Design and build
This is Samsung's ultimate flagship — and unlike the rest of this year's S series, it delivers a design and features that are more like a Galaxy Note phone. The most obvious of these is improved stylus support, but there's a lot more to this phone. I'm Will for GSMArena and let's see what the S22 Ultra has to offer in our full review. The Galaxy S22 ultra sports a design that's completely different from the rest of the S series. It's bigger and bulkier, and its cameras come straight out the back rather than being mounted in the camera bump. Additionally, the Ultra has a flat back, top, and bottom, quite like a Galaxy Note device. Another big change from last year's model is that the S22 ultra integrates the stylus into the design with a dedicated dock at the bottom. It's much more secure and means you always have your pen with you – unlike the S21 Ultra where you'd have to keep it somewhere else. Don't worry about the dock - the phone has full IP68 ingress protection. Moreover, it is quite durable with gorilla glass victus plus on the back and front. As you can see, the S22 ultra is much less like a Galaxy S phone and more like a Galaxy Note – and since that line is now discontinued, it's a spiritual successor.
Integrated stylus
And while the stylus is the same as the last generation, the technology behind it has been improved here. The S22 ultra's AI can predict your movements even better, reducing the pen's latency from 9 milliseconds to less than 3, making note-taking a little more responsive. And the function to convert your handwriting to text has been improved to be even more accurate. Adding media to notes is nothing new. However, you can now add a screenshot of the entire webpage if you want. However, this feature doesn't work so well in Europe because websites have to ask for permission - and these kinds of pop-ups end up in your notes too.
Screen specs
Ok, let's move on to some other features - like the display itself. It's a 6.8-inch AMOLED with QHD resolution and a fast 120Hz refresh rate. This display is curved at the edges and wraps around to fit the frame. It creates an elegant effect, but some people would prefer a flat screen like the other S22 phones. The 120Hz refresh rate means scrolling and scrolling on the screen look much smoother. The refresh rate is adaptive – with static content, UI rendering can drop down to 24Hz and down to 1 frame per second to save power, and it will also adjust to match other content on the screen. The display is amazing. Thanks to the high resolution, the content looks quite sharp, and thanks to the OLED technology, you also get great contrast and deep blacks. There is HDR 10 plus support and colors can be very accurate depending on the profile you choose in the color settings. The S22 ultra also has top-notch maximum brightness. You can reach 500 nits with the manual slider, and this goes up to around 830 nits if you enable the extra brightness mode. But that is not all. Enabling the auto-brightness mode gives you an even bigger boost – we maxed out at over 12 hundred and 50 nits – pretty crazy stuff. In addition, when the auto-brightness mode is on, a new feature is called vision. The booster will also adjust screen contrast based on ambient light for even better readability in sunlight. And under the display is an ultrasonic fingerprint reader. It is quite fast and responsive to wake up and unlock the phone.
Stereo speakers test
For audio, the S22 ultra has a pair of stereo speakers, with the earpiece acting as the second. The speakers scored well in our loudness charts, but are slightly quieter than last year's model, and we also heard better low end from the competition.
Storage options
Storage here is not expandable via microSD, but you can opt for up to a terabyte of onboard space if you need it!
Android 12 and UI
The S22 ultra's interface is Samsung's OneUI 4.1, based on Android 12. Aside from the stylus-based features, it's the same user interface you'd get on the S22 and S22 plus. Of course, one important aspect to keep in mind is Samsung's software support. They promise 4 generations of Android and OneUI updates and 5 years of security updates. The interface also brings several new features such as additional features and support for widgets. Android 12 lets you change the color of system menus and even icons to match your wallpaper. And there's a dedicated privacy panel that organizes all your privacy options and permissions in one easy-to-access place.
Exynos 2200/Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset
Under the hood of the S22 ultra is either an Exynos 2200 chipset for some markets or a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset for others. Both are based on the 4nm process and are comparable, but the Exynos variant has a GPU that was designed in collaboration with AMD. We have the Exynos model and the performance here is great as you would expect from a high-end flagship. It is more than enough for multitasking and playing demanding games without any problems. In addition, the thermal management here is quite reasonable. Of course, the previous generation is hard to beat, and in benchmarks the improvements over the S21 are ultra-modest.
