8 ms·

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra

35 points by sundvor 5y ago

Wolfenstein98k 5y ago
How thoroughly unremarkable. Is there much groundbreaking advancement in smartphones anymore, or is it all just iteration band consolidation? I don't see what this has, beyond standard iterative improvement and a mix of Note and Galaxy features.
- jsnk 5y ago
  I think it's ok that some products mature and the evolution of the form factor gradually slows down. Remember when Apple tried to make a slight change to macbooks and introduced touchbars? Some things are almost better untouched. If you want a totally different form factor, you are welcome to try out Samsung's foldable phone. They are quite impressive.
  - jcun4128 5y ago
    I wish the projected stuff caught on like the side keyboards that would be projected on the sides of your phone for "full size" typing or alternate extra interfaces.
teruakohatu 5y ago
I am pleased the Note is back, but at least the prices being asked in New Zealand are just crazy. It is selling for 14% more than a M1 MacBook Air.
- napolux 5y ago
  In Italy is the same price as an M1 Macbook Air
- rambojazz 5y ago
  How much?
  - teruakohatu 5y ago
    NZ$1999 for Ultra, verses NZ$1750 for base MacBook Air.
    - rambojazz 5y ago
      That should be about €1170 which seems in line with prices in the EU (for the 128GB model). The 1TB model is listed at €1700. Needless to say: I won't buy.
      - teruakohatu 5y ago
        Back in the "old" days (a couple of years ago) you could buy the base model and insert the 1tb MicroSD card from your old phone into the new one.
        tentacleuno 5y ago
        Back in the old days you could take out your battery, too. Technology is changing, and in some ways it's definitely not for the better. I had a Samsung Galaxy S5 a very long time ago and the expandability was very impressive. You could plug in headphones, a microSD card and get new batteries for it. The only real thing I didn't like about it was Samsung's TouchWiz skin, however I am sure that could have been fixed with an alternative ROM, especially given the popularity of the device. It's a real shame that companies are tying perfectly working phones to old degrading technology.
- matsemann 5y ago
  Phones have gotten so expensive I don't dare to not have mine wrapped in some protective case. Doesn't help that my current phone is really slippery. I never get to enjoy the "mm thickness saved" the companies brag about, so why bother.
  - vinay427 5y ago
    It seems like you're still enjoying the "mm thickness saved" unless the prices of older phones were so low that damaging them was of no real consequence to you, making cases worthless. Those devices were often thicker but still required cases to prevent scuffs, scratches, and cracks. If anything, their displays were far softer and easily scuffed.
  - smitty1e 5y ago
    Otter Box! Just gravity-checked my Note10+ getting out of a van on pavement. No worries.
- sschueller 5y ago
  It's insane. I just got my self a new PC with top of the line specs (without a new GFX card, getting that when prices come down) for around 2k that will last me 10 years. But a phone I purchase for almost the same price will last me maybe 2-3 years until the battery is toast and I start having software issues. People justify it by the fact that you use your phone all day, ever day but I would say I use my PC way more than my phone.
  - faeriechangling 5y ago
    These phones should be able to push 4 years in fair condition between the software support assurances, larger batteries, longer battery life, and higher efficiency. In any case, it’s apples to oranges. I can use any old junker for a desktop but a high end phone still means very practical things like longer battery life, longer support assurances, and maybe a handful of exclusives (Dex, full galaxy watch support, uwb tags, etc). The average person is far more likely to notice the difference between a cheap and expensive phone compared to a cheap and expensive computer. Samsung charges what it does because they can because they’re aware that Apple is the only company that offers the whole “package” the way they do and they’re just as expensive. More and more people switch to midrange and budget phones every year all the same.
    - jitl 5y ago
      But with Apple, you get 6+ years of OS updates and support. The latest version of iOS runs on iPhone 6S released in 2016. Samsung recently started promising “at least 4 years” of security updates, but don’t expect that 4 year old device to get the latest Android OS.
      - conradfr 5y ago
        4 OS generations I believe.
      - sundvor 5y ago
        At 3.5 years since release, my brother's Note 10 was just upgraded to Android 11 - a major upgrade which will extend the life of the phone also quite literally thanks to Lenovo style charging limits. The Note 10 was released in August 2019. By Apple standards getting a major OS upgrade at this point is nothing exceptional however in the Android world it's a stand out - and is also proof of Samsung's claim. (Lenovo let me limit the max charge % many a year ago on my X1 Carbon, I've been wondering why phone manufacturers have lagged behind on this. Here is locked to 85% vs Lenovo's more flexible configuration).
- sundvor 5y ago
  It's got 12GB of memory; my own S21 Ultra has 16. It's powerful enough to perform as an laptop of kinds with DeX, in a much tighter form factor, with far better cameras - also a high resolution display, so it's not a completely unfair pricing.
- salamandersauce 5y ago
