3rd party launchers to become usable after using gesture navigation.
The first tap on the phone will launch the default app instead of the one you wanted, which is more annoying than the bug in the Pixel 6.
This one is definitely a bug that needs to be fixed by either of the two companies. I worry about the new processor inside the U.S., Canadian, and Chinese versions because of the performance issues I ran into with the S22 Ultra.
At least a few times, I had issues with stuttery scrolling performance in apps like Twitter.
Questions have been raised about the ability of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 to regulate a good balance between heat output and performance. The S22+ feels like it has been sitting on asphalt for a few minutes after playing Genshin, as evidenced by the testimony of our own Michael Hicks.
I haven't had physical temperature issues with the S22 Ultra, but I ran across a few situations where the device seemed to struggle in odd ways. I had issues with stuttery scrolling performance in some apps, which can be seen in this video.
On one fateful Saturday, while playing for an hour and a half with my son, I came across something that looked like a heat-related visual glitch. These aren't just makeup. The game stutters while this happens.
I only found this glitch on a single day of testing. I was unable to duplicate it the next day, where I played for 3 hours with my son. On Tuesday, I played an hour and a half of Genshin Impact and didn't see any visual glitch. I was told that the glitch has been solved in a software update.
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The difference between the S22 Ultra and the S21 Ultra is not consistent. Our parent company, Future, found that the phone was 30 to 25% faster in games.
After the launch of the S22 family, the benchmark results turned out to be not quite accurate. Over 10,000 games and apps were slowed down by the performance of the processor. All except for benchmarking applications.
After patching the issue, it was banned from the GeekBench high score table and created a bit of a doubt about the performance of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor inside.
Over the past few weeks, I have found that the phone's performance slowed down noticeably. There are some obvious hitching that can ruin your performance in a close-quarters firefight and cause you to lose.
The battery life is not the same as the one in the S21 Ultra. That is not a good thing.
The Galaxy S22 Ultra could only stay alive for 8 hours, 50 minutes compared with the Galaxy S21 Ultra's 11 hours, 25 minutes.
According to the rundown test results, the S21 Ultra lasted 11 hours and 25 minutes from full charge to empty battery. Using the same test, the S22 Ultra only lasted 8 hours and 50 minutes.
Synthetic tests are not always a good representation of real-world use, but this one should give you an idea of what to expect. I had a hard time getting to the end of heavy use days without charging the phone.
I used to ration usage toward the end of the evening because most days ended with the battery in the single digits.
It is a good thing that the charging game has been increased to 45W. Yes, if a 45W charge was included in the box. There is no 45W chargers in the box. When the phone uses a new standard or increased wattage, I expect to get a charger in the box.
I am fine with the fact that the S22 and S22+ do not have a charger. People usually have 10W or 15W charging points at home. If you upgrade from a newer phone, you might have a 25W charge. Even if you are coming from a flagship phone, 45W chargers are rare.
At $1,200, I fully expect to get a charger in the box when the phone uses a new standard or increased wattage.
The crux of the matter is that a 45W won't charge the S22 Ultra any faster than a 25W. It doesn't sound like it makes a lot of sense, but tests consistently show that there is almost no difference in time between the two types of chargers.
It is not a big deal if you can get a 25W charge in 30 minutes. The battery life on the S22 Ultra is not bad, but it is not as good as we have seen from other flagships.
The camera experience on the latest phone can be better, despite the fact that most smartphone cameras are good enough.
The Galaxy S22 Ultra is tied with the Pixel 6 Pro in overall photo capture quality, while it takes the edge in video capture.
I had thought that this would be the year that the photo quality of the products of the companies would improve. Most of the wins in the categories below were picked up by SAMSUNG. The ability of the phone to zoom in to distant objects makes it better than any other phone.
It's easier to take better night shots without having to switch to dedicated night mode, thanks to the further improved software. Out of the box, the camera will decide what situations need more time to be captured.
The S22 Ultra has an upgraded main sensor, a 12MP ultra-wide-angle camera, and two 10MP telephoto lens, as well as a 3x optical zoom.
The main camera outputs a 12MP image, but you can force the full108MP resolution if you want. That 12MP image is derived from a process called Nona-binning, which means it takes the 108MP sensor and divides them into nine equal parts, the fusion of which results in a 12MP image.
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The Object Eraser feature can help erase things in photos that you would rather not see. The ability to automatically remove shadows and reflections is one of the new improvements.
The results are pretty great. The magic was achieved by just tapping the shadows or reflections button, which after a couple of processing, worked some magic that we haven't yet seen from SAMSUNG phones.
I am not sure how many people will go out of their way to use this feature on the regular because it is hidden in a sub-menu after you edit a photo in the gallery app.
It is a shame because it is both easy to use and returns impressive results.
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Over the past month of testing, it seems that the S22 Ultra trades blows with the Pixel 6 Pro in most lighting conditions.
