Samsung debuts Galaxy S22 line including flagship Galaxy S22 Ultra starting at $1,199

·Technology Editor

Wed, Feb 9, 2022, 4:00 PM5 min read

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Samsung's has debuted its new Galaxy S22 Ultra, complete with built in S Pen stylus. (Image: Samsung) (Samsung)

Samsung has officially taken the wraps off of its latest flagship smartphone lineup: the $799 Galaxy S22, $999 Galaxy S22+, and $1,199 Galaxy S22 Ultra.

Available for pre-order on Feb. 9, and on sale Feb. 25, the trio of phones share many of the same features including their 4-nanometer Qualcomm (QCOM) Snapdragon processors — but they have a number of differences too. Here are the most important distinctions.

Galaxy S22 Ultra

6.8-inch display
Built-in S Pen stylus
Quad-camera system
Improved low-light photo capabilities
Up to 1TB of storage
Starts at $1,199

Galaxy S22 and Galaxy S22+

S22 gets a 6.1-inch screen, while S22+ gets a 6.6-inch panel
No S Pen stylus
3 cameras: Wide-angle, ultra-wide angle, and telephoto
Up to 256GB of storage
S22 starts at $799, S22 Ultra starts at $999

The S22 Ultra is the standout of the line thanks to its inclusion of Samsung’s S Pen stylus, which is normally reserved for Samsung’s Note line of smartphones. In fact, the Galaxy S22 Ultra is more or less a Note in all but its name.

Heck, its body even looks like the Note, thanks to its boxy design and flat top and bottom edges. This also means that Samsung is putting the nail in the coffin for the Note line, which first debuted in 2011 and was the first mainstream big-screen smartphone.

Up front the S22 Ultra has a massive 6.8-inch AMOLED 2x display, which offers bright, vibrant colors and deep, inky blacks. As with prior versions of Samsung’s smartphones, the S22 Ultra’s screen cascades off of its left and right edges, adding more display real estate.

Like many of today’s top-tier smartphones, the S22 Ultra’s screen features a dynamic refresh rate that can lower the number of times the screen updates with new information from as low as once per second when reading text on a site, all the way up to 120 times per second when playing high-end games.

The S22 Ultra looks like a twin of Samsung's Galaxy Note. (Image: Samsung) (Samsung)

The S22 Ultra also features Samsung’s new Vision Booster technology, which automatically adjusts the color contrast and brightness of images to improve overall display quality when viewing content in direct sunlight.

But the S22 Ultra’s main draw is the S Pen, which is used to do everything from jotting down quick notes to sketching. And like the Note line, the Galaxy S22 Ultra has a built-in slot for the stylus, so you don’t have to worry about losing it.

Around back, the S22 Ultra sports a quartet of cameras. There’s a wide-angle lens, an ultra-wide angle lens, a telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom, and a secondary telephoto lens with 10x optical zoom. Apple’s iPhone 13 Pro Max, by comparison, has three cameras: a wide-angle, ultra-wide angle, and a telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom.

Optical zoom uses physical lenses to zoom in on a subject, while digital zoom uses software features to enlarge subjects. Images taken with optical zoom are generally higher quality than those taken using digital zoom.

Samsung says the S22 Ultra is capable of top-notch low-light photography thanks to new technology and a 23% larger pixel sensor. Ultimately, the 108-megapixel camera sensor on the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s wide-angle camera will produce 12-megapixel images.

Samsung says the Galaxy S22 Ultra's latest camera features mean you'll be able to take excellent low-light photos. (Image: Samsung) (Samsung)

On the video capture front, Samsung has added a new auto framing feature, which will automatically track people as they enter your frame. That way, you can capture large group shots that keep everyone’s images looking crisp and clear.

More importantly, the S22 Ultra’s portrait mode can now take photos of your pets, so you can finally capture images of your four-legged friends that will make them look as regal as they do in real life.

Inside, the S22 Ultra gets a 4-nanometer Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen. 1 processor and your choice of 8GB or 12GB of RAM. Storage sizes range from 128GB to 1TB.

Galaxy S22 and S22+

The Galaxy S22 Ultra might get an S Pen and 4 cameras, but the Galaxy S22 and Galaxy S22+ are no slouchers. The S22 gets a 6.1-inch AMOLED 2x display with dynamic refresh rates, while the S22+ gets a 6.6-inch version of the same panel.

The Galaxy S22+ and Galaxy S22 carry many of the same features as the S22 Ultra, but lack the built-in S Pen. (Image: Samsung) (Samsung)

I’m actually a bigger fan of the S22 and S22+’s designs, as they have rounded edges, and flat displays rather than the Edge display found on the S22 Ultra.

Both the S22 and S22+ get three rear cameras: a wide-angle lens, ultra-wide angle lens, and telephoto lens with 2x optical zoom. The phones also get many of the same low-light camera capabilities as the S 22 Ultra, including AI image enhancing, and the ability to take portrait mode photos of your pets.

Inside, the S22 and S22+ get the same Snapdragon processor as the S22 Ultra. Both phones include 8GB of RAM, and your choice of 128GB or 256GB of storage.

We’ll have more about the S22 lineup coming including a full review in the coming weeks.

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