  That's just flagship phones these days. An iPhone 13 Pro Max is more expensive than an M1 MBA too. Even the regular Pro is the same price. In the US too.
napolux 5y ago
Smartphones are so boring in 2022. Even iPhones. I have my iPhone XR since 3.5 years and I don't need to change it at least for a couple of years, if the battery stays alive
- jcun4128 5y ago
  Hehe try a Linux phone that barely works out of the box. Not so boring, will my modem work today? Maybe
  - tehdgvtd 5y ago
    You talk like apple and samsung do work like you want. Having some feature you wouldn't have broken, is it better or worse than not having it? My S21 plus keep changing my default browser back to whatever the hell is Samsung Internet every hour. My iphone doesn't even have a browser alternative, only "skins"
    - jcun4128 5y ago
      I'm just looking forward to Linux phones catching up in performance and app options... I hope it happens. > keep changing my default browser back to whatever the hell is Samsung Internet every hour Yeah stuff like that drives me nuts too. Particularly it's the permissions stuff, I buy hey Samsung ear buds and I have to accept like 11 different permissions to use them. And for the cheaper devices they're purposely loaded with garbage or you can't swipe these certain notifications... ads built into your voicemail program. My main phone right now is a $300 Motorola Android phone it does all I need 1080p screen, 4GB ram. I personally can't justify buying a phone like this that costs as much as a nice laptop/desktop. But I also spent over $1K on a remote controlled composite glider so I guess every body has their poison.
- matsemann 5y ago
  Most features are often not worth it, even. FaceId? With fingerprint sensor I could have the phone opened on the way out of my pocket, now I gotta stare blankly at the screen for a second before I can use it. Twice the resolution? I couldn't see a pixel on the previous generation, now you just use twice the amount of gpu and battery to render some animation. Less screen bezel? Thanks, now I accidentally touch the edge of the screen while holding my phone. Or have to watch clips with a notch covering the side for apps still not having fixed their UI. Thinner? Thanks, less battery. More cameras? Now I can't hold my phone without greasing up some lens on the back.
awiesenhofer 5y ago
Finally a new "Note"! I just wish it wouldnt be so huge - a more compact 5-6" version with pen support would be the sweetspot for me.
- oblio 5y ago
  Never going to happen :-) The regular S22, which is the smallest one, has a 6.1" screen. Even for the Galaxy Note, the last version with a close-to or sub 6" screen was the Note 7 from back in 2016, 6 years ago. On top of that, Apple's rumoured to drop the iPhone mini for the next version. Only techies with a lot of devices (since they already have a laptop or several, a tablet, etc) seem to want small phones.
- poglet 5y ago
  I've kept my Note 8 around despite having a new iPhone just for the S-Pen. It is really nice to write on the qwerty keyboard with the stylus, using the swipe functionality. My finger gets tired on the iPhone after a few minutes of usage. The second reason is probably one of the (my opinion) greatest features that any phone has had: The translation feature of the S-Pen. If you interact with foreign languages (on your phone) which you aren't familiar with - the translate feature of the S-Pen is fantastic. How it works is you hover the stylus over the foreign word, a little bubble appears on the screen with the original text and translated text. This feature is application independent and the text can be formatted in almost any way - for example exist within a photograph. On iOS you would need to highlight and copy the next, switch to a translation application, paste it in, then go back to the original application. And this is assuming you can even copy the text, if you can't you need to take a screenshot of the picture, then use the new iOS OCR features - it's a real pain if you want to translate more then once screen. I am happy to see the S-Pen back and I will consider the Samsung Galaxy again in the future.
  - PlanckMeasure80 5y ago
    iOS can now directly translate. Just long press on the text in any app, even if it’s in a picture or screenshot.
lmm 5y ago
Are there any flagship-level phones with a headphone jack these days? I'm thinking to replace my S10+ soon (just because the battery is wearing out); I'd get the same model if I could but it's not on sale any more.
- mike00632 5y ago
  Same here. I also want the removable SD card slot. Sony phones seem to be the only ones that fit the bill.
- oblio 5y ago
  Short story, no, not current ones. Maybe there are a few Chinese ones, but I think even all of those dropped the headphone jack plus their availability varies depending on where you are.
  - lozenge 5y ago
    Checking which bands they operate in is also important, at least when I last bought one.
- teruakohatu 5y ago
  I don't think any flagships do. You can need to move to midrange. The Samsung A52 is a very nice phone, I set one up for a friend, it has a large battery, great camera and a 3.5mm jack.
- orthogonal-wren 5y ago
  some of the new sony phones still come with it
- esyir 5y ago
  Literally in the same boat, down to the phone model. I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and give up on the jack.
  - sundvor 5y ago
    There are some third party adapters that provide great sound quite inexpensively.
dwdz 5y ago
Are we still getting excited about new smartphones? What year is it? 2012?
- jcun4128 5y ago
