We’re finally here — the Galaxy S22 is in the office and we can start working on reviewing it. The younger flagship S22 took its time this year. It has suffered from delays in many markets across Europe, and some enthusiastic readers have even taken the conspiratorial route – we’ve heard we’ve deliberately abandoned our S22 review, but the truth is that the Samsung Store took a long time to ship our unit.
Anyway, here’s a new one – you’ll get a Galaxy S22 (ours is Mystic White), a SIM tool and a USB cable. The fund is smaller this year, which makes Samsung’s carbon footprint even smaller.
One of the biggest stories about this year’s S series is that it’s different from last year – the Ultra has the S Pen and a distinctive design for notes, while the Plus and Vanilla are a little smaller. You won’t feel that different with the S22+, but the Galaxy S22 is even smaller than its already tiny predecessor. It’s a difference that’s easier to feel in pictures.
The new phone also looks identical to the old phone. But it’s made of better materials – all metal and glass, not plastic on the outside. It’s a welcome change in our minds.
In other respects, the Galaxy S22 is very close to the S21. The biggest difference is in the camera setup – the main camera is now a 50MP sensor, while the zoom is no longer a high-resolution sensor to cut it short – a 10MP 3x zoom, instead of the regular 64MP camera. The ultrawide range emerges from the same 12MP sensor which is more than capable but lacks autofocus. It’s almost a pending offense at this point.
We have an Exynos 2200 chipset on our S22 models and can’t really say we feel any appreciable difference in their smoothness. It’s a premium Galaxy phone that has all the speed and power of a premium flagship.
It will be interesting to see if the smaller battery will be able to match the endurance of the 2021 phone.
The Samsung Galaxy might fly a little under the radar because it’s the smallest in Samsung’s S line, but it might be the best compact phone you can get. It simply beats the iPhone 13 mini and is a smaller phone than any other flagship phone. The Xiaomi 12 and 12X are closest to the Galaxy S22, but both are slightly larger and lack a telephoto lens.
Stay tuned for our Galaxy S22 review, which will arrive by the end of the week!