Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Long Term Review - Still a top contender?
We share our thoughts and experiences with the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra 5G after four months of use.
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| Now with S-Pen built-in |
Launched in early 2022, the new Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra with several 'noteworthy' changes over the previous generations.
But before that, let's recap the specs. It features a 6.8-inch QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with a 120Hz refresh rate, a 240Hz touch sampling rate, and with Vision Booster.
Inside is the 4nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 5G octa-core processor, 8GB/12GB RAM, 128GB/256GB/512GB of storage, and a large 5,000mAh battery with up to 45W Super Fast Charging 2.0, 15W wireless charging and wireless PowerShare.
At the back of the phone are the 108MP f/1.8 main camera, 12MP f/2.2 120-degree ultra-wide camera, 10MP f/2.4 3x telephoto camera, and 10MP f/4.9 10x telephoto camera with an LED flash. While in front is the 40MP f/2.2 selfie camera.
It is IP68 water and dust resistance rated and features a metal and glass design.
In the Philippines, the starting price of the S22 Ultra is priced at PHP 68,990 for the 8GB/128GB model.
How does it perform in real life?
Let's find out!
For our review part 1: Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra 5G First Impressions & Camera Samples
Unboxing/Accessories
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| Outer packaging |
We already shared our thoughts on the build and design of the S22 Ultra in our first impressions. We only got to see the phone itself at that time but now we received the phone and the retail packaging.
It comes in a black box with the Galaxy S22 Ultra branding. The S is the same color as the phone.
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| Box inclusions |
Inside the box is the Galaxy S22 Ultra, USB-C to USB-C cable, documentation, and the SIM ejector tool. There is no power brick, earphones, or case inside the box.
Multimedia Experience
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| Massive curved display |
In front of the Galaxy S22 Ultra is a curved 6.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with a 3088 x 1440 resolution, a 120Hz refresh rate, and a 240Hz touch sampling rate. It also supports Vision Booster and has the Eye Comfort Shield feature.
One of the better displays on a phone...
As expected, the display is bright with a peak brightness of 1,750 nits. This results in accurate colors that pop while offering nearly true blacks because of the AMOLED panel.
The QHD+ resolution produces sharp, detailed, and crisp texts and images which makes reading or consuming media a delight. The high peak brightness also makes this device a great HDR content device while being more than bright enough to be viewed in daylight.
The adaptive 120Hz refresh rate and 240hz touch sampling rate also make interacting with the phone a buttery-smooth visual and tactile experience. This includes opening apps, navigating thru the OS, playing games, and the like.
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| Top and bottom |
The phone features a stereo that is split between the earpiece and the bottom-firing speaker. It does not have a 3.5mm audio jack.
The speakers have one of the loudest maximum volumes we've heard on a smartphone. The sound produced is powerful and clear.
Even at maximum volume, there is a little distortion so we recommend using max volume when you can. The sound is clear with a good soundstage. The stereo experience adds directionality from the left and right channels when listening to or watching media or when playing games.
The microphones can pick up audio from under a meter away. The noise cancellation is great that our callers never complained about voice quality. One is at the bottom while the other is on the top of the phone. These locations are preferred for better call and video recording quality.
Cameras
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| Rear cameras |
At the back is a unique camera array. It features a 108MP f/1.8 primary camera with Dual Pixel AF, 12MP f/2.2 120-degree ultra-wide camera, 10MP f/2.4 3x telephoto camera, 10MP f/4.9 10x telephoto camera with an LED flash. The exterior lens is made of Super Clear Glass with Gorilla Glass DX which Samsung says will reduce reflection and glare.
The stock camera app includes the following modes: Photo, Video, Portrait, Single Take, Pro, Panorama, Food, Night, Portrait Video, Pro Video, Super Slo-Mo, Slow Motion, HyperLapse, Director's View, and Dual Recording.
The Pro and Pro Video mode allow for controls of ISO (50-3200), Shutter speed (1/12,000s to 30 seconds), White Balance, EV (+-2), and for controls to switch between the 1x camera, 3x telephoto, 10x telephoto, and the ultra-wide camera.