  I did catch myself stop watching YT series like "here's another bigger monitor" or whatever. Idk we all have our thing I guess. I was getting sucked into camera gear for a bit.
hmate9 5y ago
Same things every time - longer battery - faster chip - better camera
- blocked_again 5y ago
  No. You didn't open the web page. The pen also now fits inside the phone.
  - iakov 5y ago
    Like it did on my Galaxy Note ten years ago! Consumer tech is now just like fashion - moving in circles.
    - ScottBurson 5y ago
      The Note series never went away -- I put four years on a Note 4 and am typing this on a Note 9, still in great condition. So I don't think it's really "circles" as much as Samsung deciding to have only one flagship model.
      - PlanckMeasure80 5y ago
        There was no Note 21
- mike00632 5y ago
  They removed the SD card slots and headphone jacks. They downsized the battery. They also lowered the screen resolution on the base models. I hate that we are getting worse hardware than previous years.
MaxikCZ 5y ago
The scrolling on the page is so bad. Not only it is highjacked and much slower than my normal schrolling, but halfway through the page the scrolling changes speed and accelerates... Seriously wtf
- timokoesters 5y ago
  It's so bad that I'm almost expecting them to do it on purpose. "This web page is so slow and buggy, it would probably work perfectly on a new phone"
- sundvor 5y ago
  Yeah, ironically I thought the same as I tried to read it - on my S22 Ultra 512/16. I can't stand the website. (Polestar's website is the same - overly complicated with folding animations and really busy elements that load belatedly, it really put me off the car.) The phone is interesting, but I'm struggling to see the value proposition for myself. The S21U is a solid unit, so I'll hang on to it for another year at least.
- rascul 5y ago
  I can't stand the sites that do the weird crap to scrolling, like this Samsung example. It's borderline unusable for me and as soon as I notice it I'm more likely to close the tab then give it any more time with my eyeballs and suffer the degraded experience due to scroll hijacking.
LeonM 5y ago
Unfortunately, no mention of any new Dex mode improvements. Dex mode is the desktop mode of Samsung phones. Connect it to a monitor via USB-C and you'll have a full desktop experience. Samsung has been improving Dex mode steadily since the S8 (maybe earlier?), it's already gotten pretty good and deserves more attention. I really hope 4K video output is now supported. That would make it a viable replacement for my work laptop.
- adevx 5y ago
  Also keeping a close eye on Dex. I can in theory do all my coding server side but I want to be 99% sure Samsung is in it for the long run.
- tluyben2 5y ago
  Yeah, at least Dex is a reason for this kind of thing. Something to replace the desktop as phones have enough power (for most things I do) but no desktop mode and shitty apps and file system.
- jcun4128 5y ago
  I want this, but I don't see myself dropping so much money on a phone to do it... $400 seems acceptable to me (another mobile platform). But also speaking for myself it's like a fantasy situation (I always have access to a desktop/laptop). Unless it is really the only computer device you have which would be cool if it can indeed do everything... maybe with cloud gaming and virtualization/I guess ssh'ing into boxes is good enough.
- mFixman 5y ago
  I used the Dex Mode of my S21 as my main driver in the month when I was laptopless between jobs, and it was _so close_ to perfection. If Samsung fixes anti-aliasing and let you customise a few more things it could very easily replace a computer for workflows that do most of their processing in a server farm.
- nikolay 5y ago
  Isn't that dead? They no longer support macOS, for example.
jdkjs 5y ago
Brajeshwar 5y ago
Desktop Safari browsers flickers a lot while browsing the page. Not a smooth experience at all. Very hard to read. I hope the phone is much better.
- saagarjha 5y ago
  Everyone copied Apple's scrolly presentation, unfortunately. Except Samsung didn't get the hint that putting a cookie notice and an uncanny valley chat head avatar on the page just makes the page even worse than it already is…
  - timokoesters 5y ago
    You made my click on that chat thingy to see what happens. I expected a bot that matches my questions with FAQ entries and links them, but I just got this: > Please provide your name and email address as well as agree to the terms and conditions so that we can provide a more customised service.
- virgilp 5y ago
  Works well on my Firefox/Windows machine. Maybe it's a Safari problem? I sort of get your point (they should optimize for all platforms!) but it's somewhat ironic to immediately assume this is a Samsung-problem, not an Apple-problem.
clusterfish 5y ago
With this kind of design (black holes for cameras and sensors), I wonder if they considered that it might trigger trypophobia ("fear of holes"), and if they did, what does it say about your design if you need to analyze it such concerns. I mean phobia or not, these round voids as an element of design are getting ridiculous.
- zydex 5y ago
  That seems to me like a ridiculous consideration. There are a huge number of devices with similar hole patterns, speakers for example.
  - sundvor 5y ago
    Someone will always find something to outrage about... Lenses are round for functional design reasons. You don't shout at an incoming storm, you seek shelter - that's just how it is.
    - clusterfish 5y ago
