Tencent Digital | Li Xincao
Before Samsung released the S22 series of smartphones, I guess no one could have imagined that they would build the S22 Ultra in such a way. Two months after Samsung announced the launch of the Note series on the historical stage in December last year, the Note series officially returned with the S22 Ultra, which was quite surprising.
This is the first time in the product history of the Samsung S series for more than ten years that the S-Pen has been integrated into the design of the mobile phone, and the original S-Pen only belongs to the Note series. Of course, whether this is Samsung's long-term market decision or a fortuitous inspiration, the transformation of "Note22 Ultra" into "S22 Ultra" has made the Korean company earn enough eyeballs.
But after the release, I am still more concerned about what kind of product this year's S22 Ultra is.
If you look at this product according to the eyes of the Note20 series 2 years ago, it has no problems, and the family-style design makes people see at a glance that this is a product from Samsung.
But if you put it in the S series, this year's S22 Ultra is more unusual. This year's S22 Ultra has changed the rounded exterior design of the previous S series, including this year's S22 and S22+ are using similar designs, but the S22 Ultra is completely different.
The fuselage is more square, and it has become the only mobile phone in the three mobile phones to use a flexible curved screen, and the perfect combination of the screen and the curve of the back of the fuselage will look frameless on the front of the phone.
But at the top and bottom of the fuselage is another style, the flat design makes the S22 Ultra look a bit divided. The S-Pen in the lower left corner has become a watershed design in the history of the S series mobile phones, and I don't know if such a more boxy design will become the standard of the flagship products of the S series in the future.
This year's S22 Ultra has a more "Renaissance" design. With years of removing lens covers, the design makes the S22 Ultra stand out from the crowd of flagship smartphones. I like this design, nowadays there are more and more lenses in smart phones, making the design of lens modules a difficult task, look at some of the lens modules of some new mobile phones released before, some of them can be described as unbearable. A design like Samsung's return to simplicity, in the current view, there is a sense of simplicity, which is very good.
Because the screen size, lens module, body structure and other factors have not changed significantly, so this year's S22 Ultra still has a body thickness of 8.9mm and a weight of 228 grams, which is a big deal for the current smartphone.
The length of the S-Pen and the previous Note20 series are not too obvious differences, because it is integrated inside the fuselage, so compared to last year's S21 Ultra external S-Pen is naturally much shorter, but the overall feel is good, especially Samsung's years of accumulation of stylus technology on the phone, this S-Pen is still the best mobile phone stylus at present, there is no one.
Samsung's flagship machine, every generation of screens has never disappointed, and this year is no different. S22 Ultra has a 6.8-inch, hyperboloid second-generation AMOLED screen, the so-called second generation, but also very much through the domestic manufacturers said that the second generation of LTPO technology, can achieve the lowest 1Hz, the highest 120Hz dynamic refresh rate, last year in the S21 Ultra screen, the minimum can only achieve 10Hz refresh rate.
If this technology doesn't make this screen of the Samsung S22 Ultra stand out, then take a look at the panel. Although there is no clear word about what model of luminous material the S22 Ultra uses, it has set a new record - the ultimate excitation brightness of 1750nit.
This is a brightness limit that smartphones have never reached, although in the eyes of many people, the limit excitation brightness does not have much practical value, but the increase in the ultimate excitation brightness means that the limit brightness of the phone in the conventional state will also increase. Last year's extreme excitation brightness of the S21 Ultra was only 1500nit, and this time the S22 Ultra is exactly 250nit higher, which means you can still get better visibility in bright light.
The brighter screen combined with 10bit of color allows this screen to get a pretty good daily experience, whether it's watching videos or playing games, the S22 Ultra gives me the best experience.
Again, you can always trust Samsung's display technology.
In terms of chips, Samsung continued the previous dual-chip strategy this year, in some markets around the world, they used exynos 2200, while in most markets, including China, they still use Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen1 processors.
The same change is the combination of memory, the domestic listed S22 series of licensed mobile phones, only S22 Ultra has 12GB of storage and at most 1TB of storage space, while S22 and S22+ only have 8GB of RAM, Samsung obviously hopes to use hardware to control the price of products, but also the identity of S22 Ultra is highlighted.
