Samsung Galaxy S22 Review: A Hidden Powerhouse

This phone should be at the top of your Android phone shopping list because of its convenient design, excellent performance, and long-term software update policy.

Pros

• Conveniently small and robust
• A stunning OLED screen
• A+ Android OS upgrading policy
• Secure cameras
• Flowing act

Cons

• Small, fast-draining battery
• We need faster charging
• An ultrawide camera’s flaw
• Hot under load

The Samsung Galaxy S22 is the company’s most inexpensive 2022 flagship handset. The Galaxy S22 Ultra, which inherits the strong Note heritage, gets fancy features. That doesn’t imply the vanilla Galaxy S22 should be shadowed. In truth, this simple phone packs a punch. Here’s the lowdown on the phone before you hand over your hard-earned cash to Samsung.

Quality Construction

Aesthetically, the Galaxy S22 hasn’t changed. Compared to the Galaxy S21, Samsung’s current flagship is just dull. But when compared to other top phones, the Galaxy S22 holds its own. The White Phantom trim is gorgeous, with a pearly white rear panel that contrasts nicely with the metallic sheen on the rails and camera island. The phone is also available in black, green, and sand pink. But it’s the white that truly gives it that luxury, minimalist feel.

Just look at the numbers. The build quality is excellent. Samsung has replaced the Galaxy S21’s plastic back panel with a glass sheet covered by Gorilla Glass Victus. I couldn’t locate any scuff marks on the back panel after using it for almost three weeks without a protective cover. But the show was another story. It has minor scrapes all over it after a few days of usage.

The Galaxy S22’s display is also stunning, with similarly tiny bezels. Stunning and puts notch-loving iPhones to shame. The power and volume buttons have a satisfying click and are conveniently located. Of course, the Galaxy S22’s 167-gram weight and a slim design assist. The Galaxy S22 has a 6.1-inch screen. Compared to the hefty Max and Ultra class phones, the Galaxy S22 is one of the few phones that won’t strain your hands or fingers. The Galaxy S22, like the Pixel 4a and iPhone 13, is an excellent balance of great in-hand experience and pocketable size.

Samsung’s newest flagship uses an X-axis haptic motor. The vibration feedback is smoother and more uniformly distributed. However, the strength has decreased. Although it is subjective, there is a noticeable difference between it and the Galaxy S21. Some people prefer a more intense, focused vibration, while others prefer a more diffused haptic feel. In this case, I prefer the Galaxy S22. Samsung has also made several concessions to achieve this small design. The 3.5mm headphone connector is absent in the microSD card slot. Yes, the camera bump still wobbles the phone on a flat surface.

Camera

S22 sports a 50-megapixel primary camera, a 12-megapixel ultra wide camera, and a 10-megapixel telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom. A 10-megapixel primary camera handles selfies. Said, these cameras are serious. The primary camera takes beautiful photos with rich colors, contrast, detail, and sharpness. This year, Samsung seems to have changed the color chemistry since the “Signature Samsung Saturation” has been reduced. Colors are more accurate and less saturated than prior Samsung phones. Surface details are nicely kept, as is subject separation.

The portrait mode wowed me. The camera performed an excellent job detecting edges and rendering depth of field. Even the studio lighting effects for picture photos matched the iPhones. The telephoto camera also captured great portrait photos. The ultrawide camera caught scenes with the same color homogeneity as the primary camera. However, warping proved a problem, particularly with linear parts in the picture. Look at the interior photo taken by the Galaxy S22 and its Ultra edition (below), both of which use the same ultrawide camera technology. Still, only one exhibits the bizarre edge warping effect. The S22’s ultrawide snap, although crisp and well-exposed, seems to have lost its angular symmetry.

It doesn’t have a macro lens, but the primary camera shoots spectacular close-ups. To get closer, use a telephoto lens. Macro photography with the zoom camera is excellent. Because the focus lock is temperamental at close range, make sure you have sturdy hands, or the phone is resting on a steady support.

