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00:00Hey guys, I'm Tom the Tech Chap, and this is, well, probably the world's fastest unboxing.
00:08USB-C cable, and the phone.
00:11No charger, again, but we kind of expected that,
00:14even though one of the features of this is that we have this new 45-watt fast charging,
00:18but you have to spend, well, like 45 quid to actually buy it.
00:22So, a bit stingy perhaps, saves the environment,
00:24but then not if you have to buy a separate charger and then have to ship it as well.
00:27Anyway, this is the S22 Ultra, and I want to share with you some of my first thoughts,
00:32perhaps call it like a first review.
00:34I've done a few benchmarks, run a few tests,
00:36but I do actually want to say hats off to Samsung,
00:39because for the first time in ever, as far as I can recall,
00:42they haven't set a separate review embargo,
00:45which normally is a couple of weeks after our hands-ons,
00:48which is not ideal if you're, you know, thinking about pre-ordering it
00:51and actually want to know if it's any good.
00:52This time, I can say whatever the heck I want,
00:55and it also means I can compare it to other phones as well.
00:57So, thank you, Samsung, for making that change.
00:59So, let's jump straight into this.
01:01And the very first thing you need to know about the S22 Ultra is that it can stand up by itself.
01:07If we bring in the S21 Ultra, and let's switch to my little second cam here,
01:12you can see, yeah, not ideal.
01:16So, obviously, the reason for that is we've lost that big camera housing.
01:19Now, we just have these sort of five sticky-outy lenses on the back.
01:23Very, very similar design.
01:24I've got both of them here in phantom black.
01:26Same texture, same color.
01:28Although, interestingly, we do have that new Gorilla Glass Victus Plus
01:31on the front and back of the, I was going to say, Note 22,
01:34the S22 Ultra, compared to just standard Victus.
01:37And also, actually, we have this new aluminum armor frame around the phone.
01:41Previously, that was only on the Fold 3.
01:43So, a bit of a sort of material improvement.
01:46I do kind of wish that I'd been given the burgundy one.
01:49I had my eye on that since the hands-on, but alas, no.
01:52Now, I know I keep banging on about this,
01:54but I don't know why they didn't call it the Note 22 Ultra.
01:57I mean, this is the Note 20 Ultra, and it is very much in the same family.
02:01S Pen, slightly uncomfortable, squared-off corners.
02:04I don't know why they need to make these corners so sharp.
02:08Obviously, you have this sort of symmetrical, nice, thin bezel.
02:11We've got this sort of boxy design.
02:13But the S21 Ultra, the S series generally,
02:15is just a lot more comfortable to hold.
02:17It sits in your hand. It doesn't stab into your palm as much.
02:20Not the end of the world, and if you have a case on it,
02:22again, that will soften it, but it will also make it feel bigger.
02:25Because, in fact, we do have pretty much the same 6.8-inch screen
02:29between these two.
02:30They're also both 8.9 mil thick.
02:32But the S22 Ultra is a couple of millimeters wider,
02:35and it does feel quite a bit bigger in the hand.
02:38The S21 Ultra is already a big phone.
02:40This kind of takes it to the next level with the design.
02:43I'll tell you what, though.
02:45It is really nice having this S Pen back.
02:47We haven't had this inbuilt into a phone in two years
02:51since this guy, the Note20 Ultra.
02:54And I kind of miss it. I'm a little nostalgic for it.
02:56Obviously, the S21 Ultra supported it,
02:58but you had to have a separate carry case,
03:00and no one wanted to do that.
03:01But with this, it's back to, well, using an old friend.
03:04I mean, functionally, there isn't really anything new here,
03:07just a few extra languages for the handwriting to text.
03:10But most importantly, the response time has been reduced
03:13to 2.8 milliseconds, down from 9 milliseconds,
03:16even on the S Pen last year.
03:18So if you are a bit of an artist like myself,
03:20then you will probably appreciate that little extra instantaneous input.
03:24As I said in my hands-on, though, I think the most impressive part
03:26is the fact that they physically fit this S Pen into the phone
03:30while also cramming in a 5,000 mAh battery.
03:33That is very impressive.
03:34It's the same size battery as the S21 Ultra,
03:37which, of course, doesn't have an S Pen inside.
03:39You can also just about see
03:41there aren't really any mucky fingerprints or smudges.
03:44As I sort of press my fingers into that,
03:47it doesn't pick it up, which is really good to see.
03:49I'm a little bit concerned that these lenses will get scratched easily, though.
03:53There isn't really much protecting them,
03:55so they're the first thing that will be damaged when you place it down.
03:59So we'll have to see in the sort of long term how these stand up.
04:03But you'll also notice there is a slight curve to the screen.
