I was so horrified at the thought of this P-shaped squiggle on the back of a 2022 flagship, that I was convinced there was no possible way that Samsung would go through with it. And what we actually have is shaping up to be a very spicy phone indeed for 5 key reasons.
SOFTWARE
In fact, what you're seeing right now is the software that the S22 Ultra will almost definitely come with — one UI 4. I've been testing a beta of it and it's not just a few new features, but a visual redesign. And I think, or at least, I hope it also indicates a new direction for Samsung.
More so than any past generation, this software just feels alive. Like, when you apply a wallpaper, it will pull the key colors from that and use them to theme your entire phone including the inside of some Apps. It feels more vibrant and playful. The widgets feel more interactive than ever before with more flash out animations and automatic adjustments to make them more consistent with each other. You can resize floating windows on the fly. And there's just a lot of subtle things — like how the home screen gently comes into focus when you leave an App that make phones with this software feel more naturally responsive to actions. Plus, based on early previews, it also looks like the adverts that started creeping their way into Samsung software are got . It's a little early to say for sure, but it would, kind of make sense. It's very possible that the pressure that Samsung is facing from Xiaomi right now is forcing them to hold themselves to a higher standard. And if that's what happening, it is good news for not just Samsung users but for everyone. Because other companies will then be have to follow suit. And as a final icing on the cake, it also brings a new feature called RAM plus; which can repurpose 4Gigabytes of internal memory as extra RAM — Meaning that the S22 Ultra comes with a 16GB RAM option — you will have equivalent of 20GB RAM. You probably won't need it, but it's there in case you do.
DESIGN
I'll admit, design is not one of the more important part of a phone. But it's really exciting because just like with the software, I think this design indicates that Samsung as
a company is rolling in the right direction. It doesn't take much digging to see that this brand has through some very questionable phases (as did we all). Phones that looked like plasters, cases that looked like bikinis or just some straight up head scratching my boring phones. But for the last year, almost everything that's come of Samsung's doors has had strong design. The S21 Ultra looks like a stealthy ninja phone, the Z flip3 is minimal and flat, and all these limited edition phones are superb. And I would go as far as to say that I think this S22 Ultra looks even better. This is not a 100% confirmed and finalized design, we are still a couple if months away from launch, but this feels right.
I think it's extremely close, and assuming that they can pull this look off, it's not just unique; the only phone that looks close could be the LG velvet, which was one of LG's best design phones in my opinion. But it would also eliminate the two unfortunate side effects of having a big fat camera module wobbling when you're a table and constant finger collisions. There's apparently going to be a black and a green, which look whatever, but I would do bad things for these white and red one —These are a statement. But there's also a less obvious design change here. It's increasingly looking like the S22 Ultra will not just be the next S-series phone but also the next note series phone.
You might know that Samsung skipped launching a Galaxy note 2021, and so, my best guess was what they're planning to do is to just pull their resources to make one phone that will appeal to both categories of users. It feels like a strange move; like, given that the majority of Samsung flagship purchases —buy an S-series instead of a note series phone, it's fair to assume that most aren't users of that S-pen. But it doesn't look like it's coming at the cost of anything. The battery is apparently still going to be a huge 5,000mAh, the charging power will actually be upgraded from 25W to 45W, the camera system's even brought inside the body instead of pushing further out to be able to for the pen. My best guess is that they will make the main body a little thicker just to accommodate everything.
But for an Ultra phone with this much stuff, I'm okay with that. Because if you're going to have this S-pen as a feature, then I think it's really important that you can actually fit it inside.
Like with the Z fold3 last year, you might remember that I kind of ranged to the fact that Samsung pitched that phone as a Galaxy note replacement regularly reminding us of how it had S-pen functionality. But the simple fact that the pen wasn't built-in meant that only like 10% of people were actually going to go out to but it. That they'd need a separate case to store it and that they'd have remember to charge it individually to use it. But to have the thing built inside of the S22 Ultra would be be a strong positive.
CAMERAS
If you've ever been following Samsung closely, you'll have seen that two months ago, they unveiled something absolutely crazy; Something seemingly so far ahead that it would have been instantly enough to replenish anyone's dwindling faith in the company — a 200Megapixel image sensor made to feature in their upcoming coming phones. But before we get carried away by hype, I don't think their next flagship phone will actually use this sensor.
According to the leak ice universe, he is saying with 100% certainty that this S22 Ultra will instead use a 108Megapixel main camera, a 12Megapixel Ultra wide camera, and then two zoom cameras - a 3X zoom and a 10X camera both at 10Megapixel. Or in other words, basically, the same camera system as the S21 Ultra this year. I mean technically, the zoom cameras will have new image sensors, but this is not going to be sort of zoom-into-a-different-planet type of experience. And I've got to be clear here, I'm not happy about the fact that this spec sheet —(108MP main, 12MP wide, 12MP zoom) looks basically the same as that of Z fold3 — (108MP main, 12MP wide, 12MP zoom).
The fact that they've announced this 200Megapixel sensor months ago, and yet they won't have it in next year's flagship is nothing short of a buzz-kill. And while we're at it, it is also making me a little concerned; this idea of not using their most advanced technology so that they can have a nice pretty design, it is an indicator that Samsung might be considering form over function. And like, the fact they had a fully fledged Samsung launch event last month, where the main product announcement was that you can now, like, customize the color of your Z flip3, it does make me feel a little uneasy as someone who's priority is the technology itself. But equally, using the same cameras as last year might actually make a lot of sense here. From a business perspective, because you've got to remember that their flagship from two years ago, the Galaxy S20 Ultra that was packed to the seams with new tech, 108MP camera, 100X zoom, enormous battery, It didn't meet sales expectations.
