Who is the current king of Samsung's smartphone portfolio? Because it is Galaxy The Fold3 is a very different device after all, it is certainly a novelty in the form presented at the beginning of February Galaxy S22 Ultra. This hot commodity has many advantages, only minor flaws and one major drawback.
The disadvantage is, of course, poor availability. Although the Ultra is already on the market as part of regular sales, many fans of the company's most equipped smartphone are still waiting for their deliveries. Right at the beginning of the review, we can say that the wait is worth it. This year's series Galaxy The S22 really succeeded, as evidenced by our review of the smaller model in the form Galaxy S22+, however, it is indisputable that the Ultra is the most interesting of the entire trio of new models.
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There is no doubt that this is due to the integration of the S Pen. You may object as the model was Galaxy S21 Ultra compact, how you liked the rounded edges and the display, and how you won't use the S Pen anyway. You can be right about everything, but you can also be horribly wrong and unnecessarily underestimate his capabilities. If you don't own a Samsung tablet, if you've never held a model of the series in your hands Galaxy Note, it can really look like the S Pen is just a burden. But once you try it, you'll like it. So it is not excluded that as quickly as the enthusiasm for his presence came, he will leave just as quickly, but it is rather unlikely. The Pen is simply fun, which can actually be said about the entire smartphone.
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It's more about the body Galaxy Footnotes
If you Galaxy Really liked the S21 Ultra, of course you have to be disappointed with the shape of the successor. The novelty took over the design of the Note series, and we can't do anything about it. But is it wrong? I personally don't think so. The rounded sides still hold up well, the flat top and bottom sides don't bother anything at all, it's just a shame that the design of the rear exit for the cameras has not been preserved. Their placement is the same, but the lenses protrude more above the surface of the back and have the unpleasant feature of accumulating a really large amount of dirt around them.
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Wobbles when working with the phone on a flat surface simply have to be taken into account, which is a disease of all modern smartphones, iPhone 13 For without exception. But here it bothers a little more. The S Pen directly tempts you to put your phone on the table and control it with the stylus. In this case, it is necessary to expect unpleasant knocking. Of course, you can easily solve this with a cover, but not every user wants and needs it, because it increases the dimensions of the device itself, which may not be desirable.
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That is quite large. However, take this as a subjective opinion, because it may be just right for some, while others may find it unusable. Anyway, the fact is that its dimensions are 77,9 × 163,3 × 8,9 mm and weight 229 g. The previous generation had dimensions 165,1 × 75,6 × 8,9 mm and weight 227 g. iPhone 13 Pro Max measures 160,8 x 78,1 x 7,65mm and weighs 238g.
Comparison Galaxy S21 Ultra vs. S22 Ultra
The company increased the durability of the chassis by implementing Armor Aluminum technology, which is a polished frame of the device made of armored aluminum. The glass is present front and back and is Gorilla Glass Victus+, so the current top of the field Android phones. The degree of protection is IP68, which means that the phone and the S Pen are made to withstand water and dust (up to 1,5 meters for up to 30 minutes).
The display is simply top notch
The 6,8” Edge Quad HD+ display is perfect. It offers a resolution of 1440 x 3088 pixels, so it achieves 500 ppi and a 90% screen-to-body ratio. It is an AMOLED 2X with Vision Booster technology, when it reaches a peak brightness of 1 nits while maintaining color fidelity. Therefore, any direct light is not the slightest problem for it, just to reach this value, you have to set it manually. There is nothing to add to the adaptive refresh rate from 750 to 1 Hz. You just want this.
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By adopting the design from the series Galaxy Note additionally provides Galaxy The S22 Ultra actually has an even bigger display than its predecessor. This is precisely because of the reduced rounding in the corners, so the display simply looks larger at first glance. What can be a problem in certain respects is the curvature of the display, which can cause distortion in certain situations, especially when taking pictures. It happened to me a few times that the corners of the display caught some dirt in the form of hair or hair. They are quite sharp.
