We’re finally here — the Galaxy S22 is in the office and we can start working on reviewing it. The youngest S22 pioneer took his sweet time this year. It has experienced delays in many markets across Europe, and some impatient readers have even gone the conspiracy route – we’ve heard we’ve intentionally abandoned our S22 review, but the truth is that the Samsung Store took this long to ship our unit.
Anyway, here’s a new version – 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 of this year’s S series is that it’s different from last year – the Ultra gets an S Pen and a distinctive note design, 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. However, the difference is easier to feel than it appears in the 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 a regular 64MP camera. The ultra-wide range shows 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 that we feel a measurable difference in smoothness of operation. This is a best-in-class Galaxy phone with all the speed and power of a top-of-the-line 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 bit under the radar because it’s the smallest in the S line of Samsung’s flagships, 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. Closest to the Galaxy S22 is the Xiaomi 12 and 12 X, but both are slightly larger and lack a telephoto camera.
Stay tuned for our Galaxy S22 review, which will arrive by the end of the week!