Samsung has refreshed its smartphone lineup with three new Android smartphones: the Galaxy S22, S22+, and S22 Ultra. They’re now formally on sale, however must you improve? If so, which of the three must you purchase? We break down what’s new with these fashions over their predecessors, what’s totally different between them, and which is best for you. We’ve additionally highlighted a couple of nice Galaxy S22 offers and affords from carriers and retailers.
Be certain to take a look at our Best Samsung Galaxy S22 Cases and Accessories guide to complement your new cellphone and our Best Android Phones guide if you’d like to see what else is on the market.
Updated February 2022: We’ve added particulars from our overview and changed preorder language because the telephones at the moment are obtainable.
Table of Contents
Special supply for Gear readers: Get a 1-Year Subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This contains limitless entry to WIRED.com and our print journal (if you would like). Subscriptions assist fund the work we do every single day.
The New Tech in All 3 Phones
All three Galaxy S22 telephones (9/10, WIRED Recommends) share many options and specs. They’re all powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, which is the top-end Android chip of the yr, they usually’re a few of the best-performing Android telephones round. They’re manufactured from aluminum and the strongest Gorilla Glass (Victus+) and have IP68 water-resistance to allow them to be submerged in water, an ultrasonic in-display fingerprint sensor, and sub-6 and millimeter-wave 5G support. All have 120-Hz AMOLED screens, they usually share the identical 12-megapixel ultrawide digital camera, 10-megapixel 3X optical zoom telephoto, and 40-megapixel selfie cam.
All the foremost enhancements over the S21 sequence might be discovered on every of those gadgets. That contains smoother Super Steady video stabilization and Portrait mode that does a greater job at ensuring your hair (or your pet’s fur) does not get blurred out. Portrait mode additionally works with Night mode. A brand new video characteristic referred to as Auto Framing will mechanically detect up to 10 folks and can regulate the digital camera to embody everybody within the body, even zooming in if wanted.
The S22 and S22+ make use of a 50-megapixel most important digital camera, whereas the S22 Ultra makes use of a 108-megapixel sensor. The large new characteristic—Adaptive Pixel—is on the market on all three regardless of the totally different most important sensors (you possibly can learn about it in detail here). But as I found in my review, it isn’t straightforward to entry and the outcomes aren’t dramatically higher.
All of those telephones will obtain 4 Android OS upgrades and 5 years of safety updates, which is the very best software program coverage round on any Android gadget proper now. Here’s the place issues begin to differ:
Galaxy S22
Photograph: SamsungThis is the smallest of the lot, however many of the options are the identical as on its siblings. The variations are small and won’t even matter to you. For instance, it helps Wi-Fi 6 and never Wi-Fi 6E, however until you are about to purchase a brand-new Wi-Fi 6E router, you are not lacking a lot. This mannequin doesn’t have ultra-wideband (UWB) support, which is usually utilized with sure tracking devices to find them extra exactly.
