Samsung’s new Galaxy S22 Ultra features a number of tweaks to its predecessor, most notably the addition of the S-Pen stylus from the now-discontinued Galaxy Note line. While the Ultra versions of the flagship Galaxy S series have been focused on bringing cutting-edge camera tech to the table, the S22 Ultra doesn’t seem to have any major camera upgrades.
Key camera specs for the S22 Ultra include a 108-megapixel primary sensor, along with 10x optical zoom and support for 8K video. They’re also the same as we had on the S20 Ultra from the previous year. Rumors of the S22 Ultra hint at a 200-megapixel sensor for better magnification quality, as well as an innovative continuous zoom lens instead of switching between fixed zoom lenses. So where are they?
The S22 Ultra and S21 Ultra have the same image sensor size and the same lens aperture—both of which can take sharper, brighter photos, along with improved dynamic range and better low-light images. Instead, the promised Night Mode improvements appear to be coming entirely on the software side through “upgraded AI algorithms” and pixel binning, which combines nine pixels into one larger pixel to better capture light. Sure, this might make night shots look a little sharper, but it’s not a feature that’s going to make the hearts of Instagrammers and other mobile enthusiasts.
Other new camera upgrades are said to include better portrait mode AI and the ability to automatically zoom in and out on video to keep all your friends in the scene. Again, this is not a revolution in mobile photography.
Then there’s the computationally primitive multi-cloud problem. Apple introduced the ProRaw feature on the iPhone 12 Pro, which enables the phone to combine multiple exposures into a single DNG raw file. This gives you the better dynamic range you get from the merged image, but with the editing flexibility of DNG raw files.
Confusingly, this raw shot is only available when using the dedicated Expert Raw app, which you have to download separately from the Samsung Galaxy Store. On the iPhone, you can simply tap the button that says “raw” in the main camera to open ProRaw, making it easy to improve image quality when taking quick shots.
All of this means that, on paper at least, the S22 Ultra’s camera setup seems disappointingly similar to the phone’s last two generations. The biggest upgrades come on the cheaper end, with the base S22 and S22 Plus getting more camera boosts than their predecessors. But the Ultra is a flagship, so it needs to push the boundaries further and give people reason to be excited compared to the competition.
With both Apple and Google struggling to push the incredible images on the iPhone 13 Pro and Pixel 6 Pro, Samsung needs to step up its offerings this time around. Instead, its tired camera specs make it hard to get excited about this phone, or see it as an upgrade over previous generations.
>>>>>>>>>>>Samsung battery