Dhis is not the smartphone for arguing over words. The new flagship device from Samsung is called the Galaxy S22 Ultra. Basta. And not note. You have to accept that. And yet: The S22 Ultra is clearly more of a Note than an S smartphone.
Why? Because it looks less playful, because it’s less curvy, because it’s square at the top and bottom, because it’s huge with its 6.8 inch screen (17.3 centimeters) – and especially because it has a pen, with which to operate it. And that stylus is tucked into the case exactly where it was on the last Note 20: bottom left.
There are probably more strategic reasons why Samsung doesn’t call its S22 Ultra a Note. Recently, the differences between the model series have not been as great as they were years ago. In addition, it is expensive to sell and advertise two different series.
But none of this changes the fact that the S22 Ultra is for users who want the best of everything, and therefore also the most expensive. For the first time, the device is available with a memory of up to one terabyte. Nobody needs that, but this version costs 1649 euros. With significantly less memory, the starting price is 1249 euros.
Pointless 100x magnification
Basically, the design of the S22 Ultra is extremely simple. The screen and back are covered with the particularly tough Gorilla Glass Victus+. You don’t notice it at all on the back because it’s matte. This feels more like aluminum and sounds like plastic when you tap it. Gone is the camera bumper that we were used to seeing from Samsung. Each individual lens now protrudes a little from the housing.
Samsung has placed four cameras on the back: an ultra-wide-angle, a wide-angle and two telephoto cameras. In the test, this turned out to be a good solution. If you want to take photos or film with the S22 Ultra, you always have the right focal length. There is nothing wrong with the photos and videos, the cameras play in the top class.
The telephoto lenses create a threefold and tenfold optical magnification. The Space Zoom then adds a digital magnification, so that it can be enlarged up to 100x. It’s fun to try, but not practical to use. The results look so muddy at this magnification that you can hardly see anything.
The “Vision Booster” ensures readability in blazing sun
Samsung has always played in the top class when it comes to screens. And with the S22 Ultra, the manufacturer has done it again. It is extremely sharp and has strong colors. This is of course a matter of taste and can be switched from “vivid” to “natural” in the settings so that it looks less emphasized.
Samsung has improved the brightness of its Amoled display, with a peak of 1750 nits now possible. This makes it easy to read even in the blazing sun, which cannot be said of many smartphones. Samsung doesn’t just pump up the brightness, it uses an algorithm that the company calls “Vision Booster”.
Put simply, the device analyzes the ambient light and the content on the screen and adjusts the display so that dark areas are brighter, colors are richer and color contrast is increased. The contrast between dark and light areas is also improved. In short: You basically don’t want to look the other way anymore.
Also recognizes handwriting that is difficult to read
The star of the S22 Ultra is of course the pen. Although a pen could also be used in the previous model, the S21 Ultra, it could not be pushed into the device. That posed the risk of losing it if you didn’t want to buy a sleeve with a slot for it. But now the pen is pushed into the S22 Ultra at the bottom left and loaded there.
The response time of the pen in interaction with the screen is said to be even shorter, but this was not noticeable in the test. If the pen is pulled out of the housing, you can immediately make notes on the screen. The handwriting recognition in the Samsung Notes app is already very sophisticated and in the test recognized handwriting that is difficult for the writer to decipher himself.
Of course, the stylus can do a few other tricks, including triggering the cameras and controlling music playback. You can even use gestures to switch cameras and camera modes, and to zoom in and out. But that’s not really practical.
The best camera system and the best screen
Conclusion: Either you like the pen, which is so tiny that it doesn’t feel very natural in your hand. Or you don’t like him. Then you can leave it in the S22 Ultra and then just forget about it. But then you should consider whether it is the right device. Because the Galaxy S series has two smaller models without a pen, which are cheaper.
However, on the one hand these devices have to do without the optical tenfold zoom, on the other hand the main lens of these devices does not have a resolution of 108 megapixels. The S22 Ultra not only has the best camera system in comparison, it also has the best screen, which is even sharper than the other S series models and has a dynamic refresh rate of 1 to 120 frames per second.
The peak value is noticed, for example, in the smooth scrolling through websites or in games adapted for this. If a high refresh rate is not necessary, the S22 Ultra can down to one frame per second to save power.
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