The Galaxy Z flip3 though, which is fashion focused but quite lacking on the specs front sold more than expected. But it might not just speak good for Samsung, it might also be better for the consumer. The main reason that I'm not mad and instead, curiously optimistic about these cameras is it's something that's been in my mind recently — yes, I am a nerd. You might have noticed that over the last few years, we've had so many phones coming out claiming huge improvements in camera hardware; It's sensors that are 50% larger lenses that will let in 200% more light. But in almost every single one of these situations the end results are rather anticlimactic. It's incredibly confusing for consumers, because of course, letting in 200% more light is going to mean significantly better photos. Right?
So, why is that not happening? Well, I think it's a clear indicator that smartphones are increasing on relying processing rather than optics to take their photos.
I watched and interesting video recently where someone took the same photos on the original iPhone from 2007, and the iPhone12 Pro. And obviously, there was a ridiculously huge gap between the outputs, not even in the same tier, not even in the same universe. However, he then used a series of really powerful pieces of software to enhance the original iPhone's photos to the point where actually they weren't nearly as far off you'd expect them be.
And this is just it; the minute they were able to replicate the effects of beefy camera hardware with machine learning and software, well, why wouldn't you? It'll mean that every phone you make will be cheaper. It gives you much more options like being able to refocus shots after you've taken them; and it means you have more power to improve the camera performance later via software updates. However, I guess, you could say this is the downside, because of this it's becoming really hard to know how good a phone cameras going to be until you've used it. It's no longer about the specs of the camera, it's not even about how powerful the chip is, it's the unmeasurable software optimization that spells out how they work together — that's becoming the key. And so we end up with situations like this — The iPhone12 for example has a really good camera even with a tiny sensor and just 12MP of resolution. And yet, this Honor50 has an extremely poor camera even with a sizeable sensor and a 108MP resolution. Having better camera hardware will increase the sealing of what you're able to technically achieve but because no company is squeezing the most out of the hardware they already have, we've regularly seen bigger improvements to image quality in a year where their hardware hasn't changed. And the company has just spent that time optimizing what they do have. And so, what I'm trying to say about this S22 Ultra is that while the camera hardware looks pretty inconsequential, and on the face of it, disappointing.
I'm excited to see if it means that we'll actually have a highly polished and optimized experience because of it. And if we do get that, then I think that's a very good chance of the S22 Ultra will be the best phone camera we'll have seen up until that point. The S221 Ultra is already close and this is exactly what it needs.
SCREEN
To be honest there's not a huge amount of detail about it yet. But a few key things going for it.
• It doesn't look like Samsung will opt for an underdisplay camera. One day, this tech will be great. But that days not today. And I was little concerned when I saw that they used one of these on their $1,500 Z-fold3. And that there was a very severe hit to the image quality from it. But thankfully it looks like they're prioritizing pure performance here.
• We also been a leak of the apparent screen protecting that's going to go on this phone. And it's a solid indicator that in fact the screen's borders are going to be even slimmer than the last generation. We are talking fractions of a millimeter here — so, not a major shift. But given that a lot of phones do look the same from the front as they did like two years ago, it's good to see some improvement;
• And three is just the simple fact that Samsung makes really good screens; rich colors, super high peak brightness, no weird looking corners jutting out. The S21 Ultra was labeled by many as the best OLED screen to date. And there's a good chance the S22 Ultra will follow in it's footsteps. There's already leaks to suggest that it will be a record holder.
CHIPSET
This is something a little more tangible. It's no secret that for a while now Samsung's been having a bit of a crisis with its own in-house Exynos chipsets. For the last 5 years, these chips have been anywhere from slightly behind their Snapdragon equivalents to so far behind that they felt a generation apart. However, the crown jewel, the supposed savior of Exynos will finally be coming to fruition in this next phone. And there's a lot of talk that this will turn Samsung's "single biggest weakness" into it's "single biggest strength".
I'm of course talking about their collaboration with AMD. Samsung has confirmed that their next Exynos chip is going to have its graphics calls designed by AMD, using the same architecture that they used to build the PlayStation 5. And this is likely to mean there things —
I. Performance Jump. I'm expecting anywhere from a 30 to 50% leap in graphics.
2. Better thermal management. which is important because past Exynos chips have managed to lose as much as 50% of their performance with continued use as they've gotten hot, and so had to daily down how fast they were running to control that heat.
3. New Technologies. With, I think the headline one probably being ray tracing.
For those of you who didn't follow the PS5 launch, ray tracing is essentially a hyper realistic way if rendering light in games. It's seen very much as a generational leap over what came before it. And if you've played a game that uses this tech, you'll have realized how game changing it is.
I love this idea of the smartphone being a proper gaming console. And it makes total sense given that for most people it is the gadget that we make sure we have everywhere. It is the most portable most connected device we own.
However, the one thing that does somewhat hamper this excitement, is on the App developer side of things. Developers don't treat mobile the same way that they treat consoles. When you design a game, to say the PlayStation 5, you have the reassurance that every single person is using exactly the same hardware. And so, you can utilize that hardware and all of its technologies to make the most beautiful immersive game possible. But, when you design a game for mobile, you have to account for the fact that, yes, while some people are using say, a next-gen Galaxy S22 Ultra, equally, some are using a $50 Alcatel or maybe even a $2 Passion fruit, and this means that if you want your game to be successful, you have to build it around the lowest common denominator. And so, going off past history with stuff like this, ray tracing in mobile games won't become a thing until the majority can support it. So, I don't see this as turning the gaming market upside down more as the beginning of a new era, but that's still exciting to see. I'll catch you on the next one. Cheers!
