In 2021, the best versatile phone for photography and video was the Samsung S21 Ultra. The S22 Ultra builds on that foundation and gives near identical performance, and provides a variety of photo and video taking modes while adding much better low-light photo capabilities while also making photos brighter and sharper than what your eyes can physically see.
It's quite uncanny how the phone can "see" dark places better than my eyes and is able to capture enough detail to post on social media. The P series from Huawei is the only phone that came anywhere as close to producing something as adequate as the photos this phone can take. As a family man who doesn't go out at night much (apart from occasional 7-Eleven trips), I am not the kind of person who can make good use of low-light mode. However, for pub-goers or campers, night mode combined with the best zoom capability on any phone is a godsend. The phone has many lenses for different situations, but all of them produce the same colour tone, which is quite uncommon for phones with multiple lenses. Even iPhones give you different colour results when switching between lenses.
This is also the first Samsung to run the torturous Genshin Impact smoothly at its highest setting. All previous phones can only run this game at medium settings. But of course, this makes the phone boil (well, not really as it only gets to something near 40C) and makes it uncomfortable to hold. Doing other activities or while playing less intense games, the phone only gets slightly warm.
I prefer round-edged phones since I game on them a lot, hours on ends even for my ROV matches and adventures in Genshin Impact. The last Note, the Note 20 Ultra, was notorious for its sharp corners and was uncomfortable to hold since it digs into your palms quite a bit. Thankfully, the S22 Ultra's corners are not that sharp.
Recently, Samsung was in the news for slowing down apps to prolong the phone's battery and keep it from overheating. I would prefer that Samsung give me an option to turn this slow function off if I wanted. However, since the phone can run any app that I throw at it without a hitch, I'm not going to complain too much.
It's hard to complain about anything with Samsung phone screens. They're vibrant, crisp and detailed, which is why they are renowned for world-class colour accuracy. They can run every video streaming service to its fullest and have variable refresh rates according to usage which can dip down to 24Hz to save energy and jump up to a maximum of 120Hz for a smooth scrolling experience. The only thing that I can nitpick is the punch-hole selfie camera, although it is a lesser evil among all other frontal selfie cameras, and the side curve that gives an illusion of having a bigger screen but makes it hard to find proper protectors. Curved side screens are prone to false touches, but Samsung has tweaked this to the point that I did not experience even one false touch in the two-week review period.
You can expect a crazy number of features and gimmicks on any Samsung flagship phone. Something that is unique to Samsung phones is DeX which allows you to connect the phone to smart TVs and monitors to give you something that resembles Microsoft Windows. Another feature is taking selfies by showing your palm or saying cheese, using the S Pen as a remote shutter button for group selfies, and multitasking by dividing apps to a half or third of the screen to share space.
Talking about the stylus, I'm still among those who don't use them much apart from doing shopping lists and cartoon drawing. I'm a mouse-and-keyboard guy. Anyway, my kids made use of the stylus that comes with this phone much more than me by doing their homework, note-taking, math calculations, drawing cats and more. They tend to appreciate the accuracy and swiftness of the S22 Ultra S-Pen more than any other stylus they have used before (Apple Pencil and Surface Pen included).
I have several friends who can't live without a stylus to do their jobs properly. I'm not one of them, but since the phone has the same battery size as their last year's flagship, I'm not complaining.
If a friend asks me what phone to get, I will usually tell them to get a Samsung, an iPhone,or an Oppo, mostly because they have great aftersales support and services.
Braver people like myself can try other brands, but that means they are left to solve whatever problems that come their way, whether it be a broken screen, regular security and OS updates, or lack of accessory selections. I'm personally rocking a Chinese gaming phone, so if anything goes wrong, I cannot expect to have any place nearby to help me and will have to find solutions myself.
If you have a lot of money to spare, an iPhone is generally a great option because it provides a great experience and has an absurdly long battery life (if you're not gaming). Moreover, iMessage keeps Apple fans locked in with "blue bubbles" and the capability to move files between Apple devices seamlessly.
Saying that, this year's Samsung phones can do better zoom photography and project something like Windows onto TVs and computer monitors, have a better screen than any iPhone, come with a stylus, and can play the most demanding games without stuttering.
SPECS
- Chipset: QUALCOMM Snapdragon 8 Gen 1
- Screen: 6.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED (3088 x 1440 px)
- Camera lenses: 108.0 MP + 10.0 MP + 12.0 MP + 10.0 MP (rear), 40.0 MP (front)
- Weight: 228 grams
- Battery: 5,000 mAh
- RAM: 12GB
- Storage: 256GB
- Connections: USB-C, dual-nano-SIM, 5G, DeX, WIFI6, NFC, Bluetooth 5.2
- OS: Android 12 with Samsung One UI 4.1
- Colour variation: Pink, green, white, black
- Price: THB 43,900
