When Samsung released the Galaxy S22 Ultra, the company shipped me the smartphone by mistake (despite the fact that I cancelled my order), so after playing with the device for two weeks, here are my thoughts.
Note: I filmed this video back in March, but didn’t edit it until now. I hope you enjoy ✌️.
Overall, the Galaxy S22 Ultra is a beast of a phone, and both my girlfriend and I miss its 10x zoom lens a lot. However, that’s the issue with the S22 Ultra. It offers so many features that it’s bound to make people want it, but it’s also costly.
If money is no object, this is fine, but the device doesn’t cut any corners, so there’s not a price to performance sweet spot with the S22 Ultra — it costs the most and does the most.
It’s smart that Samsung decided to revitalize its Note line of smartphones under the guise of an S22 Ultra, but at the same time, this also makes the device feel boring because it looks like the Note 20 Ultra and acts like and S21 Ultra.
At its ‘ Unpacked ‘ event today, Samsung officially unveiled its latest S-Series flagship devices, including the S22, S22+ and the S22 Ultra. While the devices are now available for pre-order in Canada, it’s a good idea to know how the tech giant’s latest flagships compare to its predecessors.
You may be wondering why we decided to add the Note to the mix. In a sense, this year’s S22 Ultra looks like the S21 Ultra and the Note 20 Ultra had a baby. It features S-Pen support — and even comes with one — along with a considerably higher price tag, something the discontinued Note series is known for.
Let’s dive in and see how the S22 series — released over the past three years — compares to each other.
Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra
Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra
Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra
Display
6.8-inch Curved Dynamic AMOLED, 1,440 x 3,200 pixels, 20:9 aspect ratio, 120Hz display (variable 1-120Hz), HDR10+, 240Hz Touch Sampling in Games
Colours: ‘Phantom Black,’ ‘Phantom White,’ ‘Green,’ ‘Burgundy,’ and Samsung exclusive colours ‘Gray,’ ‘Light Blue,’ and ‘Red.’ & S Pen with 2.8 m/s latency
Colours: ‘Phantom Black,’ ‘Phantom White,’ ‘Green,’ ‘Burgundy,’ and Samsung exclusive colours ‘Gray,’ ‘Light Blue,’ and ‘Red.’ & S Pen with 2.8 m/s latency
Colours: Mystic Black, Mystic White, Mystic Bronze | S Pen
Display and design
The latest S22 Ultra features a 120Hz Quad HD+ 6.8-inch display with a peak brightness of 1,750 nits, which is higher than the S21 Ultra’s 1,500 nits 6.8-inch 120Hz Quad HD+ display. While less bright than the S22 Ultra, the Note 20 Ultra features 1,609 nits of brightness, which is higher than its successor, the S21 Ultra. The Note 20 Ultra also features a slightly bigger screen, measuring in at 6.9-inches along with a 120Hz Quad HD+ display.
All three devices have a Corning Gorilla Glass Victus screen, along with always-on displays and HDR10+ support. It’s worth noting that all three devices are IP68 dust and water-resistant too, which means they can be submerged up to 1.5m underwater for about 30 minutes.
Surprisingly, the Note 20 Ultra weighs the least of the bunch, coming in at 208g, followed by the S21 Ultra at 227g and the S22 Ultra (heaviest) at 228g.
The odd one out is the 2021-released S21 Ultra, as it doesn’t come with a stylus, and the other two devices do. t’s worth noting that while the S21 Ultra doesn’t come with a stylus, it does support stylus functionality, which means you can purchase an S-Pen separately, and it will work with the device.
Cameras
Samsung takes great pride in its camera tech, and rightfully so. Its introduction of 100x zoom with the S20 Ultra was unprecedented, and the tech has only gotten better since then.
The latest S22 Ultra comes with a quad-camera setup with a camera bump that doesn’t protrude all the way out, but it doesn’t sit flush with the rear either. It features a 108-megapixel f/1.8 main sensor, a 10-megapixel telephoto lens, a 10-megapixel periscope lens and a 12-megapixel ultrawide shooter.
The rear shooters can record 8K at 24fps, 4K at 30 and 60fps and FHD at 30, 60 and 240fps.
On the front, the flagship sports a 40-megapixel selfie camera that can shoot 4K videos at 30 and 60fps and FHD videos at 30fps.
The camera setup on the 2021-released S21 Ultra isn’t that much different. It also sports a 108-megapixel f/1.8 main sensor along with a 10-megapixel periscope lens, a 10-megapixel telephoto lens and a 12-megapixel ultrawide shooter with the same video recording resolutions as the S22 Ultra. The selfie camera on the S21 Ultra is a 40-megapixel f/2.2 one and records 4K at 30 or 60fps.