Of course, the display offers an ultrasonic fingerprint reader, so if you're used to the one from the previous generation, you'll get the same here in pale blue. There is also an Eye Comfort Shield filter with artificial intelligence that reduces blue light. Of course, it's better not to use electronic devices, especially before going to bed, but it's really hard to tear your eyes away from Ultra. There is also a hole for the selfie camera at the top center of the display. It is a wide-angle 40MPx sf/2,2 camera, 1/2,82" in size with 0,7µm pixel size and PDAF.
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The old familiar photographic foursome
For the owner Galaxy The S21 Ultra doesn't really change anything. The four cameras have the same specifications, that is, at least on paper, because minor changes have occurred here after all, and not only hardware but also software. Of course, the chip used, which processes them, has an influence on the result, but more on that later.
Camera specifications:
- Ultra wide camera: 12 MPx, f/2,2, angle of view 120˚
- Wide angle camera: 108 MPx, OIS, f/1,8
- Telephoto lens: 10 MPx, 3x optical zoom, f/2,4
- Periscope telephoto lens: 10 MPx, 10x optical zoom, f/4,9
Although Galaxy S22 Ultra in a photo test DXOMark didn't exactly impress, there's no need to worry too much about it. That is, if you don't want to argue about which camera of which device available on the market takes the best photos. The Ultra takes excellent photos and will absolutely serve you as the only camera for daily photography. The primary 108MP camera uses pixel binning for great results, but it certainly doesn't hurt. You can also take photos in full resolution, but you must have some use for such a photo, because it is especially useful if you need to make a cut out of the whole, or if you want to print the photo in large formats.
Sample photos
Standard images from the main camera are mostly of a very similar quality to that of the S21 Ultra. During the day, the details are excellent, there is a wide dynamic range and pleasant color rendering. The automatic night mode is also switched on a bit more sensibly than the previous generation, so you practically don't have to call it up manually. There is also a Pro mode that gives you full control over the settings. Thanks to the ultra-wide-angle camera with autofocus, you can also use it for macro shots, which look really good in the right lighting. But if the light is ideal, telephoto lenses will be more fun.
Zoom range
Portrait and selfie
Sample photos are compressed for the needs of the website. You can enjoy their full quality view here.
After all, both will surprise you with their quality. From a personal point of view, I consider it a definitely beneficial step from Samsung that it is not afraid of periscope. Even though in the beginning it was so low-fat unsalted, v Galaxy The S22 Ultra also delivers ideal results in ideal lighting conditions. The XNUMXx telephoto lens is still the one you'll find on the competition, but not the XNUMXx. It's great for landscape photography, when you can simply see further, although it's not very suitable for portraits, there must also be no movement in the scene, otherwise it will be blurry. Both are unusable at night, but this also applies to the competition, regardless of the night mode.
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Performance and battery with a degree of controversy
On the European market, the novelty is distributed with Samsung's own chip labeled Exynos 2200, on the other hand, with Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. There are many rumors, untruths, but also facts about Exynos that they really suffer from. But the review should be based on own experiences, and they are entirely positive. The device just delivers the performance you expect it to, regardless of all that artificial deceleration. Gaming performance is simply top-notch, and the average user will not hit a performance ceiling. Avid mobile gamers may find better solutions on the market, but the Ultra is a combination of the best of everything in one body.
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However, be prepared for the device to heat up. You don't have to put any boiler on it, and you can already feel the temperature slowly rising. This happens when taking photos and watching videos. But your hand won't burn, not again. After all, the previous generations also suffered from the same ailment, so it could also be taken as a certain characteristic that you have to get used to. But it is certainly disappointing that we still have no way to test, for example, ray-tracing, which is provided by the AMD Xclipse GPU, because this function is not yet available in any game. The 128GB version has 8GB of RAM, higher configurations already have 12GB of RAM. The device we tested was a 256/12 GB configuration and, as you can imagine, the performance was absolutely exemplary without any stuttering or limiting.