Although Samsung has included night mode on all three cameras, the 50-megapixel primary camera makes the most of this low-light photographic technique. The primary camera can distinguish things in the picture even in dim situations, and colors are accurately reproduced. The ultrawide camera takes a few seconds longer to shoot night images, but the effects are not as spectacular. The 3x telephoto camera boosts contrast too much, resulting in a grainier image at the expense of lighting. Positively, the surface textures are more readable. Also included are Single Take, portrait video, Director’s View, and Super Slow-Mo. Director’s perspective allows you to record a scenario from both the front and back, saving you time.

The 10-megapixel selfie camera is likewise adequate, although it tends to brighten skin tones and increase saturation even without filters. Some users enjoy the punchier appearance of their self-portraits prepared for social media. They expose more details and colors than the rear cameras’ low-light images, but they are noisier and softer. In some instances, as seen in the examples below:

There are several possible video captures, both in terms of frame rate and resolution (up to 8K). In terms of color fidelity and stability, I found 1080p at 60 fps to be the sweet spot. In the daytime, the super slow-motion option created excellent films, but the banding effect remains in low-light and interior situations.

Overall, the Galaxy S22’s cameras are competitive with the iPhone 13, save for the latter’s superior filming skills. The Galaxy S22, however, has a 3x telephoto lens that works well in both long-range and close-up situations.

Screen

The Galaxy S22 boasts a 6.1-inch HDR10+ Super AMOLED display with a resolution of FHD+ (2340 x 1080 pixels) and a 120Hz refresh. The Galaxy S22 Ultra has a different high refresh rate technology than the Galaxy S22. While both phones can touch 120Hz, the Galaxy S22 can only go down to 48Hz, while the Ultra sibling’s LTPO innovation lets the screen refresh rate fall as low as 1Hz depending on the on-screen content, conserving battery life.

Samsung later revealed that the Galaxy S22’s screen refresh rate might drop as low as 48Hz. But it, too, seems to be a guess. As soon as I activated the native screen refresh rate overlay, I saw that the refresh rate was reduced to a consistent 24Hz. It also occurred in the YouTube app, while other UI interactions occurred at 120Hz. But it doesn’t mean the Galaxy S22 isn’t good enough. It has one of the gorgeous displays on a high-end Android transfer phone. The viewing angles are excellent, sunlight readability is superb, and colors pop. The Natural preset in display mode keeps the genuine colors, while the Vivid option’s slight saturation boost brings out the best in this screen. I tested the Galaxy S22 and Galaxy S22 Ultra for banding, contrast, viewing angle, and saturation. Contrast blocks in the lighter color scales gave the vanilla Galaxy S22 a minor advantage over the Ultra edition.

In the backlight control tests for producing grayscale blocks against a dark backdrop, the essential Galaxy S22 did better than the Ultra model (picture below). The Galaxy S22’s display is somewhat more incredible with a blue tint, while the S22 Ultra’s display is warmer with more aggressive auto-brightness settings. When Dark Mode is activated, the AMOLED panel’s deep blacks shine. I didn’t need to turn up the brightness to watch the material, even in direct sunshine. It was a pleasure to see HDR stuff. Remember that only HDR10+ and HDR HLG are supported, not Dolby Vision.

Software

The Galaxy S22 we reviewed runs One UI 4.1 on top of Android 12. The design is similar, but the material You theming supports is new. The notifications shade icons and other native UI components change color according to your background, with some nice transparency effects. But the experience is polished, and it has many valuable features that vanilla Android lacks. One UI 4.1 included a few new features, including Smart Calendar, which automatically identifies dates and times in messages and offers them as calendar entries.

Samsung Pay can now store driver’s licenses (availability may vary), auto keys, and movie tickets. There’s also a new additional brightness option to boost the brightness if it’s too dim. To function, the auto-brightness mechanism must be deactivated. Widget stacking is another new feature that works beautifully. Users may use the Edge panel instead of the Gallery app’s editing capabilities to save a section of the on-screen material. I enjoyed utilizing the inbuilt GIF creator, which rapidly transforms a chosen segment of the on-screen action into a GIF. The Galaxy S22 comes with four years of Android OS updates and five years of security patches, either quarterly or half-yearly. That’s a year longer than Google promised for its Pixel devices and a year longer than Chinese Android smartphone rivals.

