Hey, what's up? MKBHD here. And this is the brand-new Galaxy S22 Ultra. I've been using it for about two weeks now, and I promise you. Not going to call this the Note 22 Ultra over and over again in this review. I swear I can make it through this video without making that joke. The bottom line here to understand this phone the best is like, if you took the name off of this phone, what Samsung is giving you for the money is a Galaxy Note. The phone that I'm reviewing and using is called the S22 Ultra. Let's get into it. Note used to be that one special edition phone with this squared-off design, the flat top and bottom, and the pen built-in. Now, that's just all wrapped up into Ultra. And the S22 Ultra does not miss a beat with all the Ultra stuff. The packing in the highest-end chip they can, that's the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 here in the US with a massive new cooling solution alongside it. The RAM is technically down from last year. The base model has 8 gigs and all the rest have 12, and there's honestly don't miss that. I can't imagine someone really needs 16 gigs of RAM in their phone right now. They get very loud and sound crisp and clear like last year, some of the best in any smartphone, so that's great for watching media. But then the display curving more over the edges than last year makes it worse for watching videos. And then the vibration motor, this is a small thing, but I mentioned it also in the S22 review, they changed the type. It went from a z-axis vibration motor to an x-axis vibration motor. Doesn't sound like much, but it changes the way it feels. So it feels just as strong and precise and clean for typing or swiping or holding it in your hand, but it's way less strong when it's on a desk or in your pocket. So I literally miss phone calls with my phone sitting right in front of me, vibrating on my desk because I didn't hear it or feel it. So they're a bit of a controversial design, sure. But like most designs, you kind of get used to looking at it, but you never, ever fully get it clean of dust. So if you go caseless like me, not only does the phone sit kind of funny on a table, but there will also always be dust between the camera rings. So just get ready for that. I would actually recommend if you get a case, channel sponsor brand just dropped their Atomic Edition Grip Case, and it doesn't do a huge all the way around the cameras like I thought we might see in my impressions video. Actually just matches the camera rings, and it low it's way cleaner, and it's just deep enough to protect the cameras if you drop it. So this is definitely the way to go. You can check it out at the link below. Then this phone, just like the other S22s, shoots 8K video at 24 FPS, you know, the wrong frame rate. Give us the option for 30, Samsung. Just put it in the setting somewhere. But even worse than not having a 30 FPS toggle, it actually crops in way more than the regular S22s. So it turns out shooting 8K is 33 megapixels, and it's actually cropping into the middle 33 megapixels of this huge 108-megapixel sensor. Samsung's not messing around with their cameras. These are definitely flagship quality. I'm really happy with them. Matter of fact, I don't even have much to say about the image quality because there isn't much there are some new features within the camera modes that might sort of unlock some new things and be different about this phone. So I'm gonna go over those with you one by one. So, first, the more accurate portrait mode.
Now I think I tweeted a couple of months ago, sort of ruffled some feathers I said something like, "Samsung has the best portrait mode on smartphones right now," and understandably ruffled But I should clarify, basically, what I mean is their cutouts have been the most consistent and the most accurate of portrait modes among smartphones that I've seen. The blur is the most natural or the fall-off is the most realistic, I just mean they make the least errors with ears hair and shirts, and stuff so this year, they're planning on, well, they've announced that they're doing it even better. They've got AI Stereo Depth Mapping for portrait mode that they claim can cut out things as small as a single human hair, which would be cool. If you want a more in-depth look at the One UI 4.1 software and the fact that this phone, at least this lineup with the S22 for Samsung, seems to be basically the default Android experience than Google's pixel ever could be, definitely watch my S22 review. I'll leave a link below if you wanna watch that real quick. But that's been basically it, thanks for watching. Catch you guys later. Peace!
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