SAMSUNG Galaxy S22 5G Review

Compact size flagship powerhouse

The Galaxy S series is one of the most anticipated releases every early of the year, giving potential users most of the improvement and enhancements to the device.

Three devices has been announced for this year’s Galaxy S Series, which is the Samsung Galaxy S22, S22 Plus and S22 Ultra, all which can be differentiated easily with its sizes just with your eyes looking at it, but to dive deeper, one will have to look at the specifications and features in details.

Today we will specifically dive into Samsung Galaxy S22, the most compact yet power packed phone under the S Series lineups.

Unboxing Contents

The Samsung Galaxy S22 comes with the following

• The Galaxy S22 Phone
• User Manual/Guide
• SIM pin ejector
• USB C to C cable

Design

The Galaxy S22 5G design is built on a same form factor as the Galaxy S21 with a weight of 167 Grams, just slightly lighter but the overall size has been shrunk a little bit which brings the compact size really suitable for placing it in your handbag or pocket every so comfortable and I felt that Samsung does pay attention to the certain wide category of users that still demands for such form factor size and they delivered it.

Over to the back/rear of the phone, it is made of Gorilla Glass Victus + but still carrying the same 2021 S series iconic design language which does not leave any smudges or fingerprint marks, yet easy to clean and maintain with it’s smooth groove design that is seamlessly constructed and pieced together.

Towards the camera portion is an island of contour cut design with a slight bump consisting of three camera sensors and a flash. Bump wise, buying a case will definitely solved your problem, which you can simply purchase any brand online.

Over to the sides of the Galaxy S22 5G, on the right hand side, there is a volume up and down button and a power button, while the top houses one microphone. Over to the bottom of the phone there is one dual NanoSIM slot, one microphone, one USB C port and a bottom firing speaker. All of the phone sides are made of shining gloss material with the same color tone overall finish to it.

The absence of the 3.5mm headphone jack is already expected as most of the phone today does not include one, and with the increasing adoption of Bluetooth earbuds today, it should be easy to purchase one as majority earbuds today are relatively affordable, and if you are still interested with the Galaxy Buds 2, it is a perfect companion as well.

Besides that the phone is also IP68 dust &water resistant up to 1.5m for 30 minutes and color choices wise, there is Phantom Black, White, Pink Gold, Green to choose from.

Display & Audio

Display side of things, the Galaxy S22 5G came with a 6.1 Inch FHD+120Hz Dynamic AMOLED 2X screen with Gorilla Glass Victus + that supports HDR10+ and Wide Color Gamut. Display is brilliant on with great accuracy on color display, a dynamic adaptive refresh rate that goes up to 120Hz vibrant which is clearly meant for today’s standard balancing between display vibrance while also adjusted down as low as 10Hz according to usage to preserve its battery use. Experiencing the Galaxy S22 5G with browsing, streaming and replying e-mails is good with smooth scrolling and response when I am gaming as well with a maximum boost of the brightness up to 1300nits combined with the new Vision Enhancer. Audio wise, by default it is on dual speaker setup tuned by AKG for further immersive sound and music effects that also has a built in equalizer.

Camera

The Galaxy S22 5G has sets of camera setup that is bumped and upgraded from the original S21 5G. Starting from the rear camera setup you will have one main 50MP wide lens with Dual Pixel PDAF and OIS, one 10MP telephoto lens and another 12MP ultra wide lens accompanied with a flash. Experience with the rear camera capture is similar of the S21 5G with very good color reproduction and contrast level on most environment and portrait mode is well presentable. Zooming above 10x may produce some noises but blur level is not noticeable . However when it comes to video recording, it support up to 8K 24FPS recording, but to my usage thus far, having 4K recording up to 60FPS fits myself and perhaps everyone as the stabilization is so good, thanks to the embedded OIS in the camera hardware.

Selfie camera wise, it came equipped with a 10MP sensor with HDR and Dual Pixel PDAF, live portrait video recording is also supported with capture satisfied picture quality that makes it a good candidate as a vlog phone for all your social media feeds and posting.

All the sample shots above are taken with the Galaxy S22 5G in various mode and environments with a mixed of 10x zoom, normal, 50MP, 30x zoom, Portrait, Selfie and automatic shots.

Performance

Hardware portions, the Samsung Galaxy S22 5G is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Octa Core SOC with 4nm process, up to 256GB of internal storage and 8GB RAM. All of these is running on Android 12 over Samsung’s OneUI 4.1 that brings in a fresh and improvement from RAM Plus extension to enhancements over camera features and Priority mode on your daily device usage needs. Call quality is good whether its over VOLTE, while WoWIFI option is available as well when enabled, delivering constant HD voice quality with the Carrier that we tested.

5G connectivity readiness is there equipped with WiFi 6 support, Bluetooth 5, NFC with payment capability were all present with all the stability there while streaming, gaming, browsing, downloading over my home internet connection has no issues at all. With WiFi 6 band you will also gain much speed over 1800mbps transfer rates with ease with my local NAS.

Gaming wise, this phone is a solid performer with some games such as Mobile Legends can reach over 90FPS with very minimal drop on frame rate and smoothness is felt on all times. Surely games like Genshin Impact will be needed to be set between High and Medium graphic settings to ensure the best experience you can get over domain and party hunting on large maps.

Benchmarks

Benchmark performance is on par as a flagship device, delivering incredible benchmark points results as shown above. This is pretty much one of the best premium SOC that you can get in the market right now today and I say again, this is a beast, and a very powerful one.

Battery performance wise, you will get around 10 hours of it, a mix of calls, surfing, email, streaming, and a few Mobile Legends matches. Turn on the battery saving mode under 20% will get you around extra 2 hours of conservative usage. The Galaxy S22 5G does not come with a charger, you can always get any third party compatible PD charger. A 25w charger will charge up the phone in slightly less than 1.5 hours from 20% to 100%.

Specifications

Conclusion and Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy S22 5G is definitely a great device that is meant to look for a fresh upgrade, needing for a flagship hardware that goes along with you, at least for 2 years with future Android OS upgrades. Additionally you get to enjoy what S series users enjoy as well, such as 5G, WiFi 6, Samsung DeX which is a desktop environment that further enhances the usage together with your laptop or PC of your choice. With the price starting from RM3,499 for the 128GB model and RM3,699 for the 256GB model, we can say this may be the right choice with a flagship Qualcomm SOC and plenty powerful and with Samsung’s long support on software updates, this may be a great device as a start in 2022.

Pros

• 120Hz Refresh Rate Display
• Has reverse charging
• Great Android software and security update support

Cons

• No MicroSD Card Slot
• Plastic back/rear

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