Performance

The Galaxy S22 comes in two flavors: Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 from Qualcomm and Exynos 2200 from Samsung. Even though our evaluation device was the Qualcomm version, both units provide top-notch performance. Every assignment I gave went well. In some of the more demanding games, the phone efficiently handled them. The system on a chip performs as expected, but the Galaxy S22’s small size means the room is limited inside, affecting thermal performance.

The CPU works well. However, the heat it generates slows it down. Look at the performance graph above, which degrades after 15 minutes of a simulated stress test. The Galaxy S22’s poorer thermal technology significantly impacts benchmark performance compared to the Galaxy S22 Ultra, which scored 3106 on Geekbench while our testing only managed 2932.

After shooting several images or films in high definition, the shutter button got unresponsive. After 40 minutes of playing Call of Duty: Mobile at high graphics settings, we noticed frame dips and tremors. Whatever the task, the Galaxy S22 becomes heated very fast, particularly in the top section. In addition to reflecting heat, the metallic frame itself generates heat. But the phone never warned me about terminating an app due to heat.

Battery and Charging

The Galaxy S22’s battery issue is deteriorating. Samsung has reduced the Galaxy S22’s battery by 300mAh, leaving it with a 3,700mAh capacity. Except for the iPhone mini, one of the tiniest batteries on a modern smartphone was released after 2021. And it does make a difference in everyday usage. I utilized at least five communication applications, viewed a few YouTube videos, and listened to music for roughly three hours every day on Bluetooth headphones. Even without gaming, the phone barely lasted a day. When I had a couple of video chats, the battery died on the way home. However, your mileage may vary. This is not the most acceptable screen time on a flagship phone, even the smaller ones. The Galaxy S22 shouldn’t scare you if you use your phone sparingly and always charge it after work.

No charger is included in the package. Samsung offers the 25-watt charger separately, which is the phone’s fastest wired charging speed. Again, it’s not the greatest since competitors have already reached 120W for less. Depending on your carrier or retailer, you may receive the 25W charger. The charger takes half an hour to charge the empty tank to 60%, whereas a full charge often takes an hour. Wireless charging with a 15W peak power is also possible. Using a wireless charging mat didn’t cause any heating concerns.

During a 20-minute session of Call of Duty: Mobile at high graphics settings, the phone’s battery dropped 10%, and the CPU temperature rose 8%. The game booster dashboard allows for some system-level performance and temperature optimization, although it is negligible. The idle battery loss troubled me. It lost about 10% to 15% of its battery even while it was on a table with cellular internet and communication applications operating in the background. Also, with adaptive refresh rate enabled. The May update lowered the loss of idle battery but remains.

Affordability

The Galaxy S22 begins at $799 on Amazon and $600 with new activation at Best Buy, with up to $660 off if you trade a qualifying smartphone. If you don’t want to move lines, carriers have some aggressive offers worth checking out. The Samsung shop offers the 128GB Galaxy S22 for $675 and the 256GB Galaxy S22 for $725 if purchased in full. This time around, Samsung has added four new colors: Graphite, Cream, Sky Blue, and Violet.

Our Take

The Galaxy S22 is boringly excellent. It has all the hallmarks of a pure Android flagship. The Galaxy S22 has good cameras, a speedy CPU, excellent build quality and feel in hand, and the best software update policy in the Android ecosystem. But there are blemishes. The battery could be more extensive, and the thermal management could be better. But the real issue is how it compares against competitors. The iPhone 13 and Google Pixel 6 both provide refined software, top-notch hardware, trustworthy cameras, and, most crucially, superior battery life than the Samsung flagship. But Samsung is compensating with aggressive offers. Some retailers have included the charger with the Galaxy S22, and Samsung is offering a generous exchange incentive.