I've been using it for about two weeks now,
and I promise you,
I'm not going to call this the Note 22 Ultra
over and over again in this review.
I swear I can make it through this Blog
without making that joke.
But, really, the bottom line here
to understand this phone the best really is like,
if you took the name off of this phone,
what Samsung is giving you for the money is a Galaxy Note.
But the phone that I'm reviewing
and using is called the S22 Ultra.
Let's get into it.
So the word Ultra in Samsung's lineup has basically come
to just mean the highest ambitions, the biggest numbers,
the best specs, and the most features overall.
It's just that now the Ultra name
has swallowed up the Note stuff too.
So Note used to be that one special edition phone
with this squared off design,
the flat top and bottom and the pen built-in.
Now, that's just all wrapped up into Ultra.
And the S22 Ultra does not miss a beat
with all the Ultra stuff.
They're packing in the highest end chip they can,
that's the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 here in the US
with a massive new cooling solution alongside it.
The RAM is technically down from last year.
The base model has 8 gigs and all the rest have 12,
and there's no more 16-gig version
but I honestly don't miss that.
I can't imagine someone really needing 16 gigs of RAM
in their phone right now.
But you absolutely can go up to 1 terabyte
of non-expandable storage though.
But this display, this display is also excellent.
It's a huge 6.8 inch, 1440p AMOLED at 120 hertz
with 240 hertz touch sample rate,
and the big new number is a max brightness of 1,750 nits.
Now on the one hand,
I don't wanna overreact about 1,750 nits.
It's a big number,
but brightness works on a logarithmic scale.
So this 1,750 is not dramatically brighter
than the 1,500 max from last year's S21 Ultra.
These phones are all very sunlight readable.
But I do still wanna give Samsung credit
for continuing to improve an already best-in-class display
and making it even better.
It's still got the same great ultrasonic fingerprint reader
as last year right under the middle of the screen,
and still has a hole punch camera in the top middle.
And it's an LTPO 2.0 panel now,
which means in addition to being really responsive,
it can drop that refresh rate as low as 1 hertz
when there's nothing moving on the screen.
Really, my only dislike
with this display is the curve over the edges.
So if you look at this phone next to last year's S21 Ultra,
obviously these phones are different shapes,
and the displays are actually
slightly different resolutions,
and this new shape definitely curves more over the sides,
which I don't like as much.
Other than that, this is an awesome Ultra display.
And we all know it's not an Ultra without a massive battery.
So, yeah, 5,000 milliamp hour should do the trick.
Now, interestingly, there are some tests online showing
that it doesn't last as long
as last year's 5,000 milliamp hour battery.
And you can see Arun @mrwhosetheboss did a variety of things
in his test and found the S21 Ultra
did last a bit longer than this phone.
And to me, when I see that, I'm like,
"Okay, there's a variety of factors
that can contribute to that.
One, the slightly brighter display.
Two, a little bit more of a power-hungry chip
that runs hotter in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1."
But, generally, my battery experience
has been very, very good.
I actually never killed it in a day.
It never really got anywhere close.
Easily ending heavy days with 30, 40+% battery left
and could extrapolate about seven hours
of screen-on time out of a charge, which is great for me.
I know screen-on time is different for everyone,
but it's been great.
Plus, on top of that,
it does charge a bit faster than last year,
up to 45-watt peak charging
if you buy that $50 optional brick.
So I'm glad they fit
that big 5,000 milliamp hour cell in here
despite also adding the S Pen,
which takes up a whole column along the inside of the phone.
But speaking of that S Pen, that what's new, the Note stuff.
Now, I'm personally not the biggest S Pen user.
I think I say this every time I review a Note.
I think I signed one PDF last week with it,
which was really convenient, but I did it once.
And I used Samsung's handwriting recognition
in the Notes app.
Super cool that it works really well
and you can search what you've written.
And I also...
I just enjoy that it still clicks a lot like that.
So it is definitely impressive.