In the actual test, the score of AnTutu is close to 1 million, which is basically the average level of the current Snapdragon 8 Gen1, and the memory score is 72,000+, which is also the top level in the industry. As Samsung, which can currently provide a complete solution from upstream channels to downstream terminals in the smartphone industry, hardware has never been a problem for their flagship phones to worry about.
In terms of actual game performance, the glory of the king can only achieve 60 frames of operation, which is most likely related to the S22 Ultra has not yet adapted to the software, after all, last year's S21 Ultra can run full 120 frames. From the actual performance point of view, S22 Ultra running king glory 60 frame is very stable, belongs to the kind of oversized use, after all, now the flagship mobile phone has no one to test the 60 frame king glory, too pediatric.
The performance of "Original God" at a very high quality of 60 frames can only be regarded as barely passing, with an average frame rate of 43.2 frames. There is a premise that the current system of the mobile phone in my hand is not yet the final retail version of the market, so it may be that after the listing, the mobile phone will optimize the system to a certain extent.
This time, Samsung equipped the S22 Ultra with a 5000mAh battery like last year, supporting 45W wired charging and 15W wireless charging. Among them, the speed of wired charging is nearly double that of the 25W used by last year's S21 Ultra, although it is not as good as those domestic manufacturers of 100W, but only compared with itself, Samsung has improved...
Unfortunately, the phone I got was just an engineered prototype, and he didn't have a 45W charger as standard. I charged it with a Gallium nitride charger that supports the PD protocol, and the overall speed can be increased from 1-100% in 55 minutes, which is nearly 15 minutes faster than last year's S21 Ultra.
In the photography section, the Samsung S22 Ultra continues the four-lens module of the previous S21 Ultra, including a 108 million pixel HM3, which has a certain technical improvement compared to last year, but Samsung does not say in detail where the improvement is; the ultra-wide angle of 12 million pixels can achieve a field of view of 120°; two 10 million pixel telephoto can achieve 3 times and 10 times the equivalent optical zoom respectively.
Judging from the actual sample performance, the S22 Ultra continues the previous Samsung's consistent adjustment of the camera, and basically all the photos will be polished in the direction of pleasing the eye. Photos in normal light are decent, in a well-lit environment, it is almost difficult to find some obvious problems, which is the same for the current flagship mobile phone, if a mobile phone that costs more than 6,000 yuan can appear obvious flaws in normal optical fiber shooting, then please block this mobile phone manufacturer.
Focus on indoor and nighttime photos. In the complex light indoors, the Samsung S22 Ultra has done a good job of suppressing highlights, and in the samples I shot, in large scenes, there is almost no overexposure of highlights, which puts a very high demand on the tolerance of the camera, and in terms of perception alone, the S22 Ultra still performs well.
In the case of night scenes, S22 Ultra has a strong ability to brighten ambient light, through more pixel integration technology, S22 Ultra can get a fairly excellent amount of light at night, which on the one hand ensures that the tolerance of photos is higher, on the other hand, with the better ISP NPU algorithm on the processor this year, making the photo itself more layered.
S22 Ultra is not a long time, so the overall experience of this phone is more of a "first meeting" state, fortunately, I have been using Samsung flagship mobile phones for a period of time in recent years, so there is still a certain understanding of Samsung in the aspects of mobile phone imaging, screen, battery life and so on over the years.
From the S22 Ultra that I experienced this year, which is not a retail version of the system, what impressed me the most was undoubtedly the screen that Samsung equipped with, which was so amazing that I even felt a little bit like buying a screen and sending a mobile phone. In addition, this year, Samsung did improve the shooting quality of the S22 Ultra, although the lens module does not look like a significant change, but from the performance of the sample, the S22 Ultra has better control over complex lighting environments than last year.
Finally, let's talk about the S-Pen. On the S22 Ultra, it's hard to get around this topic, after all, this is the first time the S series has been equipped with an S-Pen. It's as good as Note, which Samsung has proven to us countless times over the past few years. Obviously, Samsung never wanted to abandon Note and Note users, after all, this phone once helped the Korean company create brilliant, and this time, it appeared in a different form in front of us.
Whether you've used the S-Pen or not, it's there this year; and if you do, you'll most likely like it.