The Galaxy S22 Ultra takes over Samsung Note with the best phone display and S Pen so far
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Ten years after the OG Galaxy Note, Samsung just made the merger of its S and Note lines official by announcing the new Galaxy S22 Ultra, its first flagship S-series phone with a built-in S Pen stylus silo. There is so much more to the elegant handset, though, that you'll get dizzy just reading about all the new S22 Ultra features:
- First S-line phone with a built-in S Pen silo
- Elegant new island-less camera design
- The best phone display: 1Hz-120Hz refresh, 1750 nits HDR brightness
- Up to 1TB storage
- 45W charger hits 50% battery in 20 minutes
- Durable Armour frame
- New Burgundy and Green colors
- Record low 2.8ms S Pen latency
- Ray-tracing AMD Radeon DNA graphics (Exynos 2200)
Galaxy S22 Ultra preorder pricing and launch date
Chip shortages be damned, the S22 Ultra costs the same
The S22 Ultra preorder deals start today with $200 in Samsung Store credit, three exclusive Samsung-only colors, and an exclusive $50 instant discount from PhoneArena that you can get from the links here if you have missed the one Samsung gave during the reservations period. The phone will be released on February 25.
The base 8GB/128GB model carries the exact same price tag as its S21 Ultra predecessor - $1199 - chip shortages and extra features be damned, while the 12GB/256GB and 12GB/512GB models will set you back $1299 and $1399, respectively.
There is also a 12GB/1TB version that you can get at Samsung in the U.S. which, sadly, is priced at $1599.99 there. Would you be getting a 1TB model instead of the 512GB one if you could?
| S22 Ultra memory/storage | S22 Ultra Price |
|---|---|
| 8GB/128GB | $1199 |
| 12GB/256GB | $1299 |
| 12GB/512GB | $1399 |
| 12GB/1TB | $1599 |
With the Galaxy S22 Ultra, who needs a Note 22?
How the S22 Ultra design fit both an S Pen silo and a 5000mAh battery
Let's start with the biggest piece of news coming from Samsung in a while, folding the Galaxy Note line into the S series. Instead of a Note 22 release, the true Galaxy Note 20 Ultra heir is now the Galaxy S22 Ultra. It is more elegant, what with the separate lens circles just slightly jutting out of the rear surface instead of an ugly camera island, or the ultrathin bezels at the front.
Still, if it looks and behaves like a Note phone, is it one? All but in name, as the S22 Ultra is stockier and more rectangular than its other S22 siblings, returning to the exact 19.3:9 aspect ratio of the Note 20 Ultra.
6.43 x 3.07 x 0.35 inches
163.3 x 77.9 x 8.9 mm
8.08 oz (229 g)
6.49 x 3.04 x 0.32 inches
164.8 x 77.2 x 8.1 mm
7.34 oz (208 g)
6.5 x 2.98 x 0.35 inches
165.1 x 75.6 x 8.9 mm
8.04 oz (229 g)
6.2 x 2.98 x 0.3 inches
157.4 x 75.8 x 7.6mm
6.91 oz (196 g)
6.43 x 3.07 x 0.35 inches
163.3 x 77.9 x 8.9 mm
8.08 oz (229 g)
6.49 x 3.04 x 0.32 inches
164.8 x 77.2 x 8.1 mm
7.34 oz (208 g)
6.5 x 2.98 x 0.35 inches
165.1 x 75.6 x 8.9 mm
8.04 oz (229 g)
6.2 x 2.98 x 0.3 inches
157.4 x 75.8 x 7.6mm
6.91 oz (196 g)
Compare these and other phones using our Size Comparison tool.
Fret not, the curved display (another Note 20 Ultra takeaway) makes the significant S22 Ultra width more palatable as it would lie snug and fit in the palm, with easier to perform back navigation gesture. Well, it is slightly wider and thicker as Samsung needed that extra girth to not only fit the 5000mAh battery pack that made the S21 Ultra the longest-lasting flagship in its class, but also add the S Pen silo.
All about the Galaxy S22 Ultra S Pen and its record low latency
The S Pen stylus that the S22 Ultra comes with is unique among all Samsung styli so far in that it features a record low input latency - down to just 2.8ms from 9ms - and is supported by a new WACOM digitizer in the phone's display. The WACOM digitizer now reads with 480 instead of 360 circuits per second, boosting the handwriting character recognition speed significantly.
Samsung has even equipped the new S Pen with "enhanced AI-based coordinate prediction" algorithms that can forecast where your hand will take you based on the positioning and speed of the stylus tip and react accordingly much faster.
Integration with Samsung DeX and and the new Galaxy Tab S8 series allows to use the S22 Ultra as a palette while you doodle on the large 14.6" canvas of the Ultra tablet, too.
The record-breaking Galaxy S22 Ultra display
Samsung reclaims the best phone display title
The Galaxy S22 Ultra comes with perhaps the best phone display so far. Granted, flagship OnePlus and Oppo phones already do the granular battery-saving 1Hz-120Hz dynamic refresh rate dance. The S21 Ultra already has crazy 1500 nits peak brightness.
Well, the S22 Ultra takes these, boosts to record 1750 nits brightness abilities, adds a TUV certification for perfect wide color gamut coverage, and adds a new feature, the so-called Vision Booster.
