Samsung's new flagships are here, and the one we'll talk about today is the galaxy s22 plus what's new, and is it worth upgrading to over last year's model? I'm willing for the gsm arena, and let's find out in our full review.


The galaxy s22 plus is the flagship phone that sits in the middle of this year's s series lineup. It has a bigger and brighter screen than the vanilla model, as well as a larger battery and support for faster charging.


Samsung hasn't tried to reinvent the wheel here, and the s22 plus doesn't catch anyone by surprise, but there are some refinements and new features to

check out one difference is a fresh new build. The phone is made not of gorilla glass victus, but gorilla glass VIC is plus on the back and the front.


We're not sure precisely what that plus means because, for now, that glass is exclusive to these phones only, but it seems like it should be more durable. The back is flatter than last year, and the camera bump doesn't wrap into the frame like before. The structure itself is made of aluminum armor. It's glossy and has a subtle curve to it.


Samsung claims that some plastic parts of the phone are made from salvage fishing nets which is commendable, and of course, you also get the ip68 rated dust and water resistance that we've come to expect from these sorts of flagships. 


You can get 128 or 256 gigs of storage onboard, but this isn't expandable through MicroSD either here or on any of the new s22 phones, and for your biometrics, the s22 plus has an ultrasonic under-display fingerprint reader. It's pretty accurate and quick.


The display of the s22 plus is a flat 6.6 inch AMOLED with a 1080p resolution and a fast 120hz refresh rate makes swiping and scrolling on-screen much smoother. The refresh rate is very adaptive. 


We saw it go down to as low as 24 hertz when not interacting with the screen to save power, and it will change to match the fps of the content on screen, too the overall quality of this display is excellent content looks crisp and contrasty, and there's hdr10 video support too, but no adobe vision colors are accurate even without having to tweak them though, of course, you can do that in settings the s22 plus display also brings chart-topping max brightness while there is a new extra brightness mode you can toggle in settings this adds a brightness boost to the manual slider the maximum.


We achieved in our testing was in the auto mode we were able to measure over 1200

nits from this panel are impressive stuff. On top of that, there's also a new feature called vision booster if you have auto-brightness mode turned on, the phone also adjusts the picture's tone on the screen based on the ambient light to maximize contrast and sunlight legibility.


The effect isn't game-changing, but it is noticeable for audio. The s22 plus brings a hybrid stereo setup with the earpiece acting as the second speaker. 


The phone earned a the score of very good on our loudness charts, and the sound quality is excellent with tight mids and a better sounding low end compared to last year's model. The interface of the new galaxy phones is Samsung's one UI 4.1 based on Android 12.


It feels pretty familiar with proprietary Samsung apps and things like

edge panels, but there are some new features here and there, too.


Compared to previous iterations, you get more customization options, especially

for widgets, and there are color palettes that are based on a new android 12 feature the

phone can create a theme for your menus and even icons based on the colors of your  wallpaper


There's a privacy dashboard that lets you manage all of your permissions and

privacy settings in one place, and Samsung says that the s22 plus will get four generations of android and one UI update, and five years of security updates


Behind all of these features is one of two chipsets, an Exynos 2200 for some markets like Europe or snapdragon eight gen 1 for the others. Our s22 plus is an Exynos model, and this chipset brings a brand new GPU compared to last year. It was made in collaboration with, and performance is excellent all around, and games run great though the thermals are

just okay


It's also worth mentioning that in benchmarks, the gap between the s22 plus

and last year's android flagships is pretty tiny. For some reason, the s22 plus battery is

smaller than last year's model. It's 4 


500 milliamp hours this time around battery life is less, too, but it's not wrong with the s22 plus scoring an endurance rating of 97 hours in our tests there is a significant issue with the charging through the s22 plus has support for 45 watts wired charging while both last


Year's model and this year's vanilla one are capped at 25 watts, but for whatever reason, it didn't make a difference in our tests. With the 25-watt Samsung adapter, we could charge from zero to 62 percent in half an hour, while the 45-watt one got us to 64 in the same amount of time.


And the time to full charge is virtually identical between the two. Samsung is getting ready to launch a brand new 45-watt charger. Still, we don't expect charging speed would be any different because it has identical power ratings, and it's not listed as a requirement for the s22 series now we have the cameras.