04:07I don't think it's enough to upset any of you guys
04:10who hate a curved screen in terms of, you know,
04:12old-fashioned palm rejection,
04:14but it just sort of adds a little bit to the premium aesthetic.
04:17It is a big phone, though, so be prepared to use it two-handed
04:20or, you know, do a bit of finger gymnastics like that.
04:23But let's talk about this screen,
04:25because obviously it's huge and it's beautiful
04:27and it is the same QHD resolution.
04:30Let me jump into the display settings here.
04:32In the motion smoothness, it is 120 Hz, adaptive.
04:36And if we go to the screen resolution, FHD+, WQHD+.
04:40I do kind of wish there was, like, an automatic mode or an adaptive mode
04:43so I didn't have to pick between battery life and sharpness all the time,
04:46and perhaps I could do it automatically.
04:48Going into power saving does obviously drop the resolution automatically anyway,
04:51but would be kind of nice.
04:53Now, being the massive nerd that I am,
04:55one of my first questions when I got this was, how fast is it?
04:58In fact, on my train ride home, I started running benchmarks.
05:01I've repeated them since I've got back.
05:03The difference is kind of interesting.
05:05Obviously, with this UK variant, we have the Exynos 2200.
05:08In the US and a few other countries, they have the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.
05:12Firstly, though, I want to compare the S21 Ultra with its Exynos 2100
05:17versus the S22 Ultra with the Exynos 2200.
05:20How much faster is this new phone versus last year's phone?
05:23Exynos versus Exynos.
05:25So for your viewing pleasure, I took a few screenshots of my results,
05:28and here they are.
05:30S21 Ultra on the left, S22 Ultra on the right.
05:33And in Geekbench, we're looking at about a 7% to 8% jump in performance on average.
05:39But let's then jump over to Antutu,
05:42which I think is actually a better benchmark than Geekbench.
05:44No one likes Geekbench anymore.
05:45And that is a significant step up, actually.
05:48We're looking at a whopping 23% boost on the S22 Ultra.
05:52Also, if we look down here,
05:54you can see that the S22 actually only went up by 6 degrees during the test
05:59versus nearly 8 degrees on the S21 Ultra with the Exynos 2100.
06:03So it appears to be faster,
06:05and also it doesn't get as hot over the length of this particular benchmark.
06:09So last but not least, I jumped into a bit of the 3DMark Wildlife Extreme benchmark.
06:14And look at that.
06:15It's not quite as significant as Antutu,
06:17but it's still an average 14% jump over last year.
06:22Not too shabby.
06:2313.4 versus 11.6 FPS.
06:26Although, I know what you're thinking.
06:28That's great, Tom.
06:29It's a little bit faster.
06:30It's all about the throttling.
06:31Well, I then ran the Wildlife Extreme stress test over 20 minutes,
06:35which I appreciate still isn't like a three-hour gaming session,
06:37but this is a first review.
06:38Bear with me.
06:39Again, the same sort of scores in terms of the best loop there.
06:42Stability, much higher, though.
06:44Well, look at that.
06:4572% versus 60%.
06:47But then if I put these right in front of the camera,
06:49look at those graphs.
06:51On the 10th loop of the S21 Ultra,
06:53we have that big slowdown, that throttling.
06:56Whereas on the S22 Ultra,
06:59yes, we have that slight initial decline,
07:01but it sort of trails off quite evenly.
07:04There's no significant drop in frame rates.
07:06This is what you want,
07:07and it would be a lot less noticeable if you're gaming
07:10and you slowly lose a few FPS rather than sort of dropping a bunch.
07:14So this is good news.
07:15It is faster, particularly the GPU, around 15% to 20%,
07:18and it doesn't get as hot as quickly,
07:21and it doesn't throttle as severely as the Exynos 2100.
07:25Now, obviously, the next question is,
07:26how does this compare to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 version
07:29in the different regions?
07:30I think I do need to get a proper Snapdragon model here with me to test,
07:33and if you would like to see that,
07:35then, well, hopefully give me a like and subscribe,
07:37but also let me know below,
07:38because, of course, we also want to see
07:39how it performs with battery life and the camera performance.
07:42But first impressions, well, it is a little bit faster,
07:45particularly the GPU.
07:46Not something you'd probably notice every day,
07:49particularly coming from last year's phone,
07:51but, you know, most people don't really upgrade year on year.
07:54Coming from, say, a Note 20 Ultra with the Exynos 990, I believe,
07:59then, yeah, this is going to be a big step up.
08:02One problem I have come across, though,
08:04because this is a brand-new phone and a brand-new chip,
08:07if I jump into the graphics settings,
08:09you can have any graphics quality you like as long as it's low,
08:12which is not ideal.
08:14I have no doubt this will be fixed with an update to the game,
08:16but it does show that maybe there are other advantages
08:19to the Snapdragon version, like driver support.
