Yes, I know, I’m late and by the time I release this article, you’d already have read and watched TONS of reviews on the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. That said, I promise you that what you are going to find here will be TOTALLY different as I am totally NOT going to talk about specs. Instead, I will break down the use cases and dive straight into using the phone every day as my daily driver smartphone AND compare it to using last year’s S21 Ultra and the previous Note (Note 20 Ultra) as well.
Build Quality
If you are already used to a large-sized smartphone, then you will feel at home handling this phone. I am a huge fan and always preferred a boxy design, which is very reminiscent of the recent Note devices. And, if you are coming from the slightly curved edges of the previous S21 Ultra or before, then it will take you about less than a week to get used to it.
There were also some reviewers complaining about how the phone was a bit “sharp” (I mean really dude?) . The S22 Ultra has the same form factor as the Note 20 Ultra and when THAT phone was out, everyone loved it. It seems baffling now that all of a sudden, people are nitpicking on these things about phone.
Speaking of handling, because of the One UI software on Samsung devices–I have always said it before and I will say it again–it makes this a perfect phone to use with a single hand due to the simple swiping in the middle of the screen for the notification menu and swiping up on the apps drawer.
It is something super simple but yet not everyone is doing that on their smartphones. Since I have a medium-sized hand, I usually rest my pinky finger at the bottom middle of the phone and simply navigate just using my thumb, with my index finger rested comfortably at the nice matte texture of the back of the phone. Therefore, there were no issues using this phone with a single hand.
Another weird nitpick is that people were complaining about was the camera design at the back, because last year when the S21 Ultra was out, people went “oh the camera bump is HUGE and Samsung embraced this instead.” Now that Samsung has simplified the camera array, it suddenly becomes “boring”? Mark my words, you will start to see other smartphone makers following this removal of the camera bump design very soon.
As mentioned in my first impressions video, I absolutely love the new minimalist camera design for the back. Here’s an important thing to note if you have butterfingers and are known to drop your phone easily. While the front and rear have the toughest Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+ protection and the sides are armour aluminium, if you do happen to drop the phone at a flat angle, the lens will take the most beating because of the protrusion of the lens, so keep that in mind or get a protective case.
As for me, I am planning to order the Phantom White version of the phone; for those who KNOW me, you know how much I love white-coloured smartphones. Along with that, I plan to get a clear standing case for the sake of giving that added protection.
Speaking of colors, I have to say that other than White, I REALLY do admire the Green colour as well!
Also worth mentioning is that don’t be alarmed if you hear a slight rattle when you shake the phone as that’s the camera’s OIS moving about when it’s not being used or activated in the camera app.
Display
Now we all know that Samsung is the number 1 manufacturer for smartphone screens and I personally feel that Samsung intentionally saved the best for their smartphones because the S22 Ultra is hands down the best smartphone display compared to any out right now!
While nobody asked for a brighter screen (even the previous generation smartphones were perfectly visible in bright daylight), the extra brightness toggle is like the screen is challenging the sun and saying “come at me bro.” EVERYTHING was super clear, sharp, and bright even under super hot 12pm afternoon weather.
Additionally, being bright is not everything that the screen is good at; it performs exceptionally well during a extremely dark environments too. If you are always under that kind of scenario, there is the Extra Dim toggle–a very clever feature that you can find under the Accessibility settings.
Having a big screen with a really nice and thin bezel also means that it will be a perfect smartphone to consume videos on. Not only that, the colour accuracy on this is extremely good–not just for watching movies on Netflix, YouTube, Amazon and Disney Plus Hotstar but also being able to act as a colour reference monitor for my 6K Blackmagic RAW footage after I am done with colour grading.
As for using the phone for daily tasks like scrolling on websites, the menu system, and social media pages, the screen is superfluid. The adaptive refresh rate is not only experienced first hand but the smoothness can also be seen through my camera’s viewfinder when I was shooting the phone’s screen–from static 1Hz up to 120Hz. This special ability made everything that you do on the phone an exceptionally smooth experience compared to smartphones that simply forced everything to 120Hertz (which in return will kill your battery life faster).
Cameras
Since there are so much to cover on the phone’s camera, especially on the introduction of Nightography. I am planning to do a dedicated camera blog post on the camera samples and overall findings on the phone for both picture and video mode as well. Do stay tuned for that but meanwhile here are the specs of the cameras!
Software
Next, from a software perspective, I have said it earlier and I will say again, that Samsung’s One UI, especially THIS version 4.1 is the best Android Skin ever as of now.
It’s simple yet customisable to how you want, and I am saying this even without using the Good Lock app. Simple things like swiping up and down for the notification shade from ANYWHERE from the home screen and to the app drawers is still flawless as ever.
Other simple functions like changing the screen timeout or the refresh rate can all be found directly on the Display menu, as opposed to something like Xiaomi’s MIUI where you will need to go deeper like into the advanced settings or something even deeper or other parts of the menu which always annoyed me.
