Samsung Galaxy S22 hands-on: The Note is dead
Samsung has finally revealed their new Samsung Galaxy S22 family for 2022, consisting of the vanilla S22, S22+ and S22 Ultra.
During a media presentation and preview on the 7th of February, Samsung allowed us to have some hands-on time with these devices, and I must say, the inclusion of the S Pen with the S22 Ultra got me really excited for a Samsung phone in a while. This may also mean that the Note product line may be officially dead.
Don't get me wrong, when I tried and tested some of the other features on the phones like the camera, it definitely did amaze me with its stunning low light imagery. The S22 and the S22+ has almost the same specs, with the latter only having a larger body and screen size, a bigger battery capacity, and faster wired charging. Coupled with the fact that the S22 line-up in South East Asia will all be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC (System on a Chip) instead of an Exynos chip, all phones are going to perform spectacularly no matter which version you choose to buy.
But like I mentioned earlier, the S Pen stood out the most for me in the Ultra version of the S22.
You might be wondering, what is so nice about having an S Pen? Didn't the Note series have them?
And you are right, they did. But the responsiveness of the S Pen on the S22 Ultra is what sets it apart from its Note predecessors.
When I used the implementation of the S Pen in the previous versions of the Note, the Note 20 Ultra included, there was always this little feeling in my jellies that it could have been better. The pen-to-screen latency was noticeable, the input lag was a little jarring, and precise drawing was always a struggle with the previous reiterations. I might be nitpicking, and it would have been fine for most users, but it always felt a little 'off' to me.
I am happy to report that the S22 Ultra's S Pen has eliminated all of this, based on the limited amount of time I had with the hands-on.
It is extremely responsive, precise and easy to use. I spent most of my time during the media preview trying various ways of using the S Pen, and I am pretty sure I have multiple art pieces saved somewhere in one of those media preview units. The responsiveness of the S Pen is something that I have longed for in a stylus, and it might be attributed to the 240hz touch sampling rate on the device. The spec sheet mentions that the 240hz touch sampling rate only applies in Game Mode, which I assume would only activate while playing a game on the device. It could have been activated outside of Game Mode as well for the test units we were testing with, a point which I cannot confirm.
But nevertheless, if the high touch sampling rate wasn't activated on the test units, it makes it even more impressive that the S Pen has this little latency compared to its previous Note iterations. It really feels good to use.
Another device that we had some time with is the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra, a 15" behemoth of a tablet. It also uses the S Pen as part of its device ecosystem, and just like the S22 Ultra, the Pen feels extremely good to use on it as well.
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The Galaxy S22 and S22+ will start at S$1178 and S$1468 respectively for the 128GB models, while the S22 Ultra will start at S$1718 for the 128GB model.
The Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra will retail at S$2188.
Get the Galaxy S22 series 5G now on Shopee.
Dominic loves tech and games. When he is not busy getting headshot in VALORANT or water-cooling anything he sees, he does some pro wrestling.