Vision Booster is there to analyze the ambient light in real time and maximize color and contrast for better visibility, even under direct sunlight. In short, there's no phone display like the S22 Ultra phone display so far.
The Galaxy S22 Ultra camera cracks the night photography
All about the tough shots
Samsung doesn't shy away from a challenge and took the Galaxy S21 Ultra hardware to elevate it to one of the best mobile cameras for shooting in low-light conditions, or snapping a moving object. Here are our first Galaxy S22 Ultra camera samples at night for a quick preview of its new camera performance.
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A main camera with an improved 108MP sensor and wider aperture leads the photon collection, while new HDR algorithms stack tons of different exposures in a fraction of a second for the cleanest, sharpest night photos on a Galaxy so far. There is a new Adaptive Pixel technology that combines nona-binned physical pixels (i.e. information from a 3x3 pixel grid forming one giant virtual pixel) with a full-res 108MP photos for the best in sharpness and detail.
Not that the 12MP ultrawide camera with macro mode, or the 10MP 10x periscope and 3x telephoto zoom cameras aren't benefiting from the new camera algorithms made possible by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset's image processor, but they were already doing their niche duties with top-shelf performance to begin with.
The Galaxy S22 Ultra video capture performance is no less impressive, with a new Automatic Frame Rate feature that adjusts the frame count based on the surrounding light. The new Super Steady optical image stabilization system is up to 48% more effective than the OIS on the S21 Ultra while shooting videos, hence nearly eliminating the need for a tripod, too.
The S22 Ultra performance, in partnership with AMD
The Snapdragon 8 vs Exynos 2200 specs dilemma
For the first time since Samsung started equipping its phones with homebrew Exynos chipsets, the S22 Ultra with Exynos 2200 is the more interesting model than the one with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 we get in the U.S.
Not because of the throttling and heat performance under sustained load benchmarks, but because the Exynos 2200 is the first Samsung chipset after the partnership with AMD that carries a GPU with its mobile Radeon DNA 2 architecture. You know, the ray-tracing one that is in the PlayStation 5 or the Xbox X.
That's not to say the Galaxy S22 Ultra will be as powerful as your gaming console, and maybe it even won't be able to beat the Adreno 730 graphics in the Snapdragon version, but the sheer fact that Samsung is finally going with serious AMD graphics instead of the stock ARM Mali GPUs it used before, should put those S22 Ultra owners with the Exynos 2200 model at ease.
S22 Ultra Snapdragon vs Exynos chipset specs and features
| Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 | Exynos 2200 | |
|---|---|---|
| Production process | Samsung 4nm EUV | Samsung 4nm EUV |
| Processor cores | 1xCortex-X2@3GHz 3xCortex-A710@2.5GHz 4xCortex-A510@1.8GHz | 1x Cortex-X2 3x Cortex-A710 4x Cortex-A510 |
| GPU | Adreno 730, 30% faster and 20% more frugal | Ray-tracing Samsung Xclipse 920 with AMD RDNA 2 architecture |
| Modem | X65 5G modem (integrated) up to 10 Gbps over 5G Global iSIM multi-SIM card support | Samsung 5G modem (integrated) 5G downloads up to 10Gbps (mmWave), 5.1Gbps (sub-6GHz), or 3Gbps (4G LTE), 8xCA Uploads: up to 3.67 Gbps |
| AI co-processor | 7th Gen Qualcomm AI Engine | FP16 NPU |
| Video encode | 8K HDR10+ | Up to 8K decoding: 60fps with 10-bit HEVC(H.265), 30fps with 10-bit VP9, AV1 Up to 8K encoding: 30fps with 10-bit HEVC(H.265), VP9 |
| Features support | QHD+ @144Hz or 4K@60Hz display refresh Demura and subpixel rendering for OLED uniformity First 18-bit ISP, mega low light capture merges 30 images in one shot for brighter, sharper pictures Qualcomm FastConnect 6900: Bluetooth 5.2, Wi-fi 6E (up to 3.6GBps) | 4K@120Hz or QHD+ @144Hz display refresh up to 200MP in single camera mode, Single-camera 108MP @30fps, Dual-camera 64MP+ 32MP @30fps Integrated Secure Element (iSE) to store private cryptographic keys AMIGO performance optimization technology |
As you can see, Qualcomm and Samsung aren't playing around, and offer some unique 5G connectivity and other features that Apple will have to catch up with when its next generation A16 processor hits the iPhone 14 in the fall of 2022. That one is reportedly also being done on the 4nm process, but until then the Exynos 2200 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 may stay the undisputed connectivity kings for the 5G era.
The AMD-based Xclipse 920 GPU of the Exynos 2200 doesn't shine in benchmarks compared to the Adreno 730 in Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, but the ray tracing and variable rate shading support more than makes up for the synthetic scores. Moreover, it supports 4K resolution displays with up to 120Hz refresh rate, whereas the Snapdragon 8 makes do with 60Hz refresh support at that resolution only.
S22 Ultra is the fastest charging Galaxy S... or Note
5000mAh/50%/20 minutes
Galaxy S22 Ultra announcement summary
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