Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra review: In a league of its own

In case you choose to go case-less, you will appreciate the premium feel that the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra offers. The frosted back of this Burgundy S22 Ultra has a hint of Mystic Bronze vibes from the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra (Review). I am personally not a fan of this colour but some of my friends kind of liked the sort of Burgundy shade. If it were to me, I would go for the Phantom White over this. Samsung has not launched the Phantom Green colour, which according to me is the best colour among the four options. There is also a Phantom Black for those who prefer a classic, safe design. 

What you also should note is that the phone has a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+ on the back and front. Samsung claims that the glass layer is the strongest on any phone. While we do not intend to do a Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra durability test, the device did survive a couple of accidental drops from a roughly 3-feet height.

Honestly, I freaked out a bit when the phone fell flat on the marble floor with the screen facing down as the screen is curved. And curved screens do crack quickly in general. However, to my surprise (and good luck) the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s display did not crack. I wouldn’t blame myself completely for the drop because the Galaxy S22 Ultra is quite tall and wide. 

With a screen that is 6.8-inch diagonally tall, the phone offers plenty of screen estate for multimedia consumption and gaming. It is also the brightest display on any smartphone currently available commercially. The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra has 1750 nits peak brightness, which is marginally higher than the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra (Review). That being said, the screen will not always touch the 1750 nits brightness levels all the time but only while consuming HDR content on media apps. You also need to enable the “Extra Brightness” toggle in the Display Settings to get an even brighter display.

Trust me when I say this though, the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra has the best display on any smartphone launched in India so far. Other than the bright display, the vibrant colours and incredible contrast ratio also help you get a great viewing experience. I watched a few episodes of All of Us Dead and Inventing Anna during my Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra review period. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the episodes on the smartphone, especially All of Us Dead. The zombie apocalypse-based show has many scenes shot in the night. With the HDR10+ certified display, you will not have to squint your eyes while watching such scenes. You also get dual speakers with Dolby Atmos support, which adds to the multimedia experience.

Other than binge-watching shows on Netflix or Hotstar, the S22 Ultra also works as a good canvas for the artist in you. My use case so far has been only signing embargoes for upcoming smartphones launching in India. While I am not as creative, the S Pen integration will help those who like to sketch sometimes here and there or simply take Notes on their phone. The S Pen’s response time is incredibly quick. At 2.8ms, the latency is next to none giving you the feeling as if you were writing with a pen on paper. 

Samsung’s not limiting the S Pen’s features to just taking notes or drawing sketches on the screen. The company has added some software tricks and tweaks as well. For starters, there is an option to convert my poor handwriting to text that is a lot more presentable. You can also perform some air actions to initiate tasks. These include going back to the home screen, opening the camera app and clicking a photo, etc. You might not use the S Pen all the time but hey, it will be there for you when you need it.

Performance and software 

Another noteworthy upgrade that the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra brings along with it is a true flagship performance engine. The Indian variant gets a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC (finally!), which is superior in terms of performance and efficiency compared to Exynos 2200, which is Samsung’s in-house flagship processor.

Although Samsung launched the Galaxy S22 Ultra first, the iQOO 9 Pro (Review) is the first smartphone to be commercially available in India with the flagship chipset. As expected, the Snapdragon flagship can handle whatever you throw at it without breaking a sweat. However, what might sweat is your palm as the phone does get slightly warm below the camera rings and the central portion of the rear panel within a few minutes of gameplay and video recording. In comparison, the iQOO 9 Pro (Review) did not get as warm probably because the phone has dedicated hardware for cooling down the heat, which is missing on the Galaxy S22 Ultra. In Samsung’s defence, the company is not placing the S22 Ultra as a gaming phone but more of a productivity-focused device. This is also one of the reasons why the phone has support for Samsung Dex, which aims at offering a desktop experience from your phone. There is also an option to continue some of your tasks on other Samsung devices that you own. 

In case you want to play games, the phone won’t disappoint. I did play a lot of Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) and Asphalt 9 on the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. There was no lag or any kind of stutter. As I mentioned earlier, the bottom edge is slightly sharp which caused some discomfort while gaming. 

In terms of software, the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra boots Android 12-based OneUI 4.1 out of the box. It gets some of the latest Android features baked into Samsung’s custom UI, which according to me, is the most stable, polished and efficient mainstream Android skin out there. Samsung is also providing users with the option to match the overall UI palette based on the wallpaper, which is kind of similar to the Material You design on Pixel smartphones. I have no small complaint though. Samsung needs to add the brightness level bar in a way that I can access it with a single swipe as opposed to two currently. The auto-brightness setting on my device was slightly aggressive, which led me to turn it off on the second day of my Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra review.

While these are minor complaints, major props to Samsung for announcing four years of software upgrades and five years of security support for the Samsung Galaxy S22 series. It sits next to Apple, which has been the industry-best for years when it comes to software upgrades on the iPhone. Prolonged software support, coupled with a powerful 5nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC, will ensure that the phone does not get slow for the next two to three years at least.

Battery life

Previously, it has happened in the past where a Galaxy Note smartphone came with a slightly smaller battery compared to an S-series flagship launched earlier that year. Samsung was forced to do that because the S Pen occupied a tall vertical column on either side of the device. With the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, the company has not only managed to add the same battery capacity as the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra (Review) but also integrated the S Pen on the left edge.

The 5000 mAh battery in the Galaxy S22 Ultra offers all-day battery life. The screen-on time (SoT) differs based on use case and usage. On days when I just binged-watch shows at full brightness for several hours, the phone offered seven hours and eight minutes of SoT at best. On days with heavy gaming, the SoT was four hours and 58 minutes. In between days when I scrolled through social media, clicked some sample images for our Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra review, attended video briefings, and watched some YouTube videos, the screen-on time was about six hours. 

