Samsung Galaxy S22 review

Finest Costs At the moment: Samsung Galaxy S22

$699.95

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The Samsung Galaxy S22 is the bottom mannequin within the S22 sequence and is similar to the bigger Galaxy S22+ however sports activities a smaller 6.1in show and 3700mAh battery.

The S22 is accessible worldwide now however is it the appropriate cellphone for you?

Design & Construct

• Skinny and lightweight 
• Premium design 
• IP68 ranking 

The S22 doesn’t function a revolutionary design and appears similar to the Galaxy S21 but it surely feels premium within the hand. It options an aluminium body and a glass back and front that includes Corning’s most premium Gorilla Glass Victus+ safety. 

The cellphone weighs 167g and is simply about 7.6 mm thick. The construct high quality is superb. The again doesn’t appeal to fingerprints, however the digicam bump is distinguished. The cellphone is IP68 rated which suggests it might keep underneath 1.5m of freshwater for as much as half-hour. The unit reviewed got here within the Phantom White color however you can even get it in a spread of different colourways: Phantom Black, Inexperienced, Pink Gold and Bora Purple.  

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

The machine makes use of an in-display ultrasonic fingerprint sensor which is extraordinarily quick and correct in comparison with common optical fingerprint sensors present in different telephones. The SIM tray is on the backside and allows you to use as much as 2 nano SIM playing cards in Twin SIM configuration.  

General, the design is compact, acquainted and is among the finest telephones you should purchase by way of construct high quality. The show options Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+ safety and the cellphone doesn’t ship with a pre-installed display screen protector. 

Display screen & Audio system

• 6.1in Dynamic AMOLED
• Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+ safety  
• Stereo audio system with Dolby Atmos audio 

Samsung is thought for its wonderful shows on flagship choices and the S22 doesn’t disappoint. The viewing expertise is superb and there are intensive choices within the settings to configure the show to your wants together with an eye fixed consolation protect.

The cellphone packs a 6.1in Full HD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X Infinity-O show with a 120Hz refresh fee. The refresh fee which Samsung calls Movement smoothness may be manually configured to 60Hz or set as adaptive which routinely adjusts the display screen refresh fee from 24Hz as much as 120Hz.

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At all times-on show may be enabled for individuals who prefer to test their notifications rapidly. You’ll be able to faucet to wake the display screen and get a gist of your notifications. Darkish Mode is accessible system broad and One UI in darkish mode on this panel is a deal with to make use of. There are minimal bezels across the show and beneath the show is a 10Mp punch-hole selfie digicam. 

The audio from the stereo audio system can get very loud with out distortion and the S22 sounds higher than the S21 for certain. One of many audio system is down-firing and positioned close to the USB-C port whereas the opposite one is positioned on the prime behind the earpiece.

There isn’t a 3.5mm headphone jack which isn’t a shock contemplating the cellphone’s skinny profile, however you might use a USB-C adapter if you happen to don’t plan to make use of wi-fi headphones.  

Specs & Efficiency

• Highly effective flagship chips 
• Snapdragon or Exynos relying on market 
• Restricted to 8GB RAM  

The unit examined on this evaluation includes a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. In Europe, Samsung ships the cellphone with an analogous 4nm Exynos 2200 chipset.

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The Exynos model options the Xclipse 920 GPU which is a results of collaboration between Samsung and AMD. You’ll be able to try the evaluation of the S22+ for extra details about the Exynos 2200.

When it comes to common day-to-day utilization, the S22 shines and there are not any lag or efficiency hiccups so all the pieces feels as fast as you’d anticipate from a flagship machine.  

However underneath steady heavy utilization, the cellphone begins to get reasonably sizzling particularly throughout gaming or whereas utilizing resource-intensive purposes. Beneath such circumstances, the efficiency is restricted to scale back the temperature.

The S22 lacks the fancier cooling expertise discovered on the S22 Extremely which helps cool the machine and permits for sustained peak efficiency.  

When it comes to variants, there may be one other mannequin with 256GB of storage however RAM is restricted to 8GB like on the S22+.  

Cameras 

• Wonderful digicam efficiency  
• Spectacular zoom 
• Good selfie digicam 

The principle digicam is a 50Mp sensor with f/1.8 aperture and pictures are shot at 12Mp by default by way of pixel binning. Photographs taken in daylight or underneath good lighting situations come out very nicely. You’ll be able to toggle between 0.6x zoom which makes use of the 12Mp ultra-wide sensor and 3x zoom on the 10Mp telephoto sensor. There’s the power to make use of digital zoom as much as 30x.

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

The information inside the digicam UI are helpful for mode suggestions and shot solutions. Low mild efficiency is sweet too and the night time mode may be very helpful though it requires a gentle pair of arms for avoiding a blurry shot.  

There isn’t a macro mode, however you need to use the 3x zoom with the telephoto lens as a workaround. The front-facing 10Mp digicam does take good selfies and portraits in each daylight and low mild though efficiency in low mild could possibly be higher.  

Whereas each the rear and entrance cameras are able to taking pictures video at 4K 60fps, the rear digicam may even seize 8K at 24fps which is unimaginable for a compact cellphone.

The portrait video function is neat and allows you to blur the background whereas capturing footage involving faces. It really works on each the entrance and rear cameras.  

