The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is the most loaded flagship from the company’s stables yet, scoring high on most aspects like performance, cameras and usage experience. The included S Pen acts as the cherry on top, and is a highly useful accessory to have. Provided you can stomach its price, the device will not disappoint you.

Design
From a distance, you’d be hard-pressed to tell the Galaxy S22 Ultra from the Galaxy Note20 Ultra (review) launched over a year ago. In fact, save for their camera modules (or lack thereof, in the S22 Ultra’s case), the duo looks resoundingly similar and both the phones offer a boxy design with sharp, edgy cutouts bordering the display. For what it’s worth, I quite like the design of the phone, even though it’s not inherently unique or new. In fact, if you’re a sucker for minimalistic phones, then you’ll find the Galaxy S22 Ultra right up your alley too – the handset exudes elegance and is void of any gaudy patterns or decals. In contrast, the phone offers a glass-metal sandwich enveloped in a single hue which, in the case of my review unit, is Burgundy. That said, you can pick up the phone in Phantom Black and White colours too. But, coming back to the design of the phone, the Galaxy S22 Ultra looks decidedly different from the standard Galaxy S22 and S22 Plus models, which in turn take their design cues from the company’s year-old S21 lineup. In fact, when put side by side, the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s regal appearance casts a tall shadow on the Galaxy S21 Ultra (review), as well as its S22 brethren’s otherwise utilitarian looks. What’s more, the S22 Ultra ships with a matte finish on the back that feels velvety to the touch. It also helps that the finish helps stave off smudges and stains. On the flip side, the rings around the phone’s camera sensors attract a lot of dust and it can be a chore to clean them on a daily basis.

Be that as it may, keeping the phone in pristine condition should be the least of your worries, especially if you’re migrating to the Galaxy S22 Ultra from a compact phone. To wit, the Galaxy S22 Ultra is a ginormous device that weighs 228 grams and correspondingly, necessitates two-handed usage. Now, to the brand’s credit, Samsung has furnished the phone with a curvy screen that imparts a comfortable in-hand grip. Furthermore, the handset is IP68 rated and features a layer of Corning’s Gorilla Glass Victus+ on the front, as well as the back. Despite that, the smartphone’s chassis feels – for the lack of a better word – delicate and unwieldy, and I thought it best not to resort to any finger gymnastics whilst daily driving the phone.

For the longest time, the Galaxy Note range of phones offered everything but the kitchen sink to power users. Of course, that changed with the Galaxy Note 10 series, which shipped without a headphone jack. Fast forward to 2022 and the scenery remains unchanged, with the Galaxy S22 Ultra omitting the 3.5mm connector, as well as a microSD card slot. To the phone’s credit, the device features a pair of speakers that get quite loud for consuming media on the fly. As for the rest of the I/O, the phone sports a clicky volume rocker and power button, positioned on its right-hand spine. The handset also comes equipped with an in-display fingerprint sensor, which isn’t as quick as the one on the iQOO 9 Pro I reviewed recently, but it gets the job done. The same goes for the unit’s facial recognition software too, which works well during the day albeit falters in a darker setting.

More importantly, the Galaxy S22 Ultra is the first Galaxy S-series phone to ship with a built-in S Pen. The stylus has been positioned towards the bottom left of the phone and the unit communicates with the device over BLE or Bluetooth Low-Energy. Ipso facto, the accessory isn’t just a means to doodle/scribble on the phone’s screen – in fact, the S Pen can also be used as a shutter button to click photos, with the S22 Ultra propped on the other end of a room, among other things. I’ll talk more about the stylus and its features in the software section of the review, so for now, let’s talk about the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s display.

Display
I won’t beat around the bush at all – the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra ships with the best screen I’ve seen on a phone to date. Spec-wise, the 6.8-inch display ships with WQHD+ resolution and is backed by Super AMOLED technology. What’s more, the panel offers an adaptive refresh rate of 120Hz, meaning the screen can smartly variate its refresh rate to better suit the content you’re consuming on the phone. For instance, if you’re scrolling through IG reels, then the display will say, drop down the refresh rate to 30Hz or 60Hz. However, if you then start reading an article on Chrome, then you will be presented with smooth 120Hz scrolling. In doing so, the Galaxy S22 Ultra doesn’t just offer the most optimum viewing experience at all times, but the device also conserves battery life.

And, this is but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s gorgeous screen. To wit, the panel offers excellent viewing angles and gets audaciously bright – in fact, at 1,750 nits, the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra ships with the brightest screen on any phone. Unsurprisingly, the panel offers remarkable sunlight legibility and you can comfortably use the phone even when it’s extremely bright outdoors. That’s not all, as the screen can relay movies and TV shows from OTT services like Netflix in HDR too. Add to that the phone’s tiny punch hole notch and the Galaxy S22 Ultra makes for one heck of a phone to consume media on the fly.

Unfortunately, as good as the phone’s screen is, there is still some room for improvement here. For one, I wish the company would allow users to lock the display refresh rate at 120Hz. You see, time and again, I experienced on-screen jitters whilst browsing through apps like BookMyShow and Twitter. Clearly, the handset’s display isn’t optimised to gel well with some apps on the Play Store and you might stumble across similar issues whilst using other apps as well. Furthermore, the smartphone’s curved screen, albeit stunning, offers poor palm rejection too. On the bright side, the panel offers a snappy touch sampling rate of 240Hz. Coupled with the phone’s accommodating screen, you’ll revel playing your favourite games on the Galaxy S22 Ultra.

Cameras
Part of the charm of owning a Galaxy S-series flagship is its otherworldly cameras that can click stunning photos come night or day. The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra carries the legacy forward by offering a quad-camera setup at the back comprising a 108MP main sensor that works alongside two telephoto lenses that can optically zoom at 3x and 10x respectively. The smartphone also packs in a 12MP ultrawide camera with a 120-degree FoV and for selfies, the S22 Ultra ships with a 40MP selfie camera up front.

Understandably, the handset’s camera specs are identical to the Galaxy S21 Ultra which launched almost a year ago. However, Samsung has employed newer sensors this time around which, when coupled with Snapdragon 8 Gen 1’s beefier ISP, output notably better photos. The differences are immediately apparent in optically zoomed snaps wherein, the S22 Ultra outputted a sharper snap at both, 3x as well as 10x focal range. Furthermore, while you will be hard-pressed to find the differences in daylight HDR photos, the S22 Ultra edges in front of its year-old predecessor in lowlight too, netting lesser noise whilst retaining better sharpness around the elements in the frame. As an example, if you look at the 10x zoomed shot of my apartment complex then here, the shot from the S22 Ultra appears a lot sharper.
And, for those curious, I did test the cameras on the S22 Ultra with the iPhone 13 Pro as well. You can read more about the same by clicking here, but, to cut a long story short, the S22 Ultra is neck and neck with Apple’s grandest, with both the devices clicking social-media worthy photos during the day. That said, while the S22 Ultra yielded a better output when snapping objects positioned afar, the iPhone 13 Pro edged out in front in dimmer environments. On the whole, though, the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is – at least in my books – the most versatile camera phone on the market. The handset can click high-quality snaps with its main sensor that are flush with details and peppy colours. The photos offer excellent dynamic range too, and the smartphone does a good job of keeping a lid on instances like highlight clipping as well.