Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra release date, and features

Pre-orders may also open today, followed by the Galaxy S22 rumored release date on the February 25. However, a report from South Korea, citing sources within Samsung, says that the phone ships on February 24. Whoever’s right, it’s clear the Galaxy S22 Ultra is going to be in users’ hands by the end of next month.

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra price

We were hoping that the Galaxy S22 Ultra price would be in line with the $1,199 Galaxy S21 Ultra. However, the one recent rumor points to a possible price hike of $100 for all three Galaxy S22 models.

And another leak revealed claimed prices in Euros, with the Galaxy S22 Ultra starting at €1,249 for the 8GB/128GB version, €1,349 for12GB/256GB, and €1,449 for the top-end 12GB/512GB.

That’s a lot, even for a flagship phone. And with competition tight, thanks to the likes of the Google Pixel 6 Pro coming in at $899, Samsung would really need to prove why its flagship is worth so much more. To be fair, the Galaxy S22 Plus might be more of a direct competitor to the Pixel 6 Pro, though we have a Galaxy S22 Ultra vs. Pixel 6 Pro comparison to help you see how the phones could measure up.

But there could be a nasty sting to all of this, as the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is predicted to face major stock issues, with demand outstripping supply. As it stands, there’s still a global chip shortage going on and that’s set to affect even Samsung; Apple also fell foul of this with the iPhone 13 Pro.

One nice perk, however, may be that pre-orders of the Samsung Galaxy S22 could come with free Galaxy Buds Pro. Those earbuds offer impressive active noise cancellation and have even got a spot on our best noise-cancelling earbuds list, meaning they aren’t a freebie to be sniffed at.

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra design

The Galaxy S22 Ultra looks likely to stand out from the rest of the Galaxy S22 series, with rumors suggesting it will drop the rounded shape of its predecessors in favor of a blockier and flatter Note-like design. Initially, that was based on leaked images of alleged dummy units and renders supposedly based on leaks. But now in teasing a February phone launch, Samsung’s TM Roh has all but confirmed that the Galaxy S22 Ultra is going to repurpose a lot of Galaxy Note features.

“You loved the unparalleled creativity and efficiency of the Galaxy Note series, which enabled you to switch from gaming nirvana to high-octane productivity in the blink of an eye,” Roh wrote in a blog post. “You raved about the lifelike S Pen, which many say rivals putting ink to paper. And we haven’t forgotten about these experiences you love.”

Like the Note, the side edges of the display are set to be curved but only gently, which should make the phone comfortable but not too slippery to hold. And in keeping with the Note DNA, the Galaxy S22 Ultra is set to have an S Pen holder, which will be a notable upgrade over the S21 Ultra; that phone had to use an optional case to hold its S Pen.

Another major change that seems very likely is that Samsung won’t use a protruding module for its rear camera array. Rather, the cameras will be integrated into its chassis in a P-shape. These appear to stick out a little from the back of the phone but don’t seem as prominent as a dedicated module.

The leaker Evan Blass has posted renders of the Galaxy S22 colors, including the Galaxy S22 Ultra. These include black, white, green and red.

Backing up these design rumors was another leak by Blass, this time of what appears to be Samsung Galaxy S22 marketing material for Italy. They hammer home the design changes as well as shed light on the specs. Do note due to copyright issues, we can’t post the leaked images here so you’ll need to follow Blass on Twitter or subscribe to his email substack to get a glimpse at them.

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra display

The Galaxy S22 is expected to have a 6.81-inch AMOLED display, which is the same size as the Galaxy S21 Ultra. However, the panel could be a bit wider in order to better accommodate S Pen input.

A punch hole cut-out for the front-facing camera has been shown off in renders and leaked images, likely down to Samsung having yet to perfect the under-display camera for use in its non-folding Galaxy phones.

A 120Hz LTPO panel is also expected, following on from the one found in the S21 Ultra. It’s also expected to be adaptive, scaling all the way down to 1Hz when a high-refresh rate isn’t needed. There’s no word on whether it’ll use a LTPO 2.0 display like the one on the OnePlus 10 Pro, which offers a smoother overall experience.

One stand-out feature could be peak brightness, with the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s display tipped to hit a maximum of 1,750 nits. If true, this would beat every other phone on the market, including the iPhone 13 Pro Max.

A leak of what appear to be Galaxy S22 Ultra marketing images, show how the larger S22 phone can be used as a form of palette for the Tab S8 Ultra in the Canva illustration app, allowing users of both devices to select the color they want on the phone while using the tablet as a digital canvas.

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra cameras

Based on rumored specs alone, the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s cameras look like having the same megapixel counts as those on the Galaxy S21 Ultra. If that’s the case, it’ll have a 108MP main camera plus two 10MP telephoto cameras with 3x and 10 optical zoom, and an ultra-wide camera that’s likely to come in at 12MP.

But megapixels aside, these cameras are tipped to have improved sensors and capabilities, including an AI enhancement mode for the 108MP camera which could lead to more detail and brightness from its shots.

The rumored SuperClear Lens has been given more detail in a leak from Evan Blass, which indicate the lens will be fitted to the main 108MP camera and is described in the marketing material translated from Italian as offering “brighter shots without reflections or glare.” Camera lenses can’t help but distort the light that passes through them on the way to the sensor that actually captures the image in front of you, so this new lens that Samsung is using is claiming to reduce or even eliminate this common problem.

