Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Review: WhyNotBoth.gif”.
You might not think the kind of person who needs to sign a lot of contracts on the go would be the same type of person who plays high-end mobile games for hours on end or the type of person who sees a tugboat going by and wonders hey. Just how epic is the captain’s beard, but, as nine years of galaxy note will attest that person does exist and even though samsung changed the product name for 2022, it’s reaffirmed its commitment to that special customer with the most capable android phone you can buy outside of A foldable, i know it’s a controversial take, but i’m standing by it i’m michael fisher – and this is the galaxy s22 ultra. Now a certain type of person is already making this argument down in the comments. So let me help them out. Yes, you could make the argument that samsung is actually completing the betrayal of that power user class.
With this phone, a betrayal it began way back in 2019 when it removed the headphone jack. From the galaxy note, 10., the s22 ultra doesn’t have one of those either and it lacks a micro sd card slot and to some that omission is unforgivable at one time i might have agreed even now, i would prefer the convenience of a headphone jack, so i Could plug in a third-party microphone get rid of some of that room echo, but i’m an edge case and for everyone else times as they tend to do, have changed. Bluetooth is so much the norm now that if you see someone using a four-figure phone with a pair of wired, headphones odds, are it’s an intentionally ironic bit of neo-retro self-expression and while a micro sd card is still the cheapest option to increase your phone’s storage and Move media from device to device. Well, this phone comes in four storage options, topping out at a terabyte and a usb on the go drive can fill in most of the other gaps that microsd has left behind. So while i won’t apologize for the s22 ultra’s other disappointments stay tuned, i simply don’t consider these omissions to be deal-breakers and that’s because the thing just works so well as a concept samsung took the approach of the best taco commercial in history. With this one answering the question of, do i want an s pen or do i want a great camera with why not both into the campfire stove went the cameras of last year’s s21 ultra and the design and stylus of the last galaxy note.
This is genji impact, of course, one of the most taxing mobile games available and the only way i’ve found to make the phone’s snapdragon 8 gen 1 chipset sweat a little running. The game at maximum graphics definitely brings the frame rate down to the point where you will notice and running the screen recorder. On top of that, can’t help matters, but the good news is: it’s still completely playable. Other classics like asphalt, 9 and call of duty and modern combat played like a dream, no matter how far up i ratcheted their graphics and i especially enjoyed the ones that were compatible with the moga controller. This review unit i’ve had kicking around for a couple years. Does a great job of trading in the unsatisfying touchscreen swipes for a delightfully tactile experience, but folks i picked the name, mr mobile. For a reason, my kind of stress test is taking the phone out on the town for a session of the augmented reality classic ingress. It forces the phone to maintain a constant gps fix to keep the game running and it forces me to max out the display brightness.
So i can see what’s happening and then i took it up another notch by adding a twitch live stream, which meant broadcasting audio and video over 5g, while playing ingress and keeping the camera viewfinder open the whole time. So folks could hear my scintillating commentary. No road trip review with david for the ultra well, i would have the pen, but he went to fricken california. Without me, the jerk. Only at this point did the phone start to stutter, but again it was only slight and it didn’t get nearly as hot as i assumed it would either. Now, keep in mind, though, that this was on a lovely mid-50s february day outdoors and as jerry hildenbrand points out on the latest android central podcast uh in just a few months, it’s going to be 100 degrees outside and you’re going to want to take what 42k Video or whatever the hell outside in that heat and if the processor causes the camera modules to get hot when you’re not using them when you are using them, you know you don’t want to be able to only take two minutes of video, and it tells you That it’s got to shut down because it’s overeating.
Those are important factors to remember folks. Just because i didn’t experience, thermal throttling or other heating issues doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I’Ll drop some links down below to more reporting on this. What my stress test did do was deplete my power in a hurry, even with a 5 000 milliamp hour battery, the phone fell from 90 to 57 in under an hour of that twitch ingress camera session.
Now, keep in mind that that is the literal worst case scenario of power consumption, though i’ll touch on my more typical battery life. At the end. Anyway, i stopped by a cafe to top up and in lieu of my typical battery pack. I opted instead to revisit an old friend yup.
You don’t hear about it much these days, but samsung phones still come with decks the software to let you temporarily promote them to mini laptops, which i’m testing in this case, using the nextdoc 360 accessory. Another review device. I’Ve had for a little bit, i’m planning a dedicated video on decks and similar services soon for this video, it’s enough to say that, yes, the phone is powerful enough to play a pretend computer as long as all you’re doing is low impact stuff like browsing the Web catching up on email in more creative pursuits, the five cameras carved into the twin faces of this phone are familiar, and by and large, that’s a pretty good thing couldn’t go on a road trip with this one folks take your walk around the neighborhood.
Instead, this, this is not a great photo, but this one well, this one at least i can work with, especially since i didn’t have to go all the way down to governor’s island to shoot it. Instead, i captured it from way back here. Yes, once again, this is a camera first and foremost for zoomers. It’S the same basic hardware from last year’s s21 ultra. So when you select different magnifications on the viewfinder you’re, actually changing which camera you shoot with, because each has a different focal length now, the iphone 13 pro and google pixel 6 pro use similar setups.