Battery Life & Charging

• Sub-par battery life
• Quick charging solely 25W
• Charger not included

When it comes to battery life, the 3700mAh built-in battery can barely final a complete day with medium utilization with 120Hz refresh fee enabled and might go longer if with 60Hz and heavy utilization. The battery isn’t the strongest space of the cellphone and Samsung determined to downsize the 4000 mAh battery discovered on the S21 resulting from developments in processor and show expertise. 

Samsung does provide an influence saving mode and different tweaks to assist with battery administration. The Energy saving function enables you to flip off At all times On Show, downclock CPU to 70%, disable 5G, and background app exercise with a single setting.

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

With these tweaks, you may extract higher battery life out of the S22 but it surely’s not how anybody needs to run a cellphone every day and also you shouldn’t should on the flagship finish of the market both. In case you are a heavy person and wish good battery life, you’re higher off selecting the larger Galaxy S22+.  

Within the PCMark for Android battery take a look at, it lasted 10 hours 28 minutes which isn’t overly spectacular. Charging pace is restricted to 25W in comparison with 45W on the S22+ and S22 Extremely. It means you’ll get 53% cost in half-hour which is a good distance off even many mid-range telephones.

Wi-fi charging and reverse wi-fi charging are good to have although.  

Software program & Apps

• Android 12 out of the field  
• One UI is one finest interfaces available in the market 
• 4 years of OS updates  

The cellphone runs One UI 4.1 which relies on Android 12 and the general interface is clean and lag-free. You’ll be able to customise the UI based on the utilization very seamlessly and that is the place One UI shines. I may remap the facet key lengthy press motion from launching Bixby to the facility off menu.

You can even remap the double press motion to launch the digicam, Samsung Pay or another app put in on the cellphone. Edge panels allow you to rapidly entry your favorite apps with a swipe from the sting of the show. There’s a simple mode which makes the icons and fonts bigger and simplifies the general UI for aged or visually impaired customers.  

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

The cellphone is generally freed from bloatware and doesn’t embrace too many pre-installed apps aside from Netflix, Fb, OneDrive and some Samsung apps. There are occasional notifications on the corporate’s new merchandise. 

Samsung guarantees 4 years of Android OS updates and 5 years of safety updates which is market-leading assist. There’s additionally assist for Samsung DeX which helps you to use your cellphone in a desktop trend when linked to an exterior machine comparable to a PC or a TV. 

Worth & Availability 

The Samsung Galaxy S22 5G was launched worldwide in February and it’s accessible in a number of colors. The S22 is priced the identical because the S21 in most markets such because the US, UK and Europe however some markets noticed a worth hike comparable to India and Italy.  

Within the US, it’s accessible on most operators and bought unlocked by most main retailers together with Finest Purchase, Amazon US, Amazon, Currys, John Lewis and Samsung. We spherical up all the most recent Galaxy S22 offers.

• 8/128GB – $799.99 /£769/€799.99/₹72,999
• 8/256GB – $849.99/£819/€849.99/₹76,999

When it comes to alternate options, the S21 from final 12 months is promoting at a reduced worth presently and is an effective choice if you’re on the lookout for a extra inexpensive choice however nonetheless need the flagship efficiency.

There’s additionally the Galaxy S21 FE as nicely which is much more attractively priced. You can additionally take into account the iPhone 13 which is an effective entry into the Apple ecosystem. Cheaper choices embrace the Google Pixel 6 and OnePlus 10T if you happen to don’t thoughts a bigger handset.

Take a look at extra choices in our greatest smartphone chart in addition to the perfect Samsung Galaxy cellphone.

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

Verdict

At the moment, most small smartphones are stripped down and lower-cost variations of the premium flagship choices. The S22 manages to buck this development and offers customers a wonderful all-rounder in a classy package deal.

The Galaxy S22 sequence does come at a premium worth level and the S22 sits on the decrease finish of the vary however is dearer than some rivals. The Galaxy S Collection from Samsung has matured over time and the present era feels refined and has a whole lot of issues working in its favour.

Battery life apart, there are barely any main downsides to the S22. In case you are a heavy person, get ready to cost the cellphone greater than as soon as a day or carry a transportable energy financial institution. 

It isn’t price upgrading from final 12 months’s S21 because the enhancements are marginal. Should you want higher battery life and a bigger display screen and might stretch your price range, the S22+ is price contemplating.

There are only a few smartphones available in the market that supply a flagship expertise in a compact type issue and I hope to see extra compact flagships from different producers within the close to future.  

Specs

• One UI 4.1 primarily based on Android 12
• 6.1in Full HD+ 2400×1080 Dynamic AMOLED 2X, 120Hz HDR10+ show
• 4nm Samsung Exynos 2200 SoC (EU) / Snapdragon 8 Gen 1(Remainder of the world) 
• Samsung Xclipse 920/Adreno 730 GPU
• 8GB RAM
• 128/256GB UFS 3.1 inner storage
• 50Mp f/1.8 rear digicam 
• 12Mp f/2.2 ultrawide
• 10Mp /f2.4 telephoto
• 10Mp selfie digicam
• Samsung DeX Help
• Ultrasonic in-display fingerprint sensor
• Twin-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax
• Bluetooth 5.2
• GPS
• 5G
• USB-C
• 3700mAh non-removable battery
• 25W quick charging 
• 15W wi-fi charging
• Reverse wi-fi charging
• 70.6x146x7.6mm
• 167g
• IP68 mud and water resistance
• Phantom Black, White, Pink Gold, Inexperienced, Graphite, Sky Blue, Violet, Cream