Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra: Take *Note*, Smartphone Makers!
Samsung’s flashy, metaverse-y, NFT filled maniacal Unpacked 2022 just wrapped up and they announced a ton… of stuff that nobody cares about. Look, I’m sure you’ve already watched 16 quadrillion videos that are hands-on with the S22 Ultra. Unfortunately, I don’t have it! Boo. But, I’m going to dive deep into the keynote, crunch the numbers, run through the specs, and make sense of Samsung’s new lineup of phones. And if you’re looking for coverage about the notch tablet Samsung also announced today, well good luck; because nobody cares. Get an iPad and drink some milk. For the rest of us, let’s talk S22.
Okay — S22 and S22+. Arguably the smaller, more boring announcements at this year’s event. Other the new design and build, there really isn’t much to consider here. S22 has a “newish” design that’ll do for a year-over-year refresh. The phone seems more boxy from hands-on coverage, and as MKBHD points out, has a slight curve on the sides. It’s not full iPhone Pro boxy, but the sides have a fresh look that stands out with the colors. Speaking of colors, boo Samsung on these colors this year. They ditched the purple and gold from last year, which looked so, so good, but I digress. Another more important change is that Samsung finally, and I mean finally got rid of their cheap, ugly, and flat out substandard “Glasstic” (meaning glass-like-plastic, not a fusion of glass and plastic like you’d be lead to expect) material found on the back of last year’s phones. Myself and others crapped on Samsung for using inferior materials, and it seemed to work! Kinda. The glass at the back is ACTUAL GLASS! HA! Big, no, massive design improvement from both a structural and design standpoint. I’m a big fan. Design out of way (which is subjective anyway, but if you disagree with me you are objectively wrong), that’s not all Samsung yapped about in the metaverse, unfortunately. Get to the ultra, baby! The phone now houses a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. Yes, that’s the name, that’s the brand. The 8G1 is supposed to be faster. Next topic. Insert Meta sounds here. Let’s talk about these beautiful cameras. Samsung completely revolutionized the industry with heir groundbreaking cameras that sport a grand total of… 1 improvement! I’m not joking; the hardware is indistinguishable from last year’s already competitive cameras. They’re not good, but they’re also not very bad. They’re simply… meh. 12 megapixel ultra, 50 megapixel normal shooter that pixel-bins to 12.5 megapixels, and a 10 megapixel telephoto. The perfect trifecta! The real highlight feature is something the company calls “Nightography Camera.” The name, which sort of gives me slofie vibes, is the worst of it because this is actually pretty snazzy. Here’s how it works; the larger 50 megapixel sensor collects more light because it’s… larger. Then, software kicks in. Instead of just using night mode/night shot (which brightens the image and adds filters), the S22 uses “adaptive pixel tech” to fuse the full image with a lower res image (that’s been binned with tetra-binning, which combines four pixels into one for added sharpness) to ensure the image retains it’s maximum resolution while collecting and using all that light captured by the larger sensor. This is super appreciated and is superior to typical night mode because now you’re able to use the full un-binned sensor without any weird or unusual color warping that happens when you use night mode. I’m a big fan. And with that exciting announcement, Samsung completely wrapped up the segment, which is kind of disappointing, honestly. I’m a bit conflicted with this phone, and especially with the S22+. The differences between the two really boil down to the larger screen and battery. That doesn’t seem to be worth the $100 price delta, or at least for now. I’d just recommend most people get the $899 S22. But, that said, the S22 doesn’t really seem compelling either. Yeah, the new design is cool and all, but Samsung and carriers frequent $100-$300+ sales on the previous model, which frankly, is the better deal. These minor, insignificant updates to these cheaper flagships complicate Samsung’s lineup, but I guess we’re lucky Samsung sells 15 million phones. Pretty disappointing; I was really expecting more from what many call “the most innovative phone maker.”
Okay, it’s ultra time. Instead of talking design and specs and all that junk you’ve probably already heard of both in the keynote and the plethora of videos that dropped a couple days ago, I’m going to dive deep into who this phone is for, why Samsung killed the Note, and how Samsung ultimately came to the decision to merge the two extremely popular smartphone lines. But first, rapid fire specs time — because unfortunately, they’re important. The phone has the SD8G1 like the other phones they announced during the keynote, has 4 cameras — one being a 100x space zoom lens which the previous Note 20 Ultra didn’t have and the other more notable one being a 108 megapixel lens with tetra-binning to 12.5 megapixels for extra light-gathering and nightography modes, 6.8” 1440p 120hz LTPO OLED (with the extra inch boiling down to the squared top and bottom) WITH S Pen support built into the phone, so no case required, and USB-C at the bottom. That right there is a ton of information that’s not really important — so let’s break it down. Samsung took the flagship-ness of the S series and the features and creature comforts of the Note series… and fused them together. As crazy as that sounds (and oh boy, is it crazy), it kind of makes sense from a lineup perspective; the Note and S series have been getting super close recently, with the smaller note often being more expensive than the S series flagship or ultra phone, yet not being competitive (see Note 20) and the larger note often being too expensive with worse features than the S series phone. It’s just gotten… really messy and lead Samsung to eventually kill the Note in 2021. We sat confused for a couple months, but as the leaks started to come in, it all started to become more apparent. Instead of leaving the cool features like the S Pen to the Note series and upping the price for it to be hyper-expensive, while leaving the good specs like cameras and battery to the S series, Samsung “lowered” the price of the Note, while giving it the more flagship-like features of the S series. That’s right; Samsung never brought the features of the Note to the S series — they just rebranded the Note while giving it the flagship performance found on the traditionally cheaper phones. This is a genius move from Samsung and will encourage more and more consumers to opt for the flagship phone simply for the shiny features and amazing price to performance proposition. So that begs the question; who is this phone exactly for? And honestly, there’s no right answer. They’ve given lower end consumers who want better features for less money (price to performance) an option where they’re getting all the top-end features while not having to pay Note money. On the other hand, they’ve given professionals and above average consumers who most years remain conflicted between the flashy, preferable features of the note line with the competitive specs of the S series. So Samsung consumers who want to buy a high-end phone win, regardless of what they want! This is AWESOME and other smartphone makers should absolutely take notes. Speaking of other smartphone makers, good luck trying to compete with this beast Samsung put out. It’s not about specs, or software, or whatever nerds like to talk about; it’s about how for $1,200, Samsung provides THE ULTIMATE phone experience. Yes, it’s not the best camera in the world. No, it’s not the fastest chip in the world. But yes, the camera has a bunch of features that people care about, the display is gorgeous and ultra-futuristic, it has a stylus built in, massive battery, and so much more. No matter how many things Google packs in with Pixel 7, this thing is a beast and will be a beast for years to come — because Samsung nailed the formula. And this comes from someone who uses an iPhone daily.
Congratulations, Samsung. You won the smartphone wars this year. And for those that disagree, you’re wrong. Deal with it. I now want an S22 Ultra.