Along with that Super Clear lens, Samsung has already begun teasing a “night-breaking” camera that should take exceptional photos in low-light situations.

The selfie camera is expected to come in at 40MP. Again, no step up in specs here, but we can be fairly confident that Samsung will have made some effort to improve the computational photography capabilities across the S22 Ultra’s entire camera suite.

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra S Pen

As noted above, the Galaxy S22 Ultra is expected to ship with an included S Pen, just like the Galaxy Note of old. This is a departure from Samsung’s approach with the Galaxy S21 Ultra and Galaxy Z Fold where the S Pen was treated as an optional accessory. Presumably, including the S Pen with the S22 Ultra will lead to tighter integration between stylus and phone, though leaks about new S Pen capabilities have been minimal, thus far.

One rumored new feature ties in with the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra, which is expected to ship at the same time as the Galaxy S22 lineup. According to leaker Evan Blass, the Galaxy S22 Ultra and its S Pen will be able to double as a color picker for the tablet using the Canva app.

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra specs

This is where things get complicated; it’s looking likely that the Galaxy S22 Ultra will have two different chipsets.

In the U.S. and China, the Galaxy S22 Ultra has been tipped to use Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. That chip has a new Kryo CPU that offers 20% faster performance than the Snapdragon 888 and which sucks up 30% less power. On the GPU side, Qualcomm says the Adreno processor will offer a 30% speed boost while being 25% more efficient than its predecessor. A solid upgrade all around, then, but not exactly needle shifting.

But in the U.K. and other regions the Galaxy S22 Ultra is expected to have the newly revealed Exynos 2200. Usually considered weaker than their Snapdragon counterparts in third-party testing, early Geekbench 5 results show the Exynos 2200 beat the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 in multi-core results.

And the Exynos 2200 chip could buck the performance trend even further thanks to its new Xclipse 920 GPU. This graphics processor uses AMD’s RDNA 2 GPU architecture, which is the same tech that underpins the GPUs in the PS5 and Xbox Series X.

Now, we doubt you’ll be running the best Xbox Series X games or the best PS5 games on the Galaxy S22 Ultra with ray tracing enabled. But we can expect a notable boost in gaming performance, perhaps being able to run true console-quality games on the phone with a few tweaks in settings.

Reputable tech leaker Ice Universe posted alleged Wild Life results on Twitter showing the performance of one Exynos 2200 configuration. The graphics benchmark results yielded a score of 8,134 with an average of 50.3 frames per second; very impressive for an Android phone.

Other benchmarks have been less encouraging. Leaked Geekbench 5 results posted to Twitter suggest that the Galaxy S22 Ultra will not be much of an improvement over the S21 Ultra — in fact, the numbers of an Exynos 2200-powered model were worse than the ones for a Galaxy S21 Ultra running on an Exynos 2100. Since benchmarks of unreleased phones don’t always reflect actual performance, we wouldn’t suggest pressing the panic button just yet.

Another round of benchmarks recorded less than a week before the phone’s expected launch show that it’s a close race between the Snapdragon and Exynos versions. However the test used in this benchmark doesn’t take graphical performance into account, which is where the RDNA-enhanced Exynos chip could excel.

A leaker has published which regions will get phones with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and which will get the Exynoss 2200-powered S22 Ultra. As expected, the Americas are in line to get Qualcomm’s chip while Europe is slated for the Exynos silicon. It’s a mix of chipsets in other regions, according to this source.

As for RAM, a leak from WinFuture claims that the Galaxy S22 Ultra will have 8GB or 12GB options. A separate Reddit thread backs up this 8GB of RAM claim, which would be a downgrade from the S21 Ultra’s 12GB of RAM to start.

The storage options for the Galaxy S22 Ultra are tipped to include 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB. However, leaker Roland Quandt warns that the 1TB Galaxy S22 Ultra model may be limited to select markets.

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra battery and charging

Samsung’s Galaxy S22 Ultra is expected to keep the 5,000 mAh size of its predecessor. But one report has the phone set to get a smaller battery measuring in at 4,855 mAh. If this is the case, then we’d suspect Samsung will have worked hard on battery and performance efficiency in order to not see overall battery life compromised.

The Galaxy S21 Ultra endured 11 hours and 25 minutes of web surfing over 5G in our tests in 60Hz mode, and 10:07 in adaptive mode. We’d expect the S22 Ultra to match that or beat it.

The most recent report we’ve seen says that the Galaxy S22 Ultra will offer faster 45W charging. This would be a boost from the 25W charging on the S21 Ultra. We don’t know how quickly you’ll get to 50% or 100% as a result, but we look forward to testing it.

Meanwhile, 25W wireless charging has been tipped for the Galaxy S22 range, which would be a decent boost over the 15 watts supported by the Galaxy S21 phones.

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra outlook

Without a doubt, the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is the phone we at Tom’s Guide are most excited about right now. Not only do the rumors point towards an impressive specs sheet, but the addition of a new Exynos chip with literal game-changing graphics is tantalizing. For the two lower-tier models, here are the top 5 rumored Samsung S22 and S22 Plus upgrades we want to see.

And that’s before we consider that the phone will almost certainly be a successor to the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra in all but name. It could be the handset to show that Samsung is still the king of big flagship phones, despite having placed a lot of its focus on foldables recently.

As such, we’d be relatively confident that the Galaxy S22 Ultra will be one of the most exciting phones of 2022 and a likely contender for a spot on our best phones list.