The Galaxy S22 Ultra's photo processing is worse than the Pixel 6 Pro in situations where dynamic range is the most important aspect.
During the day, when objects are backlit from a window or heavy shadows, the Pixel 6's HDR algorithms always seemed to come out on top. The S22 Ultra has darker shadows and highlights in bright places like clouds, while the Pixel 6 does a better job of balancing these extremes.
The images are sharper and less processed when you zoom in on them. The default settings of the internet giant are far more accurate than those of the South Korean company.
The differences seem to change depending on the situation. In some cases, the photos of the two companies looked different. In nighttime photography, the processing edge of the Pixel drops considerably.
At times, the Pixel 6 Pro pulls out more detail. The S22 Ultra's photos were blurrier because of the jitter introduced by free-handing a longer exposure photo.
Either way, both phones shoot great photos in any lighting condition, and choosing a winner would be based on very specific situations.
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Oftentimes, the Galaxy S22 Ultra utterly failed to take even one decent picture of my son and his friends during the pillow fight at the birthday party.
When taking photos of a moving subject is one of the areas where the cameras still come up short. In our tests, pets or kids were shown to be outranked by the Pixel 6.
The winner didn't win because we were splitting hairs. My son and his friends had a pillow fight at his birthday party and the S22 Ultra failed to take a decent picture of them.
It was difficult to figure out what to do when motion occurs during a night mode shot.
Even when there was a lot of movement in challenging conditions, Google's artificial intelligence was able to identify faces and capture a clean, unblurred face almost every time.
In our video review, Tshaka was able to overcome many of these issues by sliding the shutter button over to take a series of burst photos, then choosing one that looked good. This is a good option for some people, but there is nothing quite like having a software that is smart enough to do this for you.
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The cards start to flip here. The new focus enhancer setting from SAMSUNG does a great job of making sure that your subject is always in focus.
The S22 Ultra does an excellent job of eliminating lens distortion, while the Pixel 6 Pro has trouble with objects up close. The examples above show how lens distortion tends to crop up on the Pixel 6 when taking shots at close range.
A combination of software processing tricks and swapping between cameras helps Focus Enhancer get the best focus.
The Galaxy S22 Ultra does an impeccable job of eliminating lens distortion, while the Pixel 6 Pro regularly has trouble with objects up close.
It can be difficult to get an automated macro mode to switch to the right camera in some circumstances, like taking a picture of a budding flower on a lone stalks.
This shot is not something I can get on a phone from close range. The only other option is to use the phone's 4x camera and stand back a bit, but that is difficult to do when the software on the phone constantly flickers between the different cameras.
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If you're looking for the very best telephoto camera, the Galaxy S22 Ultra is the phone for you.
If you want the best camera, the S22 Ultra is the phone for you. During the day, the duo of 3x and 10x telephoto cameras work in tandem to deliver unparalleled imagery, even among its previous phones with the well-marketed 100x Space zoom feature.
At zoom levels beyond 10x, the 10x optical telephoto zoom lens can work in tandem with the phone's other sensors to deliver an image that I can only describe as "beauty in raw form."
I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was possible to have a more raw look to its photos. Whether you want to see wildlife, read a sign far away, or just admire the architecture of a downtown building, the S22 Ultra has you covered.
If you are looking for a phone that zooms well in low lighting conditions without sacrificing detail, the S22 Ultra is probably still the right choice. The difference between the S22 Ultra and the Pixel 6 Pro is neck-and-neck in these types of lighting conditions.
During my weekly D&D session, the S22 Ultra did a better job of producing photos that were both free of noise and still full of detail.
The difference between the S22 Ultra and the Pixel 6 Pro is much more neck-and-neck in low lighting conditions.
Sometimes the results were flipped on their head when they dropped to much lower lighting conditions. The images of the S22 Ultra are sometimes very dark, grainy, and devoid of detail. In my follow-up S22 Ultra vs Pixel 6 Pro nighttime photo comparison, I found that the S22 Ultra did a better job at further zoom levels. The phone that wins depends on the situation.
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The processing of the ultra-wide camera on the S22 Ultra is similar to what the main camera does. That means shots are a bit overprocessed and oversharpened, typically slightly underexposed, and usually a little bit oversaturated.
The complaints verge on splitting hairs. Even if the Pixel 6 Pro slightly edges it out in the most important areas, the overall image quality that comes from the S22 Ultra is superb and is almost always a great image.
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The Galaxy S22 Ultra delivers a superior portrait mode shot in every single situation.
The new portrait mode on the S22 Ultra can be used on both front and rear cameras. This new feature uses object-identifying artificial intelligence and a sensor to better approximate the actual boundaries of objects in a photo.
The result is a better portrait mode. Even fine hairs and tricky objects, like the handle of a mug, are properly identified and kept sharp while the rest of the frame is blurred in a convincing DSLR-like manner.