      Yeah right that's why devices with cameras always looked like this, that certainly didn't start when one company made this particular design moronically hip, and the rest of the sheep followed. Lenses were apparently square before that, what do you know.
faeriechangling 5y ago
First thing I looked for and biggest feature I see is 4 years of OS updates and 5 years security updates and this also applies to the previous generation of phones like the s21 series. It’s nice to see literally one Android OEM do the bare minimum of software support nowadays given these phones will probably get used for 4-5 years on average. I wonder how long Samsung can keep charging these prices though. They seem to be running headfirst into a brick wall of diminishing returns.
- smitty1e 5y ago
  Love my Note10+ and watch combo. OtterBox is also key. This unit looks to be a slight size/weight increase. Probably order All The Things on a Black Friday deal, or so.
smitty1e 5y ago
One great feature they don't tout is the backup/restore for data. Moving into a new handset is far less of an ordeal than in the past.
boboche 5y ago
2000$ to get the weird uncontrollable artifacts (watch the clip of the girl walking near the tree branches and red umbrella on the top right for an extreme example). I was waiting to switch my note 3 / lineage expecting to finally get something epic but instead I’m disapointed, the pricing is just insane for 1TB and losing control on my pixel perfect ocd to Junk AI made for untrained eye is sad for our digital future. I’m really impressed at how much junk companies are blattantly getting away, with nobody caring, if that was a 800$ phone I wouldn’t be writing this, but… that price… my note 3 is awesome, if only it could shoot in the dark… Hopefully some camera apps will catch up to this phone and go raw and bypass all of that AI pixel forgery while keeping anything actually useful in there. I’d rather have a blurry pixel than extreme wobbling layered with compression artifacts because of poor AI replacement or scaling implementation.
teleforce 5y ago
Thinking of upgrading from my current entry level phone S20 to S22 because it's already two years now. To my surprise the specs for RAM and display resolution are lower compared to two years back. Not sure what the engineers at Samsung have been up to, is it due to chips shortage or getting complacent?
- _fzslm 5y ago
  i think it's simply down to the smartphone industry maturing. for all intents and purposes, the CPU in your old S20 is more than capable of handling basically any daily mobile task. the A11 in my iPhone X (2017!) was more than enough, and didn't skip a beat, even with intense usage like playing games or streaming multimedia content over LTE. i only had to upgrade to a 12 mini the other day because the my X got so beat up over the years, and it would've cost more to repair than to just replace the thing. i love my new phone, but does it really do anything my old one couldn't? the camera, screen, design are definitely better... but other than that... and the 12 mini is already a year and a half old! i got it used, and i couldn't possibly distinguish this from a brand new flagship phone, in terms of performance. smartphone manufacturers can't rely on consumers needing to upgrade bi-annually to continue using their phone in an optimal way. so they need to change their economics to keep making a profit.
nikolay 5y ago
I have Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G. Honestly, it was fast and smooth only the first day. After I installed the normal apps I use (pretty much widely popular ones, nothing crazy), it got so slow - as slow as my old Galaxy S9+. The battery life is terrible - after an hour of live creaming, it drops by a fourth! The scroll is not smooth due to the piling amount of notifications, which keep wasting resources. I'm not an Android developer, but it seems that active notifications slow down the whole phone - no idea why! Also, be that stupid to shoot a video or live stream (like I do) - you get phone calls, message noise, etc. if you forget to turn them off! Who in their right might would want notifications while they are shooting a video? Even less so - audio notifications, which ruin your video?! Not to mention, that the whole video processing power drops, and it starts skipping frames! To me, it's a huge Android design flaw - once you start shooting a video, everything should die (well, I understand the complexity, there might be background services, etc.), but with every new phone, the same issues stay, and many times I scream that I need to buy a regular camcorder and stop dealing with those who play to be mobile OS designers! For example, I'm in a Do Not Disturb mode, yet, I get notification sounds in the middle of the night! I understand that there are apps, to which I can grant access to override silent mode (like Opsgenie, for example), but I have no such apps and granted so such rights! Worst of all, Samsung disables essential apps without bothering to confirm with me. I just noticed that Google Fit is disabled because I haven't opened it - there goes all my activity tracking for months! When will we have sane and intelligent people behind the design of a modern mobile OS at Google? Sorry to be so critical, but I've been a loyal Android user since its first device and I'm getting tired of waiting for the basics to become available. It's not getting better, just new problems keep piling up on top of the old ones! in 2020, I have a nearly $1,500 device, which still cannot last a day and I still have to keep monitoring the battery level! And I almost do not use my phone - I just sits in my pocket 99% of the time!

