Samsung's three-year roadmap includes new form factors, makes no mention of Note
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Any last hope that the Galaxy Note series will return has been squashed by the Galaxy S22 Ultra - Samsung's new top-shelf phone which might as well be called the Note 22 Ultra, given its boxy aesthetics and the S Pen silo. Samsung last released a Note phone in 2020 and even though the S21 Ultra was a successor of sorts, it didn't have a slot for the S Pen. Well, that void has been filled, and the company, which has so far been reluctant to admit that the Note is gone for good, has kind of confessed that it's not going to return.
Bloomberg reports that Samsung's mobile chief TM Roh has said that for now, the company will focus on the S series and the foldable Z family. In about three years from now, we can expect to see more form factors, such as slideable and rollable phones.
In the near term, our operation will focus on a two-track strategy: flagship S series in the first half of the year and innovative foldable lineup in the second half. We will keep this strategy until there’s another major breakthrough and we are working hard to make it happen." TM Roh
The Galaxy Z Fold 3, which was introduced last year, is the South Korean titan's first foldable phone to support a stylus. The company has been betting heavily on bendable phones, and the strategy has started to pay off. The company says that foldable sales increased four-fold last year.
Per research firm Counterpoint, the foldable category will grow ten-fold by 2023, which explains the recent new entrants such as Oppo and Honor. Even Google is said to be working on a foldable Pixel, which could arrive later this year, and we can expect to see Apple's first foldable iPhone next year.
The S22 Ultra has all the makings of a top-class phone: a large 6.8-inch-inches screen, a powerful processor based on the more advanced 4nm manufacturing tech (either the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 or the Exynos 2200, depending on the region), a beefy 5,000 mAh battery, and an impressive camera setup. The new design and the built-in S Pen will likely attract longtime Galaxy Note fans and sure enough, initial demand is up by double-digit percentages compared to the last year.
Per a report that was published before the handsets were revealed, Samsung's initial components orders for the S22 series are around 20 percent higher when compared to the S21 and the company hopes to sell 20 million units of the handsets. Pre-orders are now open and the phones will be released on February 25.
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