Samsung Galaxy S22+ First Impressions: The middle child of the family

Should you splurge for the Galaxy S22+?

Like clockwork, each year the smartphone landscape ticks over into a new cycle. With each new cycle come new launches, and Samsung has released its line-up of Android flagships for the year. The marquee release is the Galaxy S22 Ultra, the first phone from the Korean manufacturer that combines the best of the Note series with Samsung’s signature flagship design.

The Galaxy S22 is the safe bet, it lacks the frills of its kin but represents value and is great for people who want a compact phone without too many compromises. Which leads us to the Galaxy S22+.

Not as adventurous as the S22 Ultra but not stripped down like the Galaxy S22, the S22+ is the middle child meant to appease the fans and bolster Samsung’s line-up.  It’s the perfect in-between phone for people who don’t want to spend on the extravagant Ultra but want an experience slightly better than the S22.

Also Read: Samsung Galaxy S22 First Impressions | Can boring actually mean good?

Design

Samsung’s unique design language that started with the S21 series continues here but with a few small changes. The back and the front of the phone are noticeably flatter this time around and lack the pronounced curves of the S21+. This makes the phone less slippery in the hand, a problem that continued with the Galaxy S21 FE.

The flatness of the phone allows for a better grip, and that’s when you notice the shiny, smooth curves at the four edges of the phone. The sides get the flat treatment too and the phone feels solid in the hand when you hold it.

At the bottom of the phone is the USB Type-C port, flanked by a SIM tray and a speaker grille. The right side houses the power button and volume rocker. There is an in-display fingerprint reader that performs well, and I found that I didn’t really have to press down on the display for the phone to unlock. A simple tap was enough.

On the back, the contour-style camera design for the rear module returns and still looks striking. There seems to be a more pronounced separation from the sides this time around though, the overall effect doesn’t feel as seamless as the S21+ where the material of the cut-out continued in from the sides.

Display

The S22+ has a flat, 6.6-inch display on the front, with an adaptive refresh rate up to 120Hz that you sadly cannot control. The only two options you have are to lock it at 60Hz or let the phone decide based on the scenario. An option to lock 120Hz would have been welcome, but Samsung probably wanted to conserve battery life.

The dynamic AMOLED panel has a resolution of 2340x1080 and is HDR10+ certified. This screen is fantastic with rich, deep blacks and detail. Samsung allows you to choose between natural looking colours or a more vivid setting that pops. I preferred the vivid setting, but I can see more professionals using the natural colour mode. Samsung also allows you to tweak white balance and colour balance to your heart’s content.

With a maximum brightness of 1,750 nits, the screen is perfectly legible when outdoors and overall, I have no complaints with this screen.

Performance

This is the first time Samsung is introducing the Qualcomm processor-based phone in the Indian market and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC is great at keeping things moving along. You will rarely notice any slowdowns, and if you keep the display in adaptive mode, the 120Hz refresh rate makes everything feel buttery smooth.

Apps open and close without too many hiccups and multi-tasking is a breeze. In games, the performance is equally good.

One complaint I will make here is that the phone tends to run hot under heavy workloads, you will notice it most while gaming or using the camera for a while. The back tends to get warm to the touch.

Battery

The 4,500mAh battery may sound big, but it rarely lives up to that promise. On a heavy day, with a few hours of gaming and content consumption, the phone barely lasted half a day. With normal use, that included light app use, phone calls and notification checks, the phone pulled through to the end of the day.

Also Read: Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra first impressions: Resurrecting the Galaxy Note and how!

Cameras

The triple camera module at the back consists of 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera, 50-megapixel wide-angle camera and a 10-megapixel telephoto camera. So far, the camera experience has been pretty good.

The shots in daylight come out with nice detail and sharpness, but the colours do tend to more pronounced and aggressive. Using night mode, the camera still manages to retain quite a bit of detail, and the noise is kept to a minimum.

Conclusion

At Rs 84,999 for the base 8GB RAM + 128GB storage variant, the Galaxy S22+ undercuts the more premium S22 Ultra and offers a nice compromise for those who do not want to spend an arm and a leg for the S22 Ultra.