I still think it's the best stylus in any phone,
and it's literally got all the features the last Notes had.
Smart Select is nice for screenshots and annotating things.
Lock screen Quick Notes are still super convenient
if you use Samsung Notes.
And it even still has
that long distance Bluetooth connection
that lets you use the button on the the S Pen
to remote control take photos without touching the phone.
And the new display brings latency down
from 9 milliseconds, which is already pretty good,
all the way down to 2.8 milliseconds,
which, to me, basically feels like real-time.
I'm not an artist who's doing massive drawings
or extremely precise sketch work with the pen,
it's just casual writing,
and so the fact that it uses AI
to predict where the pen is going to go
and starts drawing those pixels slightly ahead
of where the panel's actually registering it
is pretty next level.
So, to me, this is as close to one to one as it gets.
But at the end of the day,
if you see all of this and you're like,
"Ah, I still probably won't really use any of it,"
then you can just slot the pen right back into the phone
and never use it.
It's out of the way,
and the phone didn't make any sacrifices to include it.
So, okay, here's a bunch of other smaller things
that I noticed from using this phone every day
that you should too if you're planning on getting one.
So the speakers are excellent.
They get very loud
and sound crisp and clear like last year,
some of the best in any smartphone,
so that's great for watching media.
But then the display curving more over the edges
than last year makes it worse for watching videos.
And then the vibration motor,
this is a small thing,
but I mentioned it also in the S22 review,
they changed the type.
So it went from a z-axis vibration motor
to an x-axis vibration motor.
Doesn't sound like much,
but it changes the way it feels.
So it feels just as strong and precise and clean
for typing or swiping or holding it in your hand,
but it's way less strong when it's on a desk
or in your pocket.
So I literally miss phone calls
with my phone sitting right in front of me,
vibrating on my desk because I didn't hear it or feel it.
Then the camera rings.
So they're a bit of a controversial design, sure.
But like most designs,
you kind of get used to looking at it,
but you never, ever fully get it clean of dust.
So if you go caseless like me,
not only does the phone sit kind of funny on a table,
but there will also always be dust between the camera rings.
So just get ready for that.
I would actually recommend if you get a case,
channel sponsor dbrand just dropped
their Atomic Edition Grip Case,
and it doesn't do a huge cutout
all the way around the cameras like I thought we might see
in my impressions video.
It actually just matches the camera rings,
and it low it's way cleaner,
and it's just deep enough
to protect the cameras if you drop it.
So this is definitely the way to go.
You can check it out at the link below.
Then this phone, just like the other S22s,
shoots 8K video at 24 FPS, you know, the wrong frame rate.
Give us the option for 30, Samsung.
Just put it in the setting somewhere.
But even worse than not having 30 FPS toggle,
it actually crops in way more than the regular S22s.
So it turns out shooting 8K is 33 megapixels,
and it's actually cropping in to the middle 33 megapixels
of this huge 108-megapixel sensor.
So when you switch to 8K,
you zoom in to what feels like about 2x,
which is and convenient for framing.
No 8K video from the ultrawide or the telephoto lenses,
this is a bit of a downside.
And then there is absolutely still some shutter lag
with this main camera,
more than the regular S22s again.
And this is understandable
with all the processing happening,
but it definitely felt like I was missing some shots
or having trouble capturing moving objects
because of the bit of a delay between the shutter press
and the actual photo being taken.
But speaking of cameras,
let's just get the camera stuff out of the way.
It's funny 'cause this is probably
what most people actually come to these review videos for,
if you think about it.
If you watch a smartphone presentation these days,
75% of a new phone presentation today,
especially a flagship, is camera stuff.
So that's one of the biggest things
that differentiates these phones,
and on a $1,200 phone,
it's one of the most important features.
So how is it?
Well, you can see, they went with basically the same layout
of the set of cameras as last year.
It's 108-megapixel primary camera, the ultrawide,
the 3x telephoto, and the 10x telephoto,
plus laser autofocus.