So when you snap, alongside those you’ll, find that they can often stay competitive in image, quality up to 3x and occasionally a little bit beyond but samsung’s dedicated optics combined with robust image processing means that if you need to punch in by 10 15 even 30 times, You can do it. The color science stays more consistent between cameras than on the pixel and the zoomed image stays sharper much longer on the samsung than on the pixel or the iphone. Similarly, in portrait mode, the ultra kicked out my favorite shot of the three front-facing cameras in the comparison and that performance only got better outdoors when switching to the primary cameras got rid of the green tint and showcased samsung’s new stereo depth. Mapping capabilities i’m not used to being impressed by portrait mode shots and it’s a pleasant surprise. Video mode also benefits from the sheer power of this hardware that good old-fashioned optical magnification means the phone doesn’t have to rely on as much processing to resolve a far away. Subject and the stabilization is good enough to let you pretty easily get these kind of shots without a tripod up to about 10x anyway, folks, it’s more than a party trick, it’s handy for bird watching boat, watching the other kind of bird watching or just seeing how The pasta gets made and if you thought i was gon na, go the other way with that bird watching joke nope, don’t be a creep in the u.s there’s just nothing on shelves that can compete with this kind of focal length versatility – and you know samsung knows It, but it’s not entirely a good thing.
I do think samsung is resting on its laurels, a bit due to that lack of meaningful competition, because most of this we saw last year on the galaxy s21 ultra and actually, if you compare 21 against 22 you’ll, see a significant change in processing that i’m not Really a fan of at almost every zoom level. Pictures from the s22 ultra are softer almost gauzy to the point where a fair bit of detail has been lost. Whether this is intentional tuning or something that’ll be optimized after release, it’s pretty disappointing and that also appears side by side with shots from the competition as cruelly encapsulated by the neon lights. That sum up the past decade of my life, the s22 really softens things up.
Otherwise, things are, as expected, the coating samsung says it applied to the lenses to reduce flare from bright lights doesn’t seem to work. It’S still very difficult to capture clear photos of fast moving animals, dogs, cats, the like, and it’s low light. Super resolution capture is difficult to find and trigger. Again, it seems like samsung is happy to have the best zoom on a phone available in the west, and everything else is just kind of taking a back seat.
Things take a turn back toward the positive when it comes to the final major feature: we’ll cover the s pen, you do the phone a disservice. If all you think the stylus is good for is to doodle or take handwritten notes, i don’t do either the way. The phone rocks on a tabletop makes it infuriating to write on this thing, even if my penmanship were better. Instead, i find the s pen much more useful for its extra features being able to sign a quick nda on the go to legally promise a company that, yes, i will return their review sample being able to see where a link leads before. I click it. Using that magnifying glass to zoom in on one of the pdf menus that have become ubiquitous and yes indulging in that most universal of insufferable, influencer tropes, using the s pen as a remote control to take my selfies and the reduced latency.
That makes writing on the screen as close to instant, as it’s ever been only makes it better. I do wish samsung would crib a few features from microsoft, like the virtual ruler that helps with straight lines, and i wish the pen came in the fun colors. It used to, but really you can say that about the phone itself too.
That’S where my sponsor dbrand comes in. I fell so hard for the genuine leather skins when they arrived for my macbook and galaxy fold 3 in december and i’m elated to say they’re. Coming back as an official option soon after the s22 ultra’s official launch on february 25th, it’s easier to hold than the slippery gorilla glass victus plus it helps restore some fun to what i consider to be some pretty dull colorways and it does what it can to Help with the dust situation around all those lenses drain your device at the link in the description and thanks as always to dbrand for sponsoring this video.
There is still so much to cover about this phone and i don’t have an awful lot of time left to do it. So i used to do this segment called 60 seconds on the small stuff. I figured what better time to bring it back than on a phone as feature packed as this, the screen defaults to fhd plus to save battery, and i never felt the need to max out its resolution. It’S beautiful very bright and its high contrast mode means you can see it even better in the sunlight.
The speakers are loud enough that i had to turn them down when playing media even out on the sidewalk, though i wish they were both front firing. So i didn’t keep covering up the bottom one during games. Bluetooth reception is rock solid. Cellular reception is right there with it, and callers sounded superior and said the same about me compared with the pixel 6 pro.
I’M still not a fan of the software aesthetic or its theme store laden with gaudy and half complete icon packs, but you can always run a custom launcher and, more importantly, you’ll get an industry-leading four years of android updates. When i wasn’t stress testing the battery, it was a two-day phone. I know because i forgot to charge it overnight once and still made it to dinner time on day two and while the recharging rate isn’t the fastest it’ll be quick enough for most and one more plug for the s pen. If you remember it’s there, it’s easy to get used to having it and you do miss it. When it’s gone, the galaxy s 22 ultra starts at 11.99, but that’ll only get you the lowest storage tier, which i do not recommend. The trim level you saw in this article was the 12.99 version with 256 gigs of storage, while 512 and terabyte options will run.
You 13.99 and 14.99 respectively. Now that’s some pretty rarefied air and i have to say i wouldn’t pay it not when google’s pixel 6 pro costs 899 and not when you can get a samsung galaxy fold 3 for under 1500 on amazon, a phone whose unique capabilities have forever changed the way. I stay mobile, but if what you need more than a pocket tablet is a powerful zoom camera paired with a one-of-a-kind stylus and backed by top of the line hardware. Well, there’s no getting around it! That’S the galaxy s22 ultra.
This review was produced following two weeks with a galaxy s22 ultra review unit provided by samsung, but manufacturers never have editorial input, copy approval or early preview privileges. When it comes to mr mobile’s reviews – and i don’t accept compensation from those manufacturers in exchange for their production until next time – i’m michael fisher thanks for watching and stay mobile, my friends .