The Note 20 Ultra, on the other hand, featured a triple camera setup, with a 108-megapixel f/1.8 primary shooter, a 12-megapixel f/3.0 periscope lens and a 12-megapixel ultrawide shooter. The Note 20 Ultra also shoots video at the same resolutions as the S22 Ultra.
The front camera on the Note 20 Ultra however shows that it’s an older device. It features a 10-megapixel f/2.2 shooter that records video in 4K at 30 or 60fps and 1080p at 30fps.
OS, internals and memory
The S22 Ultra ships with the latest Android 12 operating system update and Samsung’s One UI 4.1.
While the older devices shipped with Android 10 (Note 20 Ultra) and Android 11 (S21 Ultra), they too have already received the Android 12 update and can now run on the latest OS.
The Galaxy S22 Ultra sports up to 12GB of RAM, up to 1TB of storage and Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor.
Last year’s S21 Ultra was released with a Snapdragon 888 chipset and features up to 16GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage, though Samsung Canada currently only has the 12GB RAM, 128GB storage variant listed.
The oldest device in the mix, the Note 20 Ultra, sports a Snapdragon 865 5G+ chipset and features up to 12GB RAM and 512GB storage. Samsung Canada currently has the 12GB RAM/128GB storage and 12GB RAM/512GB Note 20 Ultra storage variants listed on its website.
All three devices feature an in-display fingerprint scanner, an accelerometer, gyro, proximity and compass sensors.
Battery
The S22 Ultra and the S21 Ultra both feature a 5,000 mAh battery. The former, however, supports 45W fast charging whereas the latter only supports 24W fast charging.
The Note 20 Ultra, on the other hand, features a slightly smaller 4,500 mAh battery with 25W fast charging.
All three devices are capable of reverse wireless charging at 4.5W.
Colours
The Note 20 Ultra offers the least colour variants of the bunch. The device comes in ‘Mystic Bronze,’ ‘Mystic Black’ and ‘Mystic White’ colourways, though only the bronze and black variants are currently available on Samsung’s website.
On the other hand, the S21 Ultra comes in ‘Phantom Black,’ ‘Phantom Silver,’ ‘Phantom Titanium,’ ‘Phantom Navy’ and ‘Phantom Brown’ colourways, though Samsung only has the black variant listed as of right now.
The latest S22 Ultra is available in seven colours, namely, ‘Burgundy,’ ‘Phantom Black,’ ‘Phantom White,’ ‘Green,’ ‘Graphite,’ ‘Sky Blue’ and ‘Red.’ Samsung Canada has the S22 Ultra available in all the colour variants.
Samsung’s Galaxy S22 Ultra is rumoured to sport a 108-megapixel camera similar to its predecessor, the S21 Ultra. While this seems relatively expected, the South Korean tech giant also seems to have a surprise up its sleeve.
According to a report from Material IT Korea references to code related to a feature called “Detail Enhancer” have been uncovered in the S21 Ultra’s camera app.
Detail Enhancer will reportedly allow the user to “capture even more detail” when using the smartphone’s primary shooter. Further, it will also enable macro shots higher in quality than the S21 Ultra’s.
Though Samsung plans to launch two other phones alongside the S22 Ultra, reportedly it will be the only device to feature Detail Enhancer. However, it’s possible that this feature might be brought to the other handsets in a future update.
Although the hardware specifications look little different from S21 ultra, Samsung's optimization ability is very strong, and the sample of S22 ultra looks much stronger.
To back up Material IT Korea, well-known leaker, Ice Universe has tweeted in support of rumours surrounding an improved camera coming to the S22 Ultra.
Samsung’s Galaxy S22 Ultra is expected to launch in either January or February next year.
If you’re one of the few people out there who prefers to use a ‘Pro Mode’ with your smartphone camera and you’re a Galaxy S21 Ultra owner, this update is for you.
A new update to the S21 Ultra’s several shooters now allows Pro mode across both its telephoto cameras, including the 10-megapixel 10x telephoto and 3x telephoto shooter, instead of just its main 108-megapixel and 12-megapixel ultrawide sensor. So far, the ‘Expert Raw‘ app is only available in the South Korean Galaxy Store, but according to leaker FrontTron, if you install it via an APK, the app will work in any region.
Samsung will likely release the app in Canada and the U.S. in the near future. It’s also worth noting that the tech giant could release a version of the app for the S21 and S21+ soon.
As its name suggests, Pro Mode gives options for advanced camera features, allowing you to control settings typically associated with a DSLR like ISO, shutter speed and RAW file types. It’s worth noting that if you plan to edit RAW photos, make sure to use an app like Photoshop or Lightroom and not Google’s Photo app since it removes HDR and other editing options.
Samsung’s online store is now offering a variety of smartphones on sale.
According to the company’s website, the phones are available until October 7th and include devices like the Galaxy A32, A52, S21 Ultra, S20 FE and more.
