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Galaxy S22 presented: Samsung steals the most important new feature from itself
As with its predecessor, the S22 Ultra can be operated with the S Pen. Difference: If you don’t need it, the pen disappears in the smartphone’s housing.
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At the beginning of the year, Samsung introduced the Galaxy S22, S22 Plus and S22 Ultra smartphones. The top model of this year’s S-Class puts an end to the popular Note series, the remaining innovations are not very spectacular.
Weeks before the start of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Samsung is starting the smartphone year 2022. Three models will be coming in the next few weeks, including two devices from the upper middle class and one for the highest demands.
S22 Ultra replaces Note series
Although Samsung has long announced the end of the Note series, fans of the large smartphone with the pen could not really come to terms with it. Not even when Samsung offered support for the S Pen with the S21 Ultra last year, but forgot to accommodate it in the smartphone housing. That changes with the S22 Ultra, the first truly full replacement for a Galaxy Note. Because the flagship offers a shelter for the pen on the underside, without any annoying covers.
And even if Samsung speaks of a new standard in the mobile world with the S22, and thus primarily with the Ultra model, you can still look at the top-equipped device a little more soberly. The S22 Ultra is equipped with a 6.8-inch display, which has a slightly lower resolution of 3080 x 1440 pixels than its predecessor.
The screen refresh rate of the S22 Ultra is a maximum of 120 Hertz, and Samsung specifies the brightness as 1750 nits, i.e. 250 nits more than the already very good S21 Ultra. As usual, a quadruple camera snaps on the back, including the main camera with 108 megapixels (MP), an ultra wide-angle lens with 12 MP and two telephoto lenses with 10 MP each. These enable a 3x and 10x zoom. The selfie snap on the front takes pictures with 40 megapixels.
The Galaxy S22 Ultra comes in many different colors.
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Samsung relies on its own chips
The heart of the smartphone is the recently introduced Exynos 2200 processor with AMD’s RDNA 2 graphics card architecture. It remains to be seen how well the in-house chip will fare against the competitor Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.
The storage equipment of the Galaxy S22 Ultra offers a choice of eight gigabytes of RAM and 128 gigabytes of storage space, or 12 gigabytes of RAM with data storage in sizes of 256, 512 or 1024 gigabytes.
Samsung specifies the battery as 5000 milliampere hours (mAh), which is charged with 45 watts by cable or 15 watts wirelessly. In terms of price, the S22 Ultra also remains true to its predecessor: depending on the equipment, the device costs between 1250 euros (128 GB) and 1650 euros (1 terabyte). The S22 Ultra is available in black, white, green and burgundy, with three additional colors to choose from if you order directly from Samsung.
It’s cheaper too, but not by much
The price for entry into the S-Class number 22 can be reduced at the end of February insofar as there are cheaper variants within the product family with the S22 and the Plus model without Ultra. The model with a 6.1-inch screen starts at 850 euros, the version with a 6.6-inch diagonal starts at 1050 euros. Models are available in black, white, green and “pink gold” in terms of colour, and four additional colors are available when you order from Samsung’s online shop.
The biggest differences to the Ultra model are of course the equipment, the feel and the support of the S Pen – this is not the case. Both S22 basic models lack a telephoto lens and thus the 10x zoom. The main camera offers 50 megapixels, a little less than half of the Ultra camera. Selfies snap the S22 and S22 Plus with 10 megapixels.
The pink hue is only available on the S22 and S22 Plus.
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All models share the Exynos 2200 processor and AMD RDNA 2 graphics chip, the RAM for the S22 and S22 Plus is set to eight gigabytes. The battery in the small model offers 3700 mAh, the S22 Plus draws its power from 4500 mAh. Also exciting: While the S22 only charges with 25 watts on the cable, the S22 Plus supports 45 watts. Both devices charge wirelessly with 15 watts.
There are minor differences in the display of both smartphones. The 6.1-inch model has a resolution of 2340 x 1080 pixels and a brightness of 1300 nits, the S22 Plus has 1750 nits and a resolution of 2340 x 1080 pixels. Correct: The pixel density of the small model is higher – but that shouldn’t be noticeable in everyday use.
Savings on the scope of delivery
All devices in the S22 family support 5G, LTE, Wifi-Direct-Bluetooth 5.2 and Wifi 6, with the S22 Plus and Ultra even being Wifi 6E compatible. All work with Android 12 and OneUI 4.1. All devices are the same when it comes to the available sensors, as well as the protection standard. This is shown for all devices with IP68, which means that all smartphones are dust and waterproof.
As usual, the quick charger is not included in the scope of delivery, regardless of the model selected.
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