35 points by sundvor 5y ago

How thoroughly unremarkable. Is there much groundbreaking advancement in smartphones anymore, or is it all just iteration band consolidation? I don't see what this has, beyond standard iterative improvement and a mix of Note and Galaxy features.

jsnk 5y ago
I think it's ok that some products mature and the evolution of the form factor gradually slows down. Remember when Apple tried to make a slight change to macbooks and introduced touchbars? Some things are almost better untouched. If you want a totally different form factor, you are welcome to try out Samsung's foldable phone. They are quite impressive.
- jcun4128 5y ago
  I wish the projected stuff caught on like the side keyboards that would be projected on the sides of your phone for "full size" typing or alternate extra interfaces.

teruakohatu 5y ago

I am pleased the Note is back, but at least the prices being asked in New Zealand are just crazy. It is selling for 14% more than a M1 MacBook Air.

napolux 5y ago
In Italy is the same price as an M1 Macbook Air
rambojazz 5y ago
How much?
- teruakohatu 5y ago
  NZ$1999 for Ultra, verses NZ$1750 for base MacBook Air.
  - rambojazz 5y ago
    That should be about €1170 which seems in line with prices in the EU (for the 128GB model). The 1TB model is listed at €1700. Needless to say: I won't buy.
    - teruakohatu 5y ago
      Back in the "old" days (a couple of years ago) you could buy the base model and insert the 1tb MicroSD card from your old phone into the new one.
      - tentacleuno 5y ago
        Back in the old days you could take out your battery, too. Technology is changing, and in some ways it's definitely not for the better. I had a Samsung Galaxy S5 a very long time ago and the expandability was very impressive. You could plug in headphones, a microSD card and get new batteries for it. The only real thing I didn't like about it was Samsung's TouchWiz skin, however I am sure that could have been fixed with an alternative ROM, especially given the popularity of the device. It's a real shame that companies are tying perfectly working phones to old degrading technology.
matsemann 5y ago
Phones have gotten so expensive I don't dare to not have mine wrapped in some protective case. Doesn't help that my current phone is really slippery. I never get to enjoy the "mm thickness saved" the companies brag about, so why bother.
- vinay427 5y ago
  It seems like you're still enjoying the "mm thickness saved" unless the prices of older phones were so low that damaging them was of no real consequence to you, making cases worthless. Those devices were often thicker but still required cases to prevent scuffs, scratches, and cracks. If anything, their displays were far softer and easily scuffed.
- smitty1e 5y ago
  Otter Box! Just gravity-checked my Note10+ getting out of a van on pavement. No worries.
sschueller 5y ago
It's insane. I just got my self a new PC with top of the line specs (without a new GFX card, getting that when prices come down) for around 2k that will last me 10 years. But a phone I purchase for almost the same price will last me maybe 2-3 years until the battery is toast and I start having software issues. People justify it by the fact that you use your phone all day, ever day but I would say I use my PC way more than my phone.
- faeriechangling 5y ago
  These phones should be able to push 4 years in fair condition between the software support assurances, larger batteries, longer battery life, and higher efficiency. In any case, it’s apples to oranges. I can use any old junker for a desktop but a high end phone still means very practical things like longer battery life, longer support assurances, and maybe a handful of exclusives (Dex, full galaxy watch support, uwb tags, etc). The average person is far more likely to notice the difference between a cheap and expensive phone compared to a cheap and expensive computer. Samsung charges what it does because they can because they’re aware that Apple is the only company that offers the whole “package” the way they do and they’re just as expensive. More and more people switch to midrange and budget phones every year all the same.
  - jitl 5y ago
    But with Apple, you get 6+ years of OS updates and support. The latest version of iOS runs on iPhone 6S released in 2016. Samsung recently started promising “at least 4 years” of security updates, but don’t expect that 4 year old device to get the latest Android OS.
    - conradfr 5y ago
      4 OS generations I believe.
    - sundvor 5y ago
      At 3.5 years since release, my brother's Note 10 was just upgraded to Android 11 - a major upgrade which will extend the life of the phone also quite literally thanks to Lenovo style charging limits. The Note 10 was released in August 2019. By Apple standards getting a major OS upgrade at this point is nothing exceptional however in the Android world it's a stand out - and is also proof of Samsung's claim. (Lenovo let me limit the max charge % many a year ago on my X1 Carbon, I've been wondering why phone manufacturers have lagged behind on this. Here is locked to 85% vs Lenovo's more flexible configuration).
sundvor 5y ago
It's got 12GB of memory; my own S21 Ultra has 16. It's powerful enough to perform as an laptop of kinds with DeX, in a much tighter form factor, with far better cameras - also a high resolution display, so it's not a completely unfair pricing.
salamandersauce 5y ago
That's just flagship phones these days. An iPhone 13 Pro Max is more expensive than an M1 MBA too. Even the regular Pro is the same price. In the US too.