If you missed my review of the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE where I went through my favourite features of this new One UI version4, I plan to do a dedicated blog post on why OneUI is now considered the gold standard for Android smartphones compared to other android skins, so stay tuned for that!
In terms of using the phone daily, gone are the days of me using Gboard as my keyboard of choice because I love the native keyboard app on this One UI. With the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, the camera launches quickly, games run smoothly, and scrolling around using the phone daily always felt extremely fluid without any issues thus far.
I was initially worried about overheating because I have used other phones with this high-end Snapdragon chip (OnePlus 9 & Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra) and usually it always overheats like crazy. Speaking of crazy, but call me crazy–I’ve always liked the Exynos chipset but anyways, Snapdragon fans can rejoice now!
S Pen
Oh yes! For the first time ever, an S Pen comes with an S Series Samsung phone, making it the spiritual inheritor of Samsung’s not-so-old Note Line up.
Daily use for the S Pen for me felt very familiar since I have used lots of Note devices of the past (Note 2, Note 4, Note 9, Note 10+, Note20 Ultra). One thing is certain–latency was significantly better!
It’s nice to know that finally, my teammate Mo can understand what I screenshot and write on the pictures sent to him when I have an idea for a thumbnail. Before this, he had absolutely no idea what in the world I was trying to say since I could only use my finger instead.
Now if I REALLY had a choice, and this is based on my personal preference; while it’s nice that the S Pen has a matte finish to give that added grip when writing, drawing, and using it daily, I kind of prefer when the S Pen came with the same colour finish like how it was on the Note 20 Ultra in White. It’s just a personal preference of course; the added grip on the matte version was great as well.
In case you are wondering, you can use the S Pen from your older Note devices (Note20 Ultra on the S22 Ultra) to write or draw but you obviously can’t use the button on the S Pen, since it’s paired with the particular phone that it came with.
Another thing to note (pun intended), is if you are looking to write while the phone is placed on a table, I would advise against it because it does wobble quite a lot when you do. Alternatively, I would advise you to get a case to prevent the wobble or just use the S Pen while it’s on your other hand instead to get a better experience on it.
I will be also doing another dedicated tips and tricks blog post on the S Pen to go deeper on what super cool things you can do with the S Pen, so visit back soon!
Battery
Battery life on the S22 Ultra was really great and I got some very interesting results. I tested my daily battery usage on two scenarios (NO it wasn’t a battery drain test).
Scenario number one was when I used it daily with the maximum QHD+ resolution, the 120-hertz adaptive display, and with dark mode turned on. I got an average of 6 hours and 25 minutes and even when I was at 10% battery, I could still play Genshin Impact for 1 hour and 27 minutes.
On some days or scenario number 2, I set the phone at FHD+ resolution with the same settings as well and here is where I got a total of 6 hours and 36 minutes at 10% battery.
Here is where it was interesting. I actually only saved a mere 10 mins by going down to FHD+, so might as well use this phone at QHD+ then.
While the phone can support up to 45 watts of fast charging, there were reports that it doesn’t charge up to 45 watts. Well, unfortunately, I went to many Samsung outlets and 45 watts charger was out of stock so I will have to wait for that instead of using any 3rd party chargers to make a proper judgment.
That aside, this phone supports fast wireless charging at 15 watts and reverse wireless charging of up to 4.5 watts.
Gaming
Playing games was a nice and smooth experience for everything that you throw at it. For games like PubG Mobile, you can go up to Ultra HD for graphics and frame rate up to Ultra with no issues at all.
It did an amazing job with COD Mobile on Max graphics frame rates and of course, the gameplay on Asphalt 9 was remarkable thanks to the phone’s amazing stereo speaker, brilliant display and with graphics setting on High-Quality.
The main game I really wanted to test the phone was on Genshin Impact; I had the settings at Medium, 60 frames per second, and Motion Blur turned off, which I felt gave me the best gaming experience. It took about 15 minutes for the phone to become warm but the warmth was distributed evenly across the phone as opposed to only being hot typically at the camera bump area (you’ll find that with other smartphones), so the overall experience was pleasant indeed.
In terms of the comfort level when playing games, especially with the boxy design, for me and my buddy Lehud who has a middle-sized hand, there were no issues at all. However, for someone who has large hands, it MIGHT be a little uncomfortable when playing games for a really long time as the edge might be touching the palm instead of the fingers.
Conclusion
With all that has been said and all that I have done in testing the phone every day for the past several weeks, I surmise that the “Note sequel” that we never got is finally here. For those who feel that Samsung’s foldable is not something that you want to go for because of the price and the whole foldable form factor, the Galaxy S22 Ultra will be a very compelling option on every other aspect. Not just because the phone is offered at the exact price of last year’s S21 Ultra but also the fact that there is literally a free S Pen inside.
As for me, I can confidently say that the S22 Ultra has made its anchor model the default best of the best Android smartphone to use. And yes, it will be in my pocket daily as well. If you haven’t ordered it yet I will leave all the purchase information here (Buy Now!), especially on the additional free gift items also available for a limited time!
