Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra review: A powerful phone on all fronts, except for a few minor hiccups 

The brightest of displays, a superior camera performance and a better battery life are the areas where the Galaxy S22 Ultra flexes its muscles, making it a well-rounded smartphone

Samsung’s latest flagship, the Galaxy S22 Ultra, seems to eat into the space of the iPhone 13 Pro. If you are someone who has decided to buy the Galaxy S22 Ultra, it means that you have already eliminated most of your choices in the now-crowded android market. After all, it is not a phone everybody can afford (the phone is priced at ₹ 1,0,999 in India). Unless you are someone who is specifically looking at the S22 Ultra, you are not missing out much, considering that Samsung has enabled some of these flagship features in the previous phones in the S series.

That, however, is not to suggest that S22 Ultra is a bad choice by any stretch. It is a pretty-looking phone and powerful too. If I were to get a high-end Samsung phone today, I would focus on three areas that help me decide if I should or not: display, camera and battery. These areas are where the Galaxy S22 Ultra flexes its muscles, making it a well-rounded phone. I have been testing the S22 Ultra on and off for two weeks and here is what I found:

Samsung phones have the best displays. You cannot contest that. The Galaxy S22 Ultra has an eight-inch AMOLED display and comes with a Vision Booster technology. This, as the name suggests, boosts colours and brightness in low-light conditions or when you are using the phone on an extremely sunny day. At the peak of brightness, the S22 Ultra can go upto 1,750 nits, bigger than iPhone 13 Pro — on paper. Simply put, this phone is the brightest in this segment. So much so that, if you are looking for your glasses at night, you don’t even need the phone’s torchlight…just unlock the device. 

The S22 Ultra has a 6.8-inch screen curved around the edges, giving it a classy touch and finish. Furthermore, it comes with a 120Hz refresh rate, which has become the standard these days. There is something that needs to be said about S22 Ultra’s display: is it the best that we have? Hard to say, but it does contribute remarkably to the overall experience of this phone, especially when you are watching videos or scrolling through Twitter. 

The Galaxy S22 Ultra comes in three colours: Phantom Black, Burgundy and White. I was sent the phantom black review unit, which looks stylish and sturdy. Both the front and rear of the phone are supported by Gorilla Glass Victus Plus for scratch protection, and have an aluminium frame. At 229 grams, the phone is heavy and it looks huge in hand, thanks to the massive 6.8-inch display. The phone runs on Android 12 with Samsung’s One UI 4.1. I almost had no issues on the software front in my regular usage. There was no lag and the everyday performance was smooth and snappy. According to reports, Samsung has reportedly promised four years of android updates and five years of security updates.

My favourite part about the Galaxy S22 Ultra is the speakers; it has stereo speakers armed with Dolby Atmos. It does not matter if you are watching videos on YouTube or listening to music on speaker, the sound quality is superb. 

The S22 Ultra has a quad camera setup: 108MP primary camera with f/1.8 aperture, 12MP ultra-wide camera with f/2.2 aperture, and two 10MP telephoto cameras with 3X and 10X optical zoom. To compare the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s camera performance with my Google Pixel 4a 5G would seem far-fetched. It is true that the S22 Ultra produces images that are superior in terms of quality. The results did make me wonder about Google’s post-processing software, which is easily miles ahead of the Samsungs and iPhones. The images on S22 Ultra were sharper, brighter and cleaner. I was particularly taken by surprise by the rich colour reproduction my Pixel phone was able to achieve in the post (notice the colour of the sky in images attached below).