This includes a new 50-megapixel primary camera, a new 10-megapixel telephoto with three optical zooms, and a 12-megapixel ultrawide cam. You get the same setup on the vanilla s22 shots from the top cam to come out at 12 megapixels, flagship-grade. You get a solid level of detail, and the colors look great, not dull but not over the top.


Dynamic range is also stellar these shots aren't perfect, though. There's some heavy sharpening throughout the frame, but at the same time, on some surfaces

usually, shadows are a bit soft and have some visible noise like most cameras with a quad bare filter. You can shoot in the full native resolution; in this case, 50 megapixels, the differences from the regular auto mode shots are minimal, but a new feature on the s22 series is a detail enhancer available in the 50-megapixel mode.

This uses ai and combine multiple images to resolve as much detail as they can, and the results are Impressive, the 10-megapixel telephoto cam is new this year.

It has a native three times optical zoom, unlike the hybrid zoom of the s21, plus it does use some upscaling because it outputs photos at 12 megapixels, but its zoomed shots are very sharp.


The exact colors look great, matching the top cams, and noise is minimal

portraits can be taken with either the main cam or the telephoto. In either case,

both the subject separation and the quality of the background blur are

excellent.


The subject does come out a little softer if you're shooting with a telephoto cam though the ultra-wide cam is the same as last year's model, and its photos are reasonably detailed and sharp.


The colors look great and match the other two cameras well, there is a little noise and excessive sharpening if you look closely, but it's not a big deal in low light. The primary camera's photos are impressive, with an excellent level of detail, low noise, and great dynamic range.


in general, night mode will kick in automatically when the phone detects

In a dark scene, these are noticeably improved as far as exposure and dynamic range go with better-contained highlights and more detail in shadows.


However, some additional sharpening, which creates a more heavily processed look without night mode shots from the telephoto cam, is still solid. They have good detail and dynamic range, bright exposure, and a most faithful color rendition.


There is plenty of noise through with net mode enabled; zoom shots are sharper and have more detail in both the shadows and the highlights. There is some extra sharpening here, just like on the main cam.


This year there is a night portrait mode too. Subject separation is excellent, but like during the day, the subject looks softer when shot through the telephoto cam with the night mode of the s22 plus ultrawide cam doesn't impress.

 

These photos are dark and noisy with mushy detail night mode has a profound effect on the quality.


The results are far from perfect, but much more usable selfies are taken with the 10-megapixel front-facing cam, which is the same as on last year's model.


The quality is still impressive. The shots are detailed and sharp looking with excellent dynamic range, and the autofocus is consistent.


The s22 plus can capture video from all of his cameras in up to 4k resolution at 60fps and up to 8k at 24fps with the main one. Let's start with 4k from the main cam. It's impressive all-around, with a solid level of detail and sharp textures. Colors are generally true to life, and the dynamic range is comprehensive 8k video isn't wrong.


Still, any benefits and points over the 4k footage are pretty minimal, and of course, at the same time, these videos take up a lot more storage space.


The 4k video from the telephoto was awesome. The detail level is stellar, and everything has a clean look.

There's less sharpening than on the main cam's footage, and the dynamic range is comprehensive. The colors do pop, though, and don't quite match the other cameras. The ultrawide's 4k video isn't as impressive, but it's still perfect, especially for this camera.

There's an excellent level of detail, and a wide dynamic range plus colors match the primary camera well, there's electronic stabilization available on all of the cameras and resolutions, and it works pretty well.

There's also a super steady mode. It smooths things out even further but only on the leading and ultra-wide cams and in 1080p resolution.


So that's the galaxy s22, plus you get a fresh design that is supposed to be quite durable. 


The AMOLED screen is smooth and super bright, the stereo speakers sound great, and you get a flagship chipset and an excellent set of cameras.


If you're comparing this to last year's model, though, the differences are pretty slight a brighter screen, slightly more powerful chipset, new gorilla glass, and the 45-watt charging, which doesn't charge the phone any faster probably is the telephoto cam, which is the most significant improvement with this native three-time zoom, but with all that said if you're not looking to upgrade from the s21 plus and want to get the latest Samsung flagship the s22 plus is worth recommending