Samsung S22 Ultra Design and Hardware Review

Phones in a flagship lineup have come to feel like variations on a theme. There’s the base model, the bigger base model, and then the biggest model with an extra camera and some other minor hardware upgrades. Features, screen size, and cost all increase in increments as you go up the chain, but you’re more or less getting the same phone in three different flavors.

That’s been true of Samsung phones for the past few years, but it’s not the case anymore the $1,199 Galaxy S22 Ultra sits at the top of this year’s lineup as an entirely different option. It’s the first S series phone to include a built-in stylus, a feature it’s inheriting from the evidently now-retired Galaxy Note series. On top of that, it still offers a very good 10x optical zoom, as well as some appealing updates to its photography features. It happens to be a great phone, too, but despite its place in Samsung’s mainstream S series, it still feels like the enthusiast device that the Note series represented. Samsung has, at least, made the job of deciding which of this trio of phones is for you very easy. If you miss the Note and you love the stylus life, get the S22 Ultra. There’s nothing else like it in Samsung’s lineup or anywhere else on the market, really. If you’re just slightly curious about the stylus, or the 10x zoom, or you just want a really nice big-screened phone without a lot of fuss, then you’re probably better off with the S22 Plus. It’s not for everyone, but for a few, the S22 Ultra is a truly great device. Different it may be, there’s still plenty of common ground between the Ultra and its S22 and S22 Plus siblings. All three models include (in the US) Qualcomm’s latest, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, as well as IP68 weather sealing, and Gorilla Glass Victus Plus on the front and back. The Ultra and S22 Plus have OLED screens with higher 1,750 nits peak brightness, but all three have a top refresh rate of 120Hz. Only the Ultra uses an LTPO display, which allows the screen to change its refresh rate more than the other models, which in theory helps save battery life. It’s a huge, 6.8-inch 1440 x 3088 panel, so every bit of power saving can make a big difference. Not surprisingly, the display itself is excellent. At its default “vivid” setting, it’s a little on the warm side, but I only noticed this looking at it side by side with the Pixel 6. Colors are, indeed, vivid but not to the point of oversaturation. There’s also a slightly cool color shift when viewed from extreme angles, but nothing that bothered me in day-to-day use. It was also plenty bright for me outside, but I live in Seattle, so I didn’t exactly push it to the limit here. The Ultra stands apart with a boxier design lifted straight from the Galaxy Note and, of course, that built-in S Pen silo. While the S22 and S22 Plus follow last year’s design cues with rounded corners and a camera bump that blends into the side rail of the phone, the S22 Ultra embraces chaos and skips the camera bump altogether. Four camera lenses (and a laser autofocus sensor) protrude from the back plate of the device housed in… nothing at all. More than one person on Twitter told me it looks like a spider. And it is weird at first, but I’ve grown to like it. Maybe more phone makers will follow Samsung’s lead. Who knows? I’m here for it.