Samsung Galaxy S22 First Impressions: The S Pen Slot Is Back!

If you miss having a slot in your Samsung Galaxy phone for the S Pen, you’ll definitely be overjoyed at the Samsung Galaxy S22 series announcement!

So we had the chance to take a look at the new Samsung Galaxy S22 phones before launch, and suffice it to say, we’re extremely excited about these.

First off, the Note and Galaxy S product lines are finally truly merging, with an S Pen slot on the Galaxy S22 Ultra! While the S22 and S22+ phones won’t have a slot to store the S Pen in, most Note users will be extremely happy with this new development, so we’re sure the Galaxy S22 Ultra sales will be pretty high this year.

Let’s talk design though. The phones are using the same Armor Aluminium chassis and Gorilla Glass Victus that were present in the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3, which means they’re durable in addition to looking really good. The S22 series come in different colours depending on which model you’re opting for, and personally, we really like the new green colourway. The backs are all matte now, which is perfect to avoid fingerprints.

Let’s do a quick recap of the specs. Here in Singapore, the S22 series will be coming with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, and the S22 lineup will come with 8GB of RAM as the baseline, with the Ultra model being able to be specced up to 12GB. As for storage, the S22 and S22+ will have both 128GB and 256GB options, although the Ultra can go up to 1TB of storage.

As for screen size, the Ultra will be the biggest at 6.8-inches, while the S22+ comes in at 6.6-inches and the base S22 will be 6.1-inches. All three models come with 120Hz refresh rate dynamic AMOLED displays, with the peak brightness on the Ultra model clocking in at 1750 nits, which means the screen will be bright and clearly visible even under bright lighting conditions.

Looking at the bottom of the phone, the S22 and S22+ are pretty standard… But the Ultra is where the fun lies. Does it look familiar? Yup, that’s right, the Galaxy S22 Ultra model now has a slot for the S Pen, so you won’t have to buy a special phone case just to keep the S Pen with your phone! It’s pretty much the new Note at this point since the S Pen comes bundled with the Ultra.

Moving on to the back of the phone, though, is where the design gets different. The S22 and S22+ mostly retain the same look as the S21 lineup, but the Ultra model is a little different. Instead of having a rectangular block around the cameras, each individual camera is its own raised bump. It’s definitely an interesting change in design, and it does a good job of making the Ultra stand out from the S22 and S22+.

As for the cameras, the Ultra comes with four lenses. A 108MP wide camera, a 12MP ultra-wide camera, and two 10MP telephoto cameras, one with 3x optical zoom and the other with 10x optical zoom. The S22 and S22+ come with the same three cameras, a 50MP wide, a 12MP ultra-wide and a 10MP telephoto. The front camera on the S22 and S22+ is only a 10MP one though, compared to the 40MP front camera on the S22 Ultra.

Something that Snapdragon fans will be happy about is that Samsung is finally deciding to use the new Snapdragon flagship chip for the S22 series. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip will be used here in Singapore instead of the Exynos chips we previously got, so that’s definitely exciting.

When it comes to battery life, the Ultra has a very respectable 5,000mAh battery inside, which should definitely be enough to last at least a full day. The phone also supports 45W wired fast charge and 15W wireless charging.

As for the S22, it comes with a 3,700mAh battery while the S22+ comes with 4,500mAh. Both phones support 15W wireless charging, although the S22 is limited to just 25W wired charging while the S22+ has 45W wired charging.

Coming to connectivity, both phones support 5G, and the S22+ and S22 Ultra both support Wi-Fi 6E while the base S22 just supports Wi-Fi 6. Regardless of which model you get, internet speeds should be fast whether you’re using 5G mobile data or a Wi-Fi network.

We did have a bit of hands-on time with the new phones, and we took a few photos with the Ultra, and although we’re not able to show them to you in this video, the photos actually came out very nicely with very little grain even though we were in a pretty dim environment.

The phones all felt really good in the hand, although the Ultra definitely felt the most premium of the three. We can’t wait to get our hands on a unit for a more thorough test, so stay tuned for our full review!

The Samsung Galaxy S22 retails from S$1,178 in Singapore and RM3.499 in Malaysia, while the S22+ starts at S$1,468 / RM4,099 and the S22 Ultra starts at S$1,718 / RM5,099.