I would say the battery life was quite good on the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra considering the phone has a 6.8-inch 2K AMOLED display and a powerful chipset under the hood. Maybe it is Samsung’s optimisation or the 120Hz LTPO panel doing the trick here of offering some great battery life that will not make you run for a charging adapter. Oh, by the way, “for the environment,” Samsung is not providing a charger with the Galaxy S22 series. I used the AMX XP-60 charging adapter, which charged the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra from about five percent to 100 in an hour. I also tried charging the S22 Ultra with iQOO 9 Pro’s 120W fast charger, which supports 65W PD-charging. Oddly, the Galaxy S22 Ultra took two hours to charge completely in this case. Therefore, it is advised to buy something like an AMX XP-60 charging adapter, which charges the phone at 45W via the Type-C port or any other standalone brick that supports similar output.

Camera 

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra camera specifications have not changed. What has changed is the camera module design, which in this case does not exist at all. The quad-camera setup and the laser autofocus module each have their individual ring that does not protrude as much. If you ask me, I still like the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra’s camera module design. The Samsung Galaxy S22 and S22 Plus get a similar implementation. However, functionality matters over form and the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra camera ticks the box.

The phone has a 108MP main camera sensor that clicks sharp, detailed images. The colours are quite saturated, giving you that Instagram-ready output. The lowlight performance of the main camera is also quite impressive. It does cancel out the noise to quite some extent while bringing out good details in the well-exposed highlights. 

The 12MP ultrawide camera isn't the widest out there but is reasonably wide with a 120-degree field of view. The colour reproduction is similar to that of the main camera. However, like most ultrawide smartphone cameras, this one too has soft details in the distorted edges. That being said, the ultrawide camera is among the best in terms of overall quality, dynamic range and colours. What has noticeably improved though is the telephoto camera performance. Samsung continues to offer 3x and 10x optical zoom with the two 10MP telephoto camera sensors. The former supports up to 30x digital zoom, whereas the latter offers 100X digital zoom, which Samsung calls Space Zoom. The images are quite usable even at 30x zoom, which is quite impressive. 

While there is some loss of details as you zoom further, the text in images shot at 100x zoom was also readable. Again, quite impressive. In lowlight, the telephoto camera does a decent job up to 10x zoom. Anything further will result in soft images with okay-ish details.

The 40MP front camera also clicks some good quality selfies. In natural mode, the front camera got the skin tone almost right. Portrait mode is a hit or miss as the software blurs out my ear and some hair strands in a few images. In some portrait mode images, the software-processed blur was not as neat. Hopefully, a software update fixes this. Click here to see some of the sample images we shot during our Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra review.

Verdict 

Coming to the most important question: Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra? If you are looking for the best Samsung smartphone out there that offers everything a flagship phone can do, the answer is yes. Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra price in India starts at Rs 1,09,990. It is far more expensive than many other Android flagship smartphones. If you can afford this one and you want a Galaxy Note-like feel, this one is the only option you have. But that’s not all.

The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra camera is unmatched when it comes to zoom. The versatile camera setup also produces excellent wide and ultrawide images in both day and night situations. It is not just about the camera setup though. The display is by far the best I have used on a smartphone, making it an ultimate tool for content consumption on the go. 

With Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC under the hood, you can also rely on the Galaxy S22 Ultra to offer top-notch performance. Couple that with the S Pen and One UI 4.1, and you also get a productivity powerhouse. Sure, the phone does get slightly warm, which is the case with most Snapdragon 8-series phones, except the Snapdragon 870. If you are a gamer and want one heck of a gaming experience, consider checking our iQOO 9 Pro review or the Asus ROG Phone 5S review. The iQOO 9 Pro also gets close in terms of camera performance and display. However, Samsung takes the lead further with its One UI 4.1 features and the promise of up to five years of software support.

Another competitor is the iPhone 13 Pro (Review), which is priced at Rs 1,19,900 for the base 128GB option. So, which one of the two should you choose?

Samsung is a clear winner in terms of zoom. The Galaxy S22 Ultra shoots up to 100x zoom, whereas the iPhone 13 Pro is limited to 15x zoom. That being said, the iPhone 13 Pro offers a better video experience with a better dynamic range and details. The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra supports up to 8K video at 24 fps, which is great. However, the phone comes in two storage options with 256GB and 512GB of internal storage. If you are a video content creator who wants to go all the way with 4K or 8K video recording, the 512GB variant of the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra might not be sufficient unless you regularly transfer your videos to the cloud or another storage device. The iPhone 13 Pro/ Pro Max also support ProRes video recording which gives you better control in post process. It also has up to 1TB of internal storage, which is double what Samsung offers. Both phones do not have expandable storage support, in case you were wondering.

The iPhone 13 Pro is also a lot more compact compared to the Galaxy S22 Ultra. Therefore, it is a no brainer to go with the smaller Pro iPhone if you want a compact phone. The iPhone 13 Pro also offers slightly better battery life compared to the S22 Ultra. I will leave it to you on deciding between Android and iOS. Regarding the devices, Apple products work better together, whereas, with the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, you will have to install certain apps on your Windows laptop to experience somewhat of a collaborative ecosystem. The integrated S Pen also gives the S22 Ultra a point, making it an obvious recommendation for those who want to create beautiful digital art on their smartphone. Based on your use case and requirements, you could go with either of the two best smartphones of 2022.