Samsung today announced the Galaxy S22 Ultra smartphone, which will be the company's first flagship for 2022 and the successor to both the 2021's Galaxy S21 Ultra and 2020's Galaxy Note20 Ultra. Alongside the usual year-on-year improvements, the main story here is the inclusion of the S Pen from the now defunct Galaxy Note line.
The Galaxy S22 Ultra features a design
similar to the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra with a flattened front, back, top, and
bottom with curved sides. One of the colors (Burgundy) even looks similar to
the Mystic Bronze color of the Note 20. Like that phone, the S22 Ultra also
feature a more gently curved display. On the back is the new camera array in a
similar arrangement to last year's S21 Ultra but without the large raised
island around it. The Galaxy S22 Ultra uses an aluminum frame and Corning
Gorilla Glass Victus+ on both the front and the back. The phone as well as the
S Pen are IP68 water and dust resistant.
The new integrated S Pen features an
updated latency of 2.8ms and AI-based co-ordinate prediction technology.
Samsung has also improved the handwriting to text feature and it now supports
88 languages. The new Quick Note feature allows you to attach or link content
in a Pop Up note within Samsung's apps like Browser and Gallery. There's also a
new Collaboration View feature that enables syncing between a Galaxy S22 Ultra
and the Tab S8 Series. This lets you use the S22 Ultra to change your tools
while drawing on the Tab S8.
The display on the S22 Ultra is similar to
its predecessor. It's a 6.8-inch, 1440p Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel with a dynamic
120Hz refresh rate. Samsung claims 240Hz touch sampling rate, 1,750 nits of
peak brightness, and 100 percent DCI-P3 coverage. The display also includes an
ultrasonic fingerprint sensor. The Galaxy S22 Ultra features a the same 108MP
F/1.8 main camera as the Galaxy S21 Ultra. Next to it are a 12MP f/2.2
ultrawide camera and a couple of telephoto snappers - 10MP F/2.4 3x and 10MP
F/4.9 10x periscope.
At the front you get a 40MP F/2.2 selfie
camera. Instead of having new hardware, what the company has done instead is
introduce new AI enhancement using the updated NPU to improve photo and video
quality in low light as well as add new camera features. One of the new
features is Auto Framing. Using the ultrawide camera on the back, the phone is
able to crop in and adjust the shot for the number of people in the frame. It
can track up to ten people at once and will automatically zoom out when more
people walk in. You can also manually zoom in or track one person in the group
and the shot will be framed accordingly.
Samsung has also improved the portrait
mode effect, which can now produce cleaner results and better background
separation, even on animals. New studio lighting effects have also been added
to correct lighting in edit. A night portrait mode has been added, which turns
on automatically while shooting in low light. The Galaxy S22 Ultra will come
with either the new Exynos 2200 SoC from Samsung or the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 from
Qualcomm. Both these flagship chipsets are based on the new 4nm manufacturing
process and feature similar octa-core CPU design. However, while the Qualcomm
chipset includes the company's Adreno 730 GPU, the Exynos chipset will feature
the new AMD RDNA2-based Xclipse 920 GPU. Both feature improved AI processing,
with Samsung claiming 2x faster NPU over the S21 series.
In terms of memory and storage, the S22
Ultra will start at 8GB memory with 128GB of storage. Other variants will
feature up to 12GB of RAM and a choice of either 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of
storage. The S22 Ultra will ship with One UI 4.1 running on top of Android 12.
It has a 5000mAh battery with support for up to 45W fast charging using a wired
charger and 15W wirelessly.
The Galaxy S22 Ultra will be available in
Phantom Black, Phantom White, Green, and Burgundy starting February 25 with
pre-orders opening today. Additional Graphite, Red and Sky Blue color options
will be exclusive to Samsung.com. Prices start at US$ 1199/€ 1249 for the 8/128GB
model.
