The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is an important phone. It is Samsung’s flagship and the best smartphone in a conventional form factor. It is introduced early each year and is the bench mark by which all Samsung models, and most of the smartphone market, are judged.
Traditionally, the Galaxy S22 Ultra is Samsung’s phone with the best screen, best camera, and fastest chip, and it served as the starting point for many software developments. That’s because the Galaxy Z Fold is now in its fourth generation and the focus has shifted a bit: the Galaxy Z Fold4 is Samsung’s biggest flagship and the platform where Samsung’s software innovations are most visible.
Galaxy S22 Ultra: General specifications
- The best cellphone display ever: The Galaxy S22 Ultra’s AMOLED panel is not only brighter than the competition and ideal for outdoor viewing, it also offers improved color saturation.
- S Pen goes even further: With 70%shorter latency, the Galaxy S22 Ultra is as smooth to write on as pen and paper. It also has a built-in holster.
- Better photos (especially in low light): thanks to a larger main sensor, the Galaxy S22 Ultra takes brighter photos than the S21 Ultra, and Night Mode is even more effective than the iPhone 13 Pro Max in certain scenarios.
- Longer support: Samsung promises five years of update support and four years of major OS updates, so this flagship should last a long time.
- Battery life could be longer: Web surfing battery tests showed a little over 10 hours of endurance. This is good, but not as good as the iPhone 13 Pro Max’s12+hours.
- Sleek and durable design: The Galaxy S22 Ultra is protected by an armor-like aluminum frame and Gorilla Glass Victus+ back, yet it is lighter than the iPhone 13 Pro Max and has no tacky notch. Some may not like the curved display, though.
- Charging at 45 Wis fast (but not that fast): I was able to charge it to 67% in 30 minutes, which is not that much faster than 25W (58%).
Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra: Display
Samsung has further improved display quality with the Galaxy S22 Ultra. As before, it offers a dynamic 120Hz refresh rate, and hands-on users enjoyed smooth scrolling. Gamers will also appreciate the 240Hz touch sampling rate.
However, there are two notable display upgrades: first, the screen now has a peak brightness of 1,750 nits. ( The standard brightness is 1,250 nits, which is still quite high.)
Another display perk is the new Vision Booster feature, which allows on-the-fly adjustment of screen brightness throughout the day. This means that there should be no problem using the S22 Ultra outdoors, even under very strong sunlight.
| Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Display test resuls | |||
| Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra | iPhone 13 Pro Max | Google Pixel 6 Pro | |
| Max brightness | 1,359 nits | 1,038 nits | 842 nits |
| sRGB color gamut | 137.5% | 109.3% | 104.2% |
| DCI-P3 color gamut | 97.4% | 77.4% | 73.8 |
| Delta-E color accuracy (lower is better) | 0.25 | 0.21 | 0.3 |
Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra: Design
The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra combines the classic S design of the Galaxy S20/21 Ultra with the old design of the Galaxy Note. But somehow in combining the two, the S styling was lost in translation, leaving a boxy phone with few lines or wrinkles.
Gone are the camera is land inset into the frame, the top and bottom curvature of the front and back panels, and, sadly, the uniqueness. The Galaxy S22 Ultra is the essence of a practical phone. Sure, there is a certain beauty in its simplicity, and the form allows for a stylus compartment and a large battery in a phone not much larger than the previous model. But we miss the old design and feel of the Galaxy S21 Ultra in our hands.
Samsung deserves great credit form a king the Galaxy S22 Ultra a familiar phone. The same button placement and the general shape and size of the phone made for a seamless transition from the Galaxy S21 Ultra.
The symmetry of the Galaxy S22 Ultra is exquisite. From the side, one can barely tell the difference between the display and the rear panel. Also, the camera array is positioned as flat as possible. If you’re the kind of person who types flat on a table, it will still wobble on the table.
And the subtle shade of bronze on the frame contrasts slightly with the black rear panel.
Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra: Performance
The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is one of the first phones to feature Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, a 4nm chip that promises better CPU and graphics performance and better efficiency. Samsung will offer its own 4nm Exynos 2200 chip in international markets.
Despite having only 8GB of RAM, the Galaxy S22 Ultra feels super smooth when opening and closing apps. In fact, as you can see in the TikTok video above, the S22 Ultra felt faster than the iPhone 13 Pro Max when switching between and closing apps.
The S22 Ultra also delivered immersive game play while racing around the track in the Drive Club game, and the same was true in Call of Duty Mobile, where I never noticed any glitches while knocking down multiple enemies.
In fact, the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is so well suited for gaming that Roland Moore-Colyer is once again interested in smartphone gaming.
| Row 0 – Cell 0 | Galaxy S22 Ultra | Pixel 6 Pro | iPhone 13 Pro Max |
| Geekbench 5 (single / multicore) | 1240/3392 | 1027 / 2760 | 1720 / 4549 |
| Geekbench ML TensorFlow Lite (CPU / GPU / NPU) | 434/ 2039 / 3132 | 300 / 1376 / 1745 | 915 / 1587 / 2663 |
| Adobe Premiere Rush (Mins:Secs) | 0:47 | 0:48 | 0:25 |
| 3DMark Wild Life Unlimited (Score / FPS) | 9984 / 59.8 fps | 6682 / 40 fps | 11,418 / 68 fps |
| 3DMark Wild Life Extreme (Score / FPS) | 2346 / 14 | 1832 / 11 | 3075 / 18 |
Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra: camera
The camera on the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is excellent. The focal length options are among the best on a cellphone, and all have autofocus. We will not discuss the sensor, as that is detailed in our review.