The battery has a capacity of 5000 mAh, the previous generation also had 5000 mAh. It could therefore be said that they provide the same endurance and this is a value that is more or less common for similarly sized devices. The integrated S Pen does not limit it in any way. When you put the device through its paces, expect around 4 hours of screen-on time, but with normal use you'll get around seven hours. Of course, you can also save the battery with various restrictions, e.g. turning off 5G, limiting the range of the display's refresh rate, its brightness value, etc.
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However, the novelty, at least according to the paper specifications, has increased the charging speed. In reality, however, it is not very famous, which we already described in the review of the smaller sibling in the form Galaxy S22 + and they prove it too specialized tests. There is 15W wireless charging, while wired charging is 45W. There is also 4,5W reverse charging. When we charged the Ultra using a 60W adapter, we reached 30% after 32 minutes, 67% after an hour, and fully charged in 97 minutes.
Literally magical S Pen
If the S Pen keeps you calm, in practice, by switching to the S22 Ultra from the previous generation, you will improve only a few useful functions, but not those that are important to life (unless, of course, we count a different design). But the S Pen is what Samsung wants to attract not only the owners of the older series Galaxy Note, but also all those who are already bored with ordinary smartphones and want something with added value and do not want outright "puzzles". Therefore, it is rather surprising that similar functionality has not yet been adopted by other manufacturers to a greater extent.
Galaxy The S22 Ultra practically carries over the software functionality of the S Pen from Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, however, Samsung has drastically reduced its latency, making it even more comfortable to use. Even with the screen turned off and the stylus pulled out, you can immediately write and draw with the S Pen on the screen without any other interaction. When you have the S Pen in your hand, you are informed in the status bar that it is active. Likewise, a quick menu appears on the display, which, when you click on it, you can select various functions.
These are note creation, smart selection, screen typing, instant messaging, and more that you can add as per your need. You can also sort the representatives according to which one you want to have in first and last place. Gestures that you create by holding the button are also a matter of course. Easily take a screenshot or selfie photo.
Frankly, the S Pen is why you will Galaxy S22 Ultra want because it is the very feature that makes it stand out from the rest. The shape of the phone is familiar from the Note series, the cameras from the previous model Galaxy S22 Ultra, the performance obviously follows the year-on-year acceleration trend. There is not much to surprise you here, although yes, the maximum brightness of the display is nice, but it cannot be said that you will use the 1 nits every day. The S Pen isn't miraculous, but it's just plain fun.
S Pen features and settings
A little more information about its ejection. To do this, you need to press it, after which it will slightly come out of the body of the phone, so you can easily grab it and start using it. Ejection has a slight resistance, so it won't fall out of your phone body by itself. You put it back in the same way, so you insert it first and then press it. It's intuitive and really "satisfying" like using a regular pen. But because I carry the phone with the connector facing up, it happened several times that when I took the phone out of my pocket, I pressed my finger on the S Pen and it jumped out of the body of the phone and I had to reset it when I didn't want to use it.
Price is not a problem, availability is
After unpacking the whole series Galaxy S22 runs on Androidu 12 with One UI 4.1 superstructure. The main advantage of this version is that you can determine the size of the virtual memory here using the function RAMPlus, so even if you go for the basic version, you will get higher values with the operating memory. On top of that, Samsung promises four years of core system updates and five years of security updates, so if you don't replace your device every year or two, it'll last you a really long time.
RAM Plus feature
Galaxy The S22 Ultra is an expensive premium phone, which isn't as much of a problem as its availability. The price of CZK 31 for the 990/128GB version is more or less standard even across the competition. iPhone 13 Pro Max costs exactly the same, Huawei P50 Pro then starts at 30 thousand. But even if you have saved up for a phone, the problem is with its availability. He struggled with it Apple in the autumn of last year, it is no different now with Samsung. If you simply want the news, you have to wait for it. The 256/12GB version will cost you CZK 34, and the 490/512GB version will cost you CZK 12. But you can still use it for that cashback action.
The wait will be impatient, but justified. There is interest in Ultra all over the world. In it, Samsung was able to perfectly blend the two worlds, while of course adding something extra. So you have in front of you an incredibly versatile phone that has great performance, a great camera setup, great update support and one essential feature that the competition's flagship models don't offer - the S Pen.