And they're not at the same exact hardware as last year,
but they're pretty close and that's a good thing.
And Samsung's not messing around with their cameras.
These are definitely flagship quality
and I'm really happy with them.
Matter of fact,
I don't even have much to say about image quality
because there really isn't much new here,
but there are some new features within the camera modes
that might sort of unlock some new things
and be different about this phone.
So I'm gonna go over those with you one by one.
So, first, the more accurate portrait mode.
Now I think I tweeted a couple months ago,
sort of ruffled some feathers but I said something like,
"Samsung has the best portrait mode
on smartphones right now,"
and understandably ruffled and feathers.
But I should clarify, basically,
what I mean is their cutouts have been the most consistent
and the most accurate of portrait modes
among smartphones that I've seen.
So that doesn't mean the blur is the most natural
or the fall off is the most realistic,
I just mean they make the least errors
with ears hair and shirts and stuff.
And so this year, they're planning on, well,
they've announced that they're doing it even better.
They've got AI Stereo Depth Mapping for portrait mode
that they claim can cut out things
as small as a single human hair,
which would be cool.
It's not exactly accurate, but they say it's better.
So I still found it to be really good,
but it's definitely not perfect.
It still misses some stuff sometimes,
but I stand by my statement.
These cutouts and depth mapping they're doing
is really, really good.
The portrait mode shots especially look good
with the 3x lens with people, with pets even,
and also with inanimate objects.
It still does a good job cutting stuff out.
Again, not perfect.
You'll pretty much always find some error
in every smartphone portrait mode shot,
but Samsung does a really good job.
I think the 1x portrait shots are good to have,
but they don't look as natural.
So I hope Samsung works on the naturalness
and fall off of the background blur
to overall make it the best portrait mode.
Then there is night photography,
which Samsung has called Nightography.
Okay, so I compare the night mode shots
to the iPhone 13 Pro,
which also has an excellent camera,
and my biggest takeaway is yes,
Samsung's night mode photos
are definitely more detailed, 100%,
but they're also dramatically brighter.
As advertised, they're letting in a lot of light
and the photos in the dark look like you're taking them
in a lot more light than you actually have,
especially look at the sky back there.
So it's impressive,
but it's also a bit of a preference thing.
Some people want their nighttime photos
to look like they're at night
But then lastly,
there is an Expert RAW app separate from the camera app
that can take RAW photos
that includes multi-frame computational photography data,
HDR and everything.
And the differences are subtle,
but they at absolutely do allow
for more latitude when editing.
So photographers should definitely grab this app
from the ugliest app store I've seen in a while,
the Samsung Galaxy Store.
So I'm gonna end it with this.
Typically the big question with the review,
at the end of the review, you're like,
"Well, should I buy it? Is it worth it?"
And this is an expensive phone, it's 1,200 bucks,
so that's a big question.
So basically, I think their mission was accomplished.
The fact that they combined the Note stuff
with this phone makes it easier
to separate from the regular S22s.
It makes it a more obviously different phone in the lineup.
So if you just want a standard, really good flagship phone,
big screen, nice battery, nice cameras, all that stuff,
the S22 plus is a great phone,
and it's $200 less at the starting price.
But if you want some specific extra things,
like the super high resolution display
or the S Pen or some of those camera tweaks,
then it gives you a reason to upgrade,
and it does deliver on those extra things.
Now, that being said,
I am sticking with the Galaxy 21 Ultra
as my main daily driver phone.
Obviously, people who have this phone don't need to upgrade.
But it's just basically the same phone
as far as software, battery,
cameras are almost the same,
performance is the same,
but with a design that I prefer
and a vibration motor that actually notifies me more often.
But, yeah, overall, this phone is good.
It delivers.
If you want a little bit of a more in-depth look
at the One UI 4.1 software
and the fact that this phone,
at least this lineup with the S22 for Samsung,
seems to be basically the default Android experience moreso
than Google's pixel ever could be,
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