napolux 5y ago

Smartphones are so boring in 2022. Even iPhones. I have my iPhone XR since 3.5 years and I don't need to change it at least for a couple of years, if the battery stays alive

jcun4128 5y ago
Hehe try a Linux phone that barely works out of the box. Not so boring, will my modem work today? Maybe
- tehdgvtd 5y ago
  You talk like apple and samsung do work like you want. Having some feature you wouldn't have broken, is it better or worse than not having it? My S21 plus keep changing my default browser back to whatever the hell is Samsung Internet every hour. My iphone doesn't even have a browser alternative, only "skins"
  - jcun4128 5y ago
    I'm just looking forward to Linux phones catching up in performance and app options... I hope it happens. > keep changing my default browser back to whatever the hell is Samsung Internet every hour Yeah stuff like that drives me nuts too. Particularly it's the permissions stuff, I buy hey Samsung ear buds and I have to accept like 11 different permissions to use them. And for the cheaper devices they're purposely loaded with garbage or you can't swipe these certain notifications... ads built into your voicemail program. My main phone right now is a $300 Motorola Android phone it does all I need 1080p screen, 4GB ram. I personally can't justify buying a phone like this that costs as much as a nice laptop/desktop. But I also spent over $1K on a remote controlled composite glider so I guess every body has their poison.
matsemann 5y ago
Most features are often not worth it, even. FaceId? With fingerprint sensor I could have the phone opened on the way out of my pocket, now I gotta stare blankly at the screen for a second before I can use it. Twice the resolution? I couldn't see a pixel on the previous generation, now you just use twice the amount of gpu and battery to render some animation. Less screen bezel? Thanks, now I accidentally touch the edge of the screen while holding my phone. Or have to watch clips with a notch covering the side for apps still not having fixed their UI. Thinner? Thanks, less battery. More cameras? Now I can't hold my phone without greasing up some lens on the back.

awiesenhofer 5y ago

Finally a new "Note"! I just wish it wouldnt be so huge - a more compact 5-6" version with pen support would be the sweetspot for me.

oblio 5y ago
Never going to happen :-) The regular S22, which is the smallest one, has a 6.1" screen. Even for the Galaxy Note, the last version with a close-to or sub 6" screen was the Note 7 from back in 2016, 6 years ago. On top of that, Apple's rumoured to drop the iPhone mini for the next version. Only techies with a lot of devices (since they already have a laptop or several, a tablet, etc) seem to want small phones.
poglet 5y ago
I've kept my Note 8 around despite having a new iPhone just for the S-Pen. It is really nice to write on the qwerty keyboard with the stylus, using the swipe functionality. My finger gets tired on the iPhone after a few minutes of usage. The second reason is probably one of the (my opinion) greatest features that any phone has had: The translation feature of the S-Pen. If you interact with foreign languages (on your phone) which you aren't familiar with - the translate feature of the S-Pen is fantastic. How it works is you hover the stylus over the foreign word, a little bubble appears on the screen with the original text and translated text. This feature is application independent and the text can be formatted in almost any way - for example exist within a photograph. On iOS you would need to highlight and copy the next, switch to a translation application, paste it in, then go back to the original application. And this is assuming you can even copy the text, if you can't you need to take a screenshot of the picture, then use the new iOS OCR features - it's a real pain if you want to translate more then once screen. I am happy to see the S-Pen back and I will consider the Samsung Galaxy again in the future.
- PlanckMeasure80 5y ago
  iOS can now directly translate. Just long press on the text in any app, even if it’s in a picture or screenshot.

lmm 5y ago

Are there any flagship-level phones with a headphone jack these days? I'm thinking to replace my S10+ soon (just because the battery is wearing out); I'd get the same model if I could but it's not on sale any more.

mike00632 5y ago
Same here. I also want the removable SD card slot. Sony phones seem to be the only ones that fit the bill.
oblio 5y ago
Short story, no, not current ones. Maybe there are a few Chinese ones, but I think even all of those dropped the headphone jack plus their availability varies depending on where you are.
- lozenge 5y ago
  Checking which bands they operate in is also important, at least when I last bought one.
teruakohatu 5y ago
I don't think any flagships do. You can need to move to midrange. The Samsung A52 is a very nice phone, I set one up for a friend, it has a large battery, great camera and a 3.5mm jack.
orthogonal-wren 5y ago
some of the new sony phones still come with it
esyir 5y ago
Literally in the same boat, down to the phone model. I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and give up on the jack.
- sundvor 5y ago
  There are some third party adapters that provide great sound quite inexpensively.