Portrait mode has been upgraded with the ability to perform multi-frame capture when the camera sees low light situations. It has to be very dark out and the objects behind you have to be very dark as well.
Night mode will not kick in if there is a bright light behind you. The software seemed to do a good job of picking scenarios where night mode was necessary and automatically enabling the feature, but I would love a little more manual control over this.
If you like taking portraits, the S22 Ultra is the phone for you.
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The Pixel 6 Pro has a wider lens for group shots. I am not sure why the angle chosen for the front-facing cameras is very tight, but I am sure it is. At an arm's length away, your face will fill most of the frame of the shot, leaving little of your surroundings in the frame.
The front-facing camera of the S22 Ultra has more pleasant colors and more detail than the front-facing camera of the Pixel 6 Pro. The main rear sensor is the opposite of this one.
The Pixel 6 Pro offers a wider lens for group shots, but the Galaxy S22 Ultra's front-facing camera captures more pleasant colors and detail.
I would like to address a strange practice that is still being followed by the company. Out of the box, the S22 Ultra will have a display resolution of 1920 x 1200 and will record video in high definition from its front and rear cameras. It is not a good idea to save battery and storage space when we have plenty of local storage and free or inexpensive cloud storage.
I would be willing to bet that a lot of people never switch to 4k resolution on their videos. It is a travesty that the cameras do not do justice and need to be fixed immediately. Quality comparisons are next.
The front-facing video of the S22 Ultra is some of the best I have ever seen. This is a superior experience due to the fact that it can eliminate background audio, the lighting, the colors, and the white balance.
In the video above, I run through two scenarios; a well-lit day in a fairly thick bamboo forest, which introduces plenty of shadows and dimmer lighting conditions to boot, and my own backyard at night. The S22 Ultra did a better job than the Pro at capturing my voice and face.
The front-facing camera of the Pixel 6 Pro is in low light when you see it side by side. I would take the quality boost if I had to choose between the two.
The Galaxy S22 Ultra has some of the best, if not the very best, front-facing video I've ever seen.
The quality of daytime video is close to that of nighttime. The stabilization of the S22 Ultra is slightly better than that of the Pro, but I don't think anyone will be upset with either of these results.
The colors look great on both cameras, the detail is great, and the camera company does a better job of pulling in shadow detail at the end of the shot when I go deeper into the bamboo forest. Excellent stuff here.
As we saw with photo quality, the video quality is just as good. While both the S22 Ultra and the S6 Pro have the same 20x zoom limitation, the S22 Ultra does a better job of differentiating between the cameras while zooming.
The Galaxy S22 Ultra has no trouble swapping between cameras smoothly while zooming in or out.
While watching the video, look at how the S22 Ultra swaps between cameras as I zoom in and out to get a better view. The Pixel 6 Pro pops every time it swaps between cameras.
If cameras are your primary reason for choosing a phone, the Pixel 6 Pro is the most direct competitor to the S22 Ultra. While the S22 Ultra outclasses the S22 Pro in several areas, parents and pet owners will likely find that they prefer the better photo option, even when the subject is moving. You will save a few hundred bucks with the decision.
If you are more interested in S Pen function, the Z Fold 3 is a worthy alternative. With a larger, folding screen and all the excellent features that come along with that, the Z Fold 3 feels more like a proper notebook than the S22 ultra ever could. The S Pen is more comfortable. The Z Fold 3 is more expensive than the S22 Ultra, and the S Pen cannot fit into the Z Fold 3's frame, making it a cumbersome accessory to remember.
If you want an excellent, feature-rich phone and don't want to spend a lot of money, the S21 FE is half the price of the S22 Ultra and offers great cameras, a nearly identical OneUI experience, and a lot more. Fans of smaller phones should choose the smallest version of the S22, as it has better cameras than the S21 model and comes in a much smaller package.
You should buy this.
If you buy this, you shouldn't...
If you already own a Note 20 Ultra or even a S21 Ultra, it is difficult to upgrade to the S22 Ultra. Unless you absolutely need one of those two features, it is probably not worth the money.
The S21 Ultra is the most expensive flagship phone that the company has ever made, and it adds $100 to the price of the model.
If you want the best of the best, the S22 Ultra is the phone for you. Even if it is more power-hungry, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 that powers it is more powerful than the last year&s version.
The camera improvements made for people who like to zoom in a lot, record lots of video, or take advantage of that front-facing camera are enough to justify the upgrade price tag. It isn't the perfect phone, but it might be the perfect phone for you this year.
The Note comes with a different name but the same design, a cutting-edge processor and display, and the S Pen built-in. The new cameras are tailored to offer the best video recording capabilities and zoom detail of any phone, which will be great for people who like to post videos to social media.
The best deals on the S22 Ultra are here.
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