The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is a more powerful version of the Galaxy Note. It has a faster S Pen, better cameras, a brighter screen, and charges faster. Overall, this phone is great, but it’s expensive and the battery life could be better.
Even though the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is a brand-new phone, it’s not very special. This phone is a combination of two older Samsung models. The main shape of the Galaxy S22 Ultra comes from the Note 20 Ultra. In fact, it’s almost the same as the phone Samsung will make in 2020.
The only thing the S22 Ultra looks like the S21 Ultra in is how the camera lenses are set up on the back. This is also the only thing the S22 Ultra looks like the S21 Ultra in. Even though there’s nothing inherently wrong or out of date about these older designs, I wish Samsung had put more effort into making the Galaxy S22 Ultra a unique device that stood on its own strengths rather than those of its immediate predecessors. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a nice piece of hardware, because it is.
Specifications
- Camera: 108 MP, f/1.8, 23mm (wide)
- 10 MP, f/4.9, 230mm (periscope telephoto)
- LED flash, auto-HDR, panorama
- Sensors: Fingerprint (under display, ultrasonic), accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer
- Samsung DeX, Samsung Wireless DeX (desktop experience support)
- Bixby natural language commands and dictation
- Samsung Pay (Visa, MasterCard certified)
- Ultra Wideband (UWB) support
- BATTERY: Type Li-Ion 5000 mAh, non-removable
Where to but Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra?
The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is an Android 12 phone, and it’s one of the best Android phones. It also runs One UI 4.1, which is the latest version of Samsung’s Android interface software. Like most Android overlays, this one doesn’t do much to change the look of pure Android. Instead, it duplicates some apps, like the web browser and photo app, and adds a lot of smart software touches and useful tools, like Samsung’s new Wallet, that should make the Android experience better.
We put the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra through a lot of tests for almost a week, and it never let us down. It works quickly and has a lot of power. The 4nm processor (in our test phone, it was the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset; the UK and Australia will get Samsung’s own Exynos 2200 chipset.) doesn’t beat Apple’s A15 Bionic in Geekbench benchmarks, but raw numbers never tell the whole story.
Samsung says that the Galaxy S22 Ultra can be charged quickly with 45W, but you have to buy a compatible charger separately. Samsung didn’t send me its own charger so I could test the claim, so I used a standard 68W USB-PD charger I already had. It’s hard to say exactly how fast the phone could be charged, but the Galaxy S22 Ultra went from 0 to 60% in 30 minutes and from 0 to 95% in an hour, which is pretty fast. This phone can wirelessly charge at 15W and can also share power wirelessly.