Batter endurance and charging test
Powering the S22 ultra is a 5000mAh battery, just like last year's model, but the battery life score is slightly lower this time around, with a rating of 108 hours in our tests. Still, it's not too shabby. But charging is a bit complicated. The S22 ultra supports up to 45-watt fast charging, but we weren't able to charge the phone significantly faster than with the 25-watt charger when using such an adapter. There will be a new 45W charger from Samsung, but based on the specs and information so far, we don't expect the charging speed to be any different.
Camera specs
Now we have the cameras: a 108MP main cam, a 10MP telephoto with OIS and 3x optical zoom, a 10MP periscope with 10x optical zoom, and a 12MP ultrawide.
The setup is almost the same as last year's, except that the telephoto cameras have different sensors with smaller pixels, for some reason.
Daylight photo quality
Anyway, let's start with the quality of photos from the main camera. Its 12MP shots are good, but they won't blow us away. There's plenty of detail, accurate exposure, and vibrant colors. and the dynamic range is not as wide as we expect from a flagship. The ultra-wide camera provides a sharp and detailed image that has a wide dynamic range. There seems to be some graininess and odd sharpening. At 3x zoom, we see a good level of detail, a wide enough dynamic range, and colors that match well with other cameras. And in fact, these zoomed-in shots are quite noise-free and cleaner than last year's. Portrait mode on the S22 ultra delivers great results. You can shoot portraits with either the prime or 3x telephoto lens, and you'll get excellent subject separation and very natural-looking out-of-focus backgrounds. Photos from the 10x telephoto lens have a respectable level of detail and good contrast and color.
Low-light photo quality
If you shoot in auto mode in low light, the S22 ultra will automatically apply night mode processing. These photos from the main camera are impressive, with an excellent level of detail and preserved colors. You also get nicely contained highlights and developed shadows. You can also toggle a dedicated night mode that dials up this processing, even more, resulting in brighter and warmer lighting and stronger sharpening and noise reduction. The effect on the dynamic range is minimal. The ultra-wide camera will also use automatic night mode in dark situations, and those shots are pretty good. They have very good detail, a wide dynamic range, and vivid colors. However, there is visible noise. Turning on full night mode cleans up that noise, brightens it up, and restores detail in the shadows. Shooting with the triple telephoto lens with automatic night mode produces decent images, but they are on the soft side. This is where switching to full night mode pays off. The image is significantly sharper and the shadows come to life nicely. At 10x zoom with auto night mode, photos look good but are soft and have some specks of noise. A special night mode that improves sharpness, noise level, and details in the shadows makes a big difference.
Selfies
Selfies are taken with the 40MP front camera, but come out at 10MP. They are excellent, with lots of detail, accurate colors and a wide dynamic range. The camera also has auto-focus, so your selfies will be sharp. The S22 ultra can record video in up to 4K at 60fps with all its cameras, as well as 8K at 24fps with the main one.
video quality (daylight)
Starting with 4K video from the main camera, you will see a very good amount of detail, accurate colors, and excellent dynamic range. 8K looks good on the spec sheet, but there isn't noticeably more detail than the 4K recording. It's also smoother, with some visible artifacts and clips taking up a lot more space. 4K video from the ultra-wide camera is detailed and has a wide dynamic range. The colors are slightly warmer than what you get from the main camera. 3x zoom recording is sharp and detailed, with excellent dynamic range and spot-on colors. However, there is visible noise. The 4K video quality from the 10x telephoto isn't stunning, but it's respectable, especially for this kind of camera. Electronic stabilization is available on all cameras and resolutions and does a decent job, although we did notice some overcorrection when panning. There's also a super stable mode that smooths everything out even more but only at 1080p resolution.
Video quality (low-light)
At night, the S22 ultra can record relatively good videos, and its main camera details are better here than last year's model. The colors are also preserved. Dynamic range isn't the widest, though, with clipped highlights and dark shadows. Ultrawide doesn't do so well and its videos are underexposed and soft. Similarly, telephoto lenses struggle at night. However, 3x zoom clips are more usable than 10x zoom clips.
Conclusion
So that's the Galaxy S22 Ultra. After Samsung missed out on the Note phone last year and then discontinued Notes altogether, they came up with this. It brings the latest flagship features like a top-of-the-line AMOLED display and top-of-the-line chipset, plus killer cameras, but there's also an extra responsive and dockable stylus. So at the end of the day, if you're looking for the features and form factor of a Galaxy Note, in a new device with the latest software support, the S22 ultra is worth recommending.
Thanks for reading and see you on the next one.
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