Rear Camera Samples
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| Daylight 1x |
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| Daylight 3x |
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| Daylight 10x |
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| Daylight 100x |
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| Daylight ultra-wide-angle |
The S22 Ultra's main camera, 3x telephoto, 10x telephoto and ultra-wide cameras produce great images that are sharp and detailed with deep contrast and vibrant color. As expected from Samsung.
Where the camera struggles is the 100x digital zoom where even in daylight, the image is not as detailed as we would like.
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| Close-up |
When shooting close-ups, the main camera still delivers great results. The detail, sharpness and contrast of the carbonara stand out.
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| Indoor 1x |
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| Indoor 3x |
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| Indoor 10x |
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| Indoor ultra-wide angle |
Indoors, the photos are the same as in daylight where the images are sharp with plenty of detail, vibrant color, and deep contrast.
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| Low light 1x |
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| Low light 3x |
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| Low light 10x |
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| Low light 100x |
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| Low light ultra-wide |
In low light, the main and ultra-wide cameras maintained their high-quality image with minimal noise, plenty of detail, deep contrast, and vibrant color. The telephoto cameras did lose some sharpness in the darker areas where the noise was found. Noise is most prominent in the 100x zoom. Otherwise, the auto low light performance of the S22 Ultra is one of the best in the market.
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| Night mode 1x |
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| Night mode 3x |
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| Night mode 10x |
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| Night mode ultra-wide |
The Night Mode is available for all four rear cameras. What is impressive is that the Night mode managed to improve the quality of the low light images from all four cameras. The images are cleaner while improving in sharpness, detail and color.
We highly recommend using night mode when taking pictures of static objects. These are one of the most polished Night modes we've seen.
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| Selfie camera |
While on the punch hole is the 40MP f/2.2 selfie camera. The stock camera app that uses the selfie camera includes the following modes: Photo, Portrait, Video, Single Take, Night Selfie, Dual Recording, and Hyperlapse.
Selfie Camera Samples
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| Selfie daylight |
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| Selfie Portrait |
The portrait mode offers the same quality while offering a nice bokeh. The edge detection is accurate and spot-on and the bokeh does look almost natural.
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| Selfie Indoor |
Indoors, the image quality is the same as in daylight. It is sharp, detailed, vibrant and contrasty. It is surprisingly clean with almost no noise.
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| Selfie low light |
In lowlight, the sharpness is there but because the shutter speed had to compensate for the small amount of light, the moving objects in the background are blurred. Otherwise, the low light image is sharp, detailed and is clean from noise.
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| Selfie Night mode |
The Night mode was able to recover the color, contrast and noise of the low-light selfies. It even is sharper. We highly recommend using the Night Mode for selfies in low light when possible.
The rear cameras can capture up to 8K at 24fps with stabilization but you can not switch between the rear cameras. It only gives you a 1.0x, 2.0x, 4.0x and 6.0x digital crop. It can also capture up to 4K at 60fps with stabilisation while being able to switch between the three rear cameras. While the selfie camera can capture up to 4K at 60fps with stabilisation.
The footage from both the selfie and rear cameras is sharp and detailed with good contrast and with little grain. Being able to shoot with stabilization is great as the micro jitters and shakiness have been reduced.
Note: We will upload our video samples here. Stay tuned!
Performance
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| AnTuTu and GeekBench |
Inside the phone is the 4nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 octa-core processor, Adreno GPU, and 8GB/12GB RAM. It managed to score over 901,310 in AnTuTu and scored over 1211 in Single-core and 3365 in Multi-core in GeekBench. It managed to consistently score higher than the Galaxy S22+ which is expected from the Ultra variant. The AntuTu score was taken after the GOS update. It is worth noting that the phone's temperature climbed by 7.1 degrees celsius and lost 4 percent of battery during the test.
The scores are impressive but there are competing phones with the same chipset that perform better under load.
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| 3DMark and CPDT |
While in 3DMark Wild Life, the phone managed to score 8,461 overall and got a 50.70 fps average. These scores are expected for a flagship as Wild Life is tough.
While in the internal storage benchmark CPDT, it scored over 787.88 MB/s in sequential read speeds and 214.58 MB/s in sequential write speeds. These are impressive read speeds but the write speeds are lower than expected from a flagship.
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| Genshin Impact Graphics settings |
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| Genshin Impact Screenshot |
In Genshin Impact, the Galaxy S22 Ultra managed to unlock the medium graphics setting as the default.