08:21I know in some games like PUBG, you have different frame rates,
08:23depending on the chip as well.
08:25In terms of battery life, though, between these two,
08:27the S21 Ultra and the S22 Ultra,
08:29at least at this point it's proven to be pretty much the same,
08:32very similar, still very impressive.
08:34Not as good as the iPhone 13 Pro Max,
08:36which is still the king in terms of battery life,
08:39but this will not be far behind,
08:41and I will be doing a full battery test video as well
08:44with all the latest flagship phones.
08:46Again, if you'd like to see that, do let me know below,
08:48because those things are very boring to make,
08:50but hopefully they are quite useful.
08:52Okay, let's talk about this camera.
08:55And here is a little side-by-side with the S21, S22,
08:58and the iPhone 13 Pro Max.
09:01Now, this is shot in portrait mode.
09:03You can see there is a more intense blur or bokeh on the iPhone,
09:06but you can adjust that on the Galaxy phones as well.
09:09And I think overall, while the iPhone clearly has its own aesthetic going on,
09:13which is kind of more pleasing,
09:15although I'd say possibly less realistic,
09:17you can see the S22 is a big step up from the S21.
09:22Now, same deal here.
09:23Still a portrait shot, but now in low light.
09:25And again, I'm kind of surprised how big of an upgrade this is.
09:29There is so much more detail and texture on my jumper,
09:32particularly in my face, on the S22 over last year's phone.
09:36Now, still using the rear cameras,
09:38but holy moly, the Exynos S21 Ultra is not doing well.
09:42I even took a few photos to make sure this was correct.
09:46I hadn't done something wrong.
09:47The S22 does give the iPhone 13 Pro Max a good run for its money here.
09:51And it also has the widest field of view with the main lens,
09:54so you can get a bit more in the frame.
09:56I would say the iPhone has a slightly more natural true-to-life color here,
10:00but in terms of detail, it's kind of neck and neck with the S22.
10:04And also, it is harder to tell the difference between the three phones
10:07when you have good light.
10:09But look at this, 10x zoom, and it is no competition.
10:13In fact, I made three attempts with the S21 Ultra here.
10:15And while it is low light, so it's a little bit tricky for the phones,
10:18it came out blurry every time,
10:20unlike the S22 Ultra, which is much sharper,
10:23and from my own experience, at least,
10:25has much better stabilization at this 10x zoom.
10:28Now, here is Sylvie the cat hard at work,
10:31although the iPhone does seem to introduce that bokeh a little bit sooner.
10:34It sort of starts to blur towards her back,
10:36and the fur is less detailed,
10:38whereas on the Galaxy phones, all of the cats seems to be nicely in focus.
10:42Although the iPhone is the brightest
10:43and arguably the most pleasing shot.
10:45And lastly, just a quick little tour around my studio
10:48in some different lighting conditions,
10:50with all three phones shooting at 4K 30.
10:59What do you reckon?
11:00Let me know in the comments below which phone you think came out on top.
11:02I would bet it is not the S21,
11:04but also let me know what phones you'd like me to test
11:07in my upcoming S22 camera comparisons.
11:10From what I'm seeing so far,
11:12we are getting a significant jump in camera performance.
11:15A couple of things, though.
11:168K still limited to 24fps.
11:18I don't know why, with all this extra power,
11:20we don't have an 8K 30 option yet.
11:23And also, one of the big improvements,
11:25according to Samsung,
11:26is the sort of low light capability and the stabilization.
11:29And while it does seem to be doing a decent job,
11:33it still seems to be quite juddery.
11:35You can really feel that shake,
11:37although I do appreciate this is quite tricky conditions.
11:44But then in other situations,
11:45like here on the underground,
11:47this is exactly why I don't miss living in London,
11:50but the video quality here is actually really good.
11:53And one of the new features with the S22
11:55is that the frame rate will automatically adjust
11:58to maintain quality and help keep noise to a minimum.
12:02Now, I do appreciate I've only had a short time with this so far,
12:05but at this point, it's probably my new favourite phone.
12:09I do need to do more testing, of course,
12:11and I am currently an iPhone 13 Pro Max user,
12:14so we'll have to see where my main SIM card goes.
12:16But in terms of an overall package of a phone,
12:18flagship specs, big 5000mAh battery,
12:21great camera setup with an insane zoom,
12:23and also, of course, the S Pen.
12:26But what do you reckon so far?
12:27Are you tempted to upgrade?
12:29And actually, if you do fancy buying this
12:30or ordering one yourself,
12:31I will leave links in the description below
12:33where you can also get some Samsung credit off,
12:35which is always very nice.
12:37Thank you so much for watching, guys,
12:38and I'll see you next time right here on The Tech Chat.