Galaxy S22 Ultra Impressions: It's a Note!

ultra freshly announced today and i got

flagship and you know what's funny we

haven't had a new samsung galaxy note in

two years since the note 20 in 2020 and

so since then we've had all these

questions like oh is samsung killing the

this is a galaxy note now obviously not

by name we're still calling this an s22

ultra but clearly you know samsung was

looking for a little bit more of a way

to differentiate the ultra from the rest

of the galaxy s lineup and a reason to

justify this 1200 starting price so

honestly i wouldn't really be surprised

if samsung did behind the scenes

actually make an s22 ultra and a note 22

ultra and then look at them side by side

and then just booted the s22 ultra and

kept the note 22 ultra and slotted it in

at the top of the lineup but change the

name so yes the phone i'm about to show

you is called the galaxy s22 ultra but

yeah the note is back so i picked this

phone up and held it for the first time

and immediately all the memories of

previous galaxy notes come back now like

i said this slots in right above the

galaxy s22 and s22 plus i also have a

video about those two new phones

dropping at the same time as this one so

if you're interested in those definitely

check that out link below the like

button but yeah this is the top of that

lineup so the new design that was

rumored is real the materials feel

familiar you've got metal and gorilla

glass victus plus you know the flat top

and bottom the whole thing is ip68

certified and then the shape well this

is the exact specific shape of the

galaxy notes of the past just with a

satin back now and the new camera layout

the satin back i love seems like the

word ultra is associated with like a

satin or matte non-glossy back and i'm

all about that and of course low key

while i of course love the matte black i

think the white one here will show the

fewest fingerprints if you can keep it

clean but the cameras are the weird

looking part for sure there is no big

camera bump no shelf on the corner like

the s21 ultra just individual camera

rings that each protrude out the same

amount from that flat back and the

camera rings are shiny and actually

match the rails of the phone for each

but look i don't think it looks that

great it looked pretty basic to me in

the renders and it still does but

honestly most other phones camera bumps

look pretty lame too maybe this one

looks a little dumber with a case on it

because you have to draw around the

camera cutouts and then it looks like

the letter p shape kinda meh i don't

know it's a good thing you don't have to

look at the back of your phone all the

time you can get a case you like or

the s21 series all looked so much better

and the s22 and s22 plus both still have

this better looking corner camera bump

anyway the display up front on the ultra

appears to be everything you'd expect i

think we kind of take it for granted a

little bit at this point because they

are consistently some of the absolute

best displays on any phone seems like

that's again what we're looking at here

6.8 inches corner to corner 1440p

resolution 120 hertz max refresh rate

and this is an ltpo2 display now so the

refresh rate can modulate all the way

down to one hertz when not much is

happening for an even better mix of

efficiency and responsiveness also i was

able to turn on adaptive refresh rate

mode and 1440p resolution at the same

time so that's good you know we know

it'll kill your battery but hey you pay

for a lot of those pixels so you might

as well be able to use them all but yeah

this appears to be the world-class

display we expect again the selfie

camera cutout is still top center not

taking too many risks by putting it

ultrasonic fingerprint reader is still

in the same spot same size and you've

got that little curve on each side of

the screen the smaller s22s are

completely flat and i prefer that this

one curves over the edges a little bit

into the side rails just like the other

notes you can see the little ultra wide

band cut out on the rail under the power

and volume buttons and then of course

the biggest new feature of the s22 ultra

is a feature that came from the old

notes which is the built-in stylus the s

like i said it's a note so the beloved

built-in stylus returns to the bottom

corner of the phone pops in and out

reversibly it has all the software the

screen off notes the super low latency

everything that people loved about the s

pen before it's all still here and it's

also funny this year the s pens are all

black no matter what color phone you get

but just the cap of the pen will match

the color of the rails which also

matches the color of the camera rings it

really feels like this phone just picks

up right where the old notes left off

because other than the name basically

also you might have noticed i haven't

even gotten to the specs yet but they're

exactly what you'd expect as a spec bump

from those older notes snapdragon 8 gen

1 chip and it's gonna have the exynos

versions in certain regions again but

it's a new four nanometer chip and then

every spec other than the baseline

version has 12 gigs of ram so it'll

start at eight but then every single

other one up to one terabyte of storage

will have 12 gigs of ram so you can spec

it up to that high sounds expensive but

you can go that high if you want to the

battery stays at the 5 000 milliamp

hours which is impressive given there is

now a cutout inside for the s pen and

there's 45 watt fast charging in the

ultra and the s22 plus but not in the

regular no charger in the box but it'll

support that fast charging if you give

it enough juice that's like 50 charge

added in 20 minutes of being plugged in

and these cameras are interesting

they're not bumped up so much in the

hardware department but there sure are a

lot of new software features so you're

still looking at quad cameras the 108

megapixel main camera the ultra wide a

3x telephoto and a 10x telephoto but

then in the software there's a bunch of

stuff there's a new nona binning mode

photography it'll combine the brightness

of binned photos with the detail of the

108 megapixel mode there's an improved

pro mode with new raw formats they're

doing ai stereo depth mapping for better

portrait mode photos and also just

playing around with the extremely

limited time i had with hands-on it

feels like the 100x space zoom has even

more improved stabilization that tries

to kind of lock onto subjects presumably

something contrast-based from what i can

tell there's a lot of stuff i got to

test on here especially in the camera

department to see if it's actually

better or more improved than last year

but that should all be in the full

review so for sure make sure you get

subscribed to be among the first to see

that full review when it does come out

but yeah i think we're pretty much all

on the same page i am very pumped to

ultra and all of its new features let me

know in the comment section below what

you want to know about i mean there's a

bunch of interesting stuff the battery

of course is still huge maybe it's one

ui 4.1 maybe it's the new camera

features maybe it's the style of stuff

let me know i'll be hanging out down

there to figure it out and the full

review will be coming up soon until then

make sure you check out the s22 and s22

plus video if you're interested in those

thanks for watching catch you guys in