This is expected and it is in line with the flagship smartphones of 2022. The phone gets warm after an hour on medium. It never got alarmingly hot even after two hours of gameplay. We also ran the game at 60fps in Medium and it warmed up faster. But again, it didn't get uncomfortably hot.
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| Ni No Kuni Graphics Settings |
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| Ni No Kuni screenshot |
In the latest version of Ni No Kuni, the phone managed to unlock the high graphics settings with 25 fps and 90 percent resolution. Ni No Kuni is one of the most demanding games that was released recently and these settings are consistent with SD8 Gen 1 smartphones.
Overall, under specific workloads, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 reaches high temperatures which can be felt by the user. This is consistent with every other device with the same chipset. Samsung however is able to make the experience smoother than some of the competition.
The ultra-sonic in-display fingerprint scanner is easy to set up and it detects and scans the fingerprint quickly. We've only recorded one occurrence when it misread our finger. It was when our finger was dirty.
While the Face Unlock with the selfie camera is also easy to set up and works fast. It detects our faces and unlocks the phone instantaneously in both well-lit and poorly lit environments. The screen brightens up when in a darker environment too.
The phone works with OTG when the feature is enabled manually. The WiFi, Bluetooth 5.1, 5G, LTE, and NFC connections are fast, stable, and reliable. The GPS acquires our location immediately and accurately.
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| Battery usage |
Inside the phone is a large 5,000mAh battery with 45W fast charging thru USB-C. In our usual PCMark battery test, the phone managed to endure over 13 hours and 24 minutes. This is decent and is better than the S22+.
While in our real-world use where we use the phone as our daily driver, it managed to last for 6 hours and 8 minutes of on-screen time after a loaded 8-hour workday with only 20 percent battery left. This is expected for a flagship chipset with a 5,000mAh battery with 1440p resolution.
It takes the phone under 75 minutes to charge from 0 to 100 percent with a 25W charger. It charges around 65 minutes with a 45W charger. This is a reasonably fast charging for its price range. It is not the best but it is faster than even some flagships.
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| OneUI 4.1 |
For software, it is running on the latest Android 12-based One UI 4.1. This phone is expected to benefit from Samsung's promise to provide updates for several years after release. The new One UI 4.1 adds all the improvements in features, performance and visuals that Android 12 added. We personally love being able to personalize and change the colors of the UI elements to our preference or to match the current wallpaper.
New features in One UI 4.1 include several improvements to S-Pen-related features and apps and include the new Smart Widget that allows users to stack 7 widgets in one.
Our main concern is that there is a ton of pre-installed Samsung branded apps that can conflict with stock Google apps. This can easily be remedied by uninstalling the bloatware one by one. It takes extra time upon initial set-up but that's it.
Performance-wise, navigating thru the UI and launching apps is super fast and smooth. We have no complaints about the overall performance phone. We are happy to say that you are getting a polished experience with the S22 Ultra.
Pros - Solid and high-quality premium materials, powerful specs, good battery life, great cameras, S-Pen included,
Cons - Large and heavy, Thermals during heavy processing workloads can get warm quickly,
Verdict
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| GIZGUIDE website |
Samsung further polished the build and design while incorporating the S-Pen and S-Pen silo.
It may not be the most powerful performing phone in terms of RAW performance but it does deliver a stable and polished experience in nearly all categories.
The battery performs as expected from a 5,000mAh battery.
The rear and selfie cameras produce stunning images and video. It has great stabilization that is only surpassed by a handful of phones.
Our nitpicks are that the 45W fast charger doesn't offer a huge benefit while the SD8 Gen1 does heat up even with the powerful cooling the S22 Ultra has. Another concern is weight. The phone is solid and sturdy but may be larger and heavier for some people. We also wish it came with more accessories like a charger or a case.
Otherwise, the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra 5G is one of the more well-rounded smartphones of 2022.
We highly recommend the Galaxy S22 Ultra 5G for anyone who wants a Samsung flagship experience that needs the S-Pen.
What do you guys think?
Build/Design - 4.5
Multimedia Experience - 4.5
Cameras - 4.5
Performance - 4
Average - 4.375/5
Multimedia Experience - 4.5
Cameras - 4.5
Performance - 4
Average - 4.375/5
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