dwdz 5y ago

Are we still getting excited about new smartphones? What year is it? 2012?

jcun4128 5y ago
I did catch myself stop watching YT series like "here's another bigger monitor" or whatever. Idk we all have our thing I guess. I was getting sucked into camera gear for a bit.

hmate9 5y ago

Same things every time - longer battery - faster chip - better camera

blocked_again 5y ago
No. You didn't open the web page. The pen also now fits inside the phone.
- iakov 5y ago
  Like it did on my Galaxy Note ten years ago! Consumer tech is now just like fashion - moving in circles.
  - ScottBurson 5y ago
    The Note series never went away -- I put four years on a Note 4 and am typing this on a Note 9, still in great condition. So I don't think it's really "circles" as much as Samsung deciding to have only one flagship model.
    - PlanckMeasure80 5y ago
      There was no Note 21
mike00632 5y ago
They removed the SD card slots and headphone jacks. They downsized the battery. They also lowered the screen resolution on the base models. I hate that we are getting worse hardware than previous years.

MaxikCZ 5y ago

The scrolling on the page is so bad. Not only it is highjacked and much slower than my normal schrolling, but halfway through the page the scrolling changes speed and accelerates... Seriously wtf

timokoesters 5y ago
It's so bad that I'm almost expecting them to do it on purpose. "This web page is so slow and buggy, it would probably work perfectly on a new phone"
sundvor 5y ago
Yeah, ironically I thought the same as I tried to read it - on my S22 Ultra 512/16. I can't stand the website. (Polestar's website is the same - overly complicated with folding animations and really busy elements that load belatedly, it really put me off the car.) The phone is interesting, but I'm struggling to see the value proposition for myself. The S21U is a solid unit, so I'll hang on to it for another year at least.
rascul 5y ago
I can't stand the sites that do the weird crap to scrolling, like this Samsung example. It's borderline unusable for me and as soon as I notice it I'm more likely to close the tab then give it any more time with my eyeballs and suffer the degraded experience due to scroll hijacking.

LeonM 5y ago

Unfortunately, no mention of any new Dex mode improvements. Dex mode is the desktop mode of Samsung phones. Connect it to a monitor via USB-C and you'll have a full desktop experience. Samsung has been improving Dex mode steadily since the S8 (maybe earlier?), it's already gotten pretty good and deserves more attention. I really hope 4K video output is now supported. That would make it a viable replacement for my work laptop.

adevx 5y ago
Also keeping a close eye on Dex. I can in theory do all my coding server side but I want to be 99% sure Samsung is in it for the long run.
tluyben2 5y ago
Yeah, at least Dex is a reason for this kind of thing. Something to replace the desktop as phones have enough power (for most things I do) but no desktop mode and shitty apps and file system.
jcun4128 5y ago
I want this, but I don't see myself dropping so much money on a phone to do it... $400 seems acceptable to me (another mobile platform). But also speaking for myself it's like a fantasy situation (I always have access to a desktop/laptop). Unless it is really the only computer device you have which would be cool if it can indeed do everything... maybe with cloud gaming and virtualization/I guess ssh'ing into boxes is good enough.
mFixman 5y ago
I used the Dex Mode of my S21 as my main driver in the month when I was laptopless between jobs, and it was _so close_ to perfection. If Samsung fixes anti-aliasing and let you customise a few more things it could very easily replace a computer for workflows that do most of their processing in a server farm.
nikolay 5y ago
Isn't that dead? They no longer support macOS, for example.

jdkjs 5y ago

Brajeshwar 5y ago

Desktop Safari browsers flickers a lot while browsing the page. Not a smooth experience at all. Very hard to read. I hope the phone is much better.

saagarjha 5y ago
Everyone copied Apple's scrolly presentation, unfortunately. Except Samsung didn't get the hint that putting a cookie notice and an uncanny valley chat head avatar on the page just makes the page even worse than it already is…
- timokoesters 5y ago
  You made my click on that chat thingy to see what happens. I expected a bot that matches my questions with FAQ entries and links them, but I just got this: > Please provide your name and email address as well as agree to the terms and conditions so that we can provide a more customised service.
virgilp 5y ago
Works well on my Firefox/Windows machine. Maybe it's a Safari problem? I sort of get your point (they should optimize for all platforms!) but it's somewhat ironic to immediately assume this is a Samsung-problem, not an Apple-problem.

clusterfish 5y ago

With this kind of design (black holes for cameras and sensors), I wonder if they considered that it might trigger trypophobia ("fear of holes"), and if they did, what does it say about your design if you need to analyze it such concerns. I mean phobia or not, these round voids as an element of design are getting ridiculous.

