Lately, there has been a deluge of logos but most of these brands underestimate consumers’ ability to recognise quality. Well-managed brands can offer extraordinary value because customers make emotional connections with brands. That’s the case with Samsung. The reaction to skipping the Galaxy Note last year made loyalists demand the return of the S Pen. That’s the level of brand connect and loyalty the South Korean company enjoys. The S Pen is back and how!
The heavyweight champion of Android flagship phones is in for review. It will take a few days before we can offer you an in-depth experience piece, so what we have are first impressions of the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. The big change this year lies with clever branding moves. The biggest of the flagship Galaxy S series phones takes on the feature Galaxy Note has always been popular for — the S Pen. There are two more devices in the series — Galaxy S22+ and Galaxy S22 — but those don’t support the stylus. It’s only appropriate that the bonus feature has gone with the Ultra, which finally has a distinct identity.
Needless to say, it’s a flagship phone with big flagship specs and it comes with a few unique productivity features that no phone in the market offers. The uniqueness is obvious. What you get is a boxier design the Note series has always been known for and a curved display. The other feature we have noticed about the design is the absence of a camera bump altogether. What you have are four camera lenses (plus a laser autofocus sensor) protrude from the back panel. Samsung may have set a trend for other companies.
There is a Gorilla Glass Victus+ protection on front and back.
Being a flagship phone, it gets flagship treatment with an armor aluminum frame and Gorilla Glass Victus+ on front and back. So far we have (accidentally) dropped the phone once and it survived … not even a scratch.
The star of the show so far has been the stylus, which now has a dedicated silo built into the bottom of the phone. Unlocking it brings up a menu with stylus-focussed options, like taking a new note or writing on an image. The S Pen appears far more responsive than before and making sketches is an effortless task. One of Ultra’s tricks for sometime has involved identifying handwriting and converting it to text. It happens once again and so far the results have been surprisingly good. And the 6.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X is the brightest we have seen on a Samsung phone (or perhaps on any phone). Though the review is on, it wouldn’t take a scientist to inform that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor is blazing fast and there has been zero room for complaints so far, be it gaming or heavy-duty applications.
The second big highlight of the phone is the camera. Though we cannot say much about videos because testing is on, pictures simply shine, thanks to the 108MP wide-angle lens, a 12MP ultra-wide-angle lens, and dual 10MP telephoto lenses. That’s a 3X zoom telephoto lens alongside a 10X zoom telephoto lens.
Simple shot taken using Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra
Subject detection is precise in portrait mode and low-light imagery is more detailed because of AI improvements. Depth mapping now identifies even the smallest of details, offering better subject separation from the background. It is what a flagship phone should be all about. Plus, you can capture full 108MP images with night mode. Previously you could use one or the other. The phone comes with One UI 4.1 and Android 12.
Technology needs to excite, innovate and help. Going by early impressions, Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra seems to have taken that road. Is this the ne plus ultra of smartphones? So far it has been sheer magic.