The Galaxy S22 phones have all appeared in new renders from OnLeaks – but will the S22 Ultra actually be branded the Note 22 Ultra?
Samsung’s hugely popular Galaxy S range of smartphones are undoubtedly the closest rival to Apple’s ubiquitous iPhone, and the S22 series is the next set of phones to arrive, expected in early 2022 – though they could launch sooner. With sales slowly declining for the S-series flagships, the S22 line has a lot riding on it, and Samsung should be pulling out all the stops to prove that it still makes the best Android phones around. Here’s all we know so far about what the Korean giant has in store for the S22 generation, including the latest camera leaks and some surprising rumours about which chipsets Samsung will ship the phones with. There’s no confirmed date for the release of the next generation Galaxy S devices, but January 2022 is likely. This would make it a year since the introduction of the Galaxy S21 line-up, which is the normal gap between updates. That’s what Korean site The Elec reports too, citing anonymous sources that claim Samsung will begin mass production of the S22 series in November 2021, targeting a January launch for the phones. This isn’t as certain as in past years though, as the S21 series actually appeared earlier than expected. For the previous recent generations, Samsung usually announced the models in February and released them by the end of that month or early in March. Samsung could return to its old schedule this time around. Or, as some leakers have speculated, it could double down and announce the S22 series as early as December 2021. It will feel like a particularly long wait this time around, as Samsung has already confirmed that the Galaxy Note 21 won’t launch this year, with the Galaxy S21 Ultra and Z Fold 3 supporting the S-Pen instead – the latter having launched this August alongside the Galaxy Z Flip 3, Galaxy Watch 4, and Galaxy Buds 2. There’s also the question of when we’ll see the rumoured Galaxy Z Fold S and Galaxy Z Roll, so Samsung has plenty to fill out the roster. Again, no firm details when it comes to price. We would expect Samsung to try and stay around the same areas as the current line-up though, with competition fierce in the premium smartphone market at the moment. There are three models in the S21 line-up, which should remain the case for the successors. If we use those as a guide, here’s what you’ll probably be looking at for the new device: It’s still too early to know what the finished models will have under the hood, but rumours are already circulating that give us some idea of the improvements Samsung are planning. Here they are broken down by model. Let’s start with the main model in the series: the standard S22. We have a good idea of how this phone might look thanks to renders from OnLeaks, based on material he’s received from his sources. We also know the likely colours, which will be black, white, rose gold, and green according to GalaxyClub. GSM Arena reports that the S22’s rear will once again be made from plastic, though internally it may feature the return of vapour chamber cooling, to keep temperatures down, which would match with other rumours that the new models would be thinner that the S21 range. The design is basically similar to the S21, with only subtle refinements to the back and camera bump. It is apparently smaller though, going by this size comparison from Ice Universe which also compares the new model to the iPhone 13: The smaller size has been backed up by other sources, with MauriQHD predicting that the S22 will have a 6.06in display – down from the 6.2in panel used in the S21. This will once again be a 120Hz AMOLED screen, but won’t support the LTPO tech found in the S21 Ultra. Inside the phone, it’s expected to be powered by Samsung’s own Exynos 2200 – which will feature an AMD GPU – in some markets, with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 898 used elsewhere. As ever, Ice Universe is here to give us more info. He claims that the 2200 will be an octa-core chip, with a single Cortex-X2 core running at 2.9GHz, three big Cortex-A710 cores at 2.8GHz, and four energy-efficient Cortex-A510 cores at 2.2GHz. As expected it’s bolstered by an AMD GPU with 1250MHz clock speeds. He’s quick to note that these are the clock speeds for the Ultra, not the other phones, suggesting that they may be clocked slower. That would make sense given that a chip believed to be the Exynos 2200 has appeared on Geekbench 5, paired with 8GB of RAM, but with slower clock speeds. Leaker FrontTron suggests that this may be from a phone running on power saving mode, which might also explain the slower speeds, and the unexpectedly low overall performance scores. Exynos chips are usually reserved for Europe and other territories, with the US more likely to find the rumoured Snapdragon 898 in their handsets.