During this reviewer’s period of use, the ultra-wide camera was rarely used because the 23mm main camera could take most shots. This allows for natural blurring of the background, which is not possible with the combination of a small ultra wide sensor and an arrow lens.
Contrary to ultra wide, the most used cameras were3x and 10x zoom cameras. The great photographer Robert Cap a famously said, “If the picture is not good enough, you are not close enough. “Of course, he was right: the narrower your perspective on the subject, the more interesting the photo. Photos taken with the main camera are snapshot-like and, in my opinion, mediocre.
| Camera | Galaxy S22 | Galaxy S22+ | Galaxy S22 Ultra |
| Front – Wide | 10MP F2.2 [Dual Pixel AF], FOV 80°, 1/3.24”, 1.22µm | 10MP F2.2 [Dual Pixel AF], FOV 80°, 1/3.24”, 1.22µm | 40MP F2.2 [PDAF], FOV 80°, 1/2.8”, 0.7µm |
| ① Rear – Ultra Wide | 12MP F2.2 [FF], FOV 120°, 1/2.55”, 1.4µm | 12MP F2.2 [FF], FOV 120°, 1/2.55”, 1.4µm | 12MP F2.2 [Dual Pixel AF], FOV 120°, 1/2.55”, 1.4µm |
| ② Rear – Wide angle | 50MP F1.8 [Dual Pixel AF], OIS, FOV 85°, 1/1.56”, 1.0µm with Adaptive Pixel | 50MP F1.8 [Dual Pixel AF], OIS, FOV 85°, 1/1.56”, 1.0µm with Adaptive Pixel | 108MP F1.8 [PDAF], OIS, FOV 85°, 1/1.33”, 0.8µm with Adaptive Pixel |
| ③ Rear – Telephoto 1 | 10MP F2.4 [3x, PDAF], OIS FOV 36°, 1/3.94”, 1.0µm | 10MP F2.4 [3x, PDAF], OIS FOV 36°, 1/3.94”, 1.0µm | 10MP F2.4 [3x, Dual Pixel AF], OIS, FOV 36°, 1/3.52”, 1.12µm |
| ④ Rear – Telephoto 2 | – | – | 10MP F4.9 [10x, Dual Pixel AF], OIS, FOV 11°, 1/3.52”, 1.12µm |
| Rear – Space Zoom | 3x Optical Zoom Super Resolution Zoom up to 30x | 3x Optical Zoom Super Resolution Zoom up to 30x | 3x, 10x Dual Optical Zoom Super Resolution |
Battery life and charging
The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra has a high-capacity battery of 5,000 m AH, which Samsung says will last more than a day in general use; we ran several battery tests for Tom’s Guide, which involved continuous web surfing at 5G with the screen brightness at 150 nits. Web surfing at 5G with the screen brightness set to 150 nits.
So far, the best battery life result for the S22 Ultrawas10 hours and 18 minutes with 60Hz mode on T-Mobile’s network. This is well above the Google Pixel 6 Pro’s 7 hours 55 minutes, but not as long as the S21 Ultra’s11 hours25 minutes or the iPhone 13 Pro Max’s12 hours 16 minutes.
With the display’s adaptive mode (which can scale up to120 Hz) turned on, the S22 Ultra’s runtime was shorter than expected at 8 hours 50 minutes. We will report this result again.
When resuming charging, the Galaxy S22 Ultra offers 45W charging, which is an upgrade over the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s 25 W charging. Samsung promises that it can charge to 50% in 20 minutes, which is about 10 minutes faster than the S21 Ultra.
We tested a 45W charger and charged the Galaxy S22 Ultra to 36% in 15 minutes and 67% in 30 minutes. This is faster than a 25W charger on the same phone (29%/58%), but not a dramatic difference.
Software
The Galaxy S22 Ultra shipped with Samsung’s OneUI 4.1 software running on Android 12. Samsung says this interface is more intuitive and convenient than previous versions and has a new privacy dashboard for peace of mind.
Samsung is also touting Samsung Wallet, which allows you to combine your digital payment information and ID into one tool. The new Google Duo app lets you share videos and documents during video calls, similar to Share Play in Apple’s iOS 15 software.
As of late October, One UI 5 and Android 13beganarriving on Galaxy S22 models like the Ultra, so check the Software Updates section of Settings to see if the One UI 5 update has reached your phone.
Verdict
The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is the most powerful and versatile Android phone for a folding phone. It has the best display of any phone we tested, and Samsung’s camera is much improved, especially in low light. Additionally, the powerful zoom continues to be attractive.
Is the Galaxy S22 Ultra worth $300 more than the Google Pixel 6 Pro? That’s not an easy decision; the S22 Ultra offers a brighter screen, longer battery life, and a faster chip, but while the S Pen is faster and smoother than before, not everyone appreciates that perk. The camera quality of the Pixel 6 Pro may also be better.
And the iPhone 13 Pro Max is faster than the S22 Ultra, holds a charge longer, and has better photo quality (except for low-light photography). Still, I prefer the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s sleek design and more powerful zoom.
Overall, the Galaxy S22 Ultra is the best premium Android phone and very close to the best phone.