zydex 5y ago
That seems to me like a ridiculous consideration. There are a huge number of devices with similar hole patterns, speakers for example.
- sundvor 5y ago
  Someone will always find something to outrage about... Lenses are round for functional design reasons. You don't shout at an incoming storm, you seek shelter - that's just how it is.
  - clusterfish 5y ago
    Yeah right that's why devices with cameras always looked like this, that certainly didn't start when one company made this particular design moronically hip, and the rest of the sheep followed. Lenses were apparently square before that, what do you know.

faeriechangling 5y ago

First thing I looked for and biggest feature I see is 4 years of OS updates and 5 years security updates and this also applies to the previous generation of phones like the s21 series. It’s nice to see literally one Android OEM do the bare minimum of software support nowadays given these phones will probably get used for 4-5 years on average. I wonder how long Samsung can keep charging these prices though. They seem to be running headfirst into a brick wall of diminishing returns.

smitty1e 5y ago
Love my Note10+ and watch combo. OtterBox is also key. This unit looks to be a slight size/weight increase. Probably order All The Things on a Black Friday deal, or so.

smitty1e 5y ago

One great feature they don't tout is the backup/restore for data. Moving into a new handset is far less of an ordeal than in the past.

boboche 5y ago

2000$ to get the weird uncontrollable artifacts (watch the clip of the girl walking near the tree branches and red umbrella on the top right for an extreme example). I was waiting to switch my note 3 / lineage expecting to finally get something epic but instead I’m disapointed, the pricing is just insane for 1TB and losing control on my pixel perfect ocd to Junk AI made for untrained eye is sad for our digital future. I’m really impressed at how much junk companies are blattantly getting away, with nobody caring, if that was a 800$ phone I wouldn’t be writing this, but… that price… my note 3 is awesome, if only it could shoot in the dark… Hopefully some camera apps will catch up to this phone and go raw and bypass all of that AI pixel forgery while keeping anything actually useful in there. I’d rather have a blurry pixel than extreme wobbling layered with compression artifacts because of poor AI replacement or scaling implementation.

teleforce 5y ago

Thinking of upgrading from my current entry level phone S20 to S22 because it's already two years now. To my surprise the specs for RAM and display resolution are lower compared to two years back. Not sure what the engineers at Samsung have been up to, is it due to chips shortage or getting complacent?

_fzslm 5y ago
i think it's simply down to the smartphone industry maturing. for all intents and purposes, the CPU in your old S20 is more than capable of handling basically any daily mobile task. the A11 in my iPhone X (2017!) was more than enough, and didn't skip a beat, even with intense usage like playing games or streaming multimedia content over LTE. i only had to upgrade to a 12 mini the other day because the my X got so beat up over the years, and it would've cost more to repair than to just replace the thing. i love my new phone, but does it really do anything my old one couldn't? the camera, screen, design are definitely better... but other than that... and the 12 mini is already a year and a half old! i got it used, and i couldn't possibly distinguish this from a brand new flagship phone, in terms of performance. smartphone manufacturers can't rely on consumers needing to upgrade bi-annually to continue using their phone in an optimal way. so they need to change their economics to keep making a profit.

nikolay 5y ago

I have Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G. Honestly, it was fast and smooth only the first day. After I installed the normal apps I use (pretty much widely popular ones, nothing crazy), it got so slow - as slow as my old Galaxy S9+. The battery life is terrible - after an hour of live creaming, it drops by a fourth! The scroll is not smooth due to the piling amount of notifications, which keep wasting resources. I'm not an Android developer, but it seems that active notifications slow down the whole phone - no idea why! Also, be that stupid to shoot a video or live stream (like I do) - you get phone calls, message noise, etc. if you forget to turn them off! Who in their right might would want notifications while they are shooting a video? Even less so - audio notifications, which ruin your video?! Not to mention, that the whole video processing power drops, and it starts skipping frames! To me, it's a huge Android design flaw - once you start shooting a video, everything should die (well, I understand the complexity, there might be background services, etc.), but with every new phone, the same issues stay, and many times I scream that I need to buy a regular camcorder and stop dealing with those who play to be mobile OS designers! For example, I'm in a Do Not Disturb mode, yet, I get notification sounds in the middle of the night! I understand that there are apps, to which I can grant access to override silent mode (like Opsgenie, for example), but I have no such apps and granted so such rights! Worst of all, Samsung disables essential apps without bothering to confirm with me. I just noticed that Google Fit is disabled because I haven't opened it - there goes all my activity tracking for months! When will we have sane and intelligent people behind the design of a modern mobile OS at Google? Sorry to be so critical, but I've been a loyal Android user since its first device and I'm getting tired of waiting for the basics to become available. It's not getting better, just new problems keep piling up on top of the old ones! in 2020, I have a nearly $1,500 device, which still cannot last a day and I still have to keep monitoring the battery level! And I almost do not use my phone - I just sits in my pocket 99% of the time!