Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus Review: A Better Camera and a Brighter Screen

Speaker 1: The galaxy S 22 plus has a fresh look, a new processor and a sharper camera. We took it for a spin to see if it's really worth the upgrade. Speaker 1: It's easy to overlook the galaxy S 22 plus at $1,000. It's not the cheapest of Samsung's new galaxy S 22 phones, but it also doesn't have the unique characteristics that make the ultra stand out like a bigger screen and a four lens camera that [00:00:30] said, I think the S 22 plus is a nice middle ground for those who want a big screen, but not a giant screen. That's who this phone is really for people who think the regular 22 might be a little too small, but don't wanna spend $1,200 on the galaxy S 22 ultra. Otherwise there aren't many differences between the regular S 22 and the S 22 plus both phones have a new 50 megapixel main camera and they both run on Qualcomm's new Snapdragon, eight gen one processor. [00:01:00] Aside from the side, the S 22 plus does have a few small extras, like a bigger battery and faster charging, but it's really that bigger screen. That's gonna make the biggest difference for most people. Speaker 1: If you're familiar with last year's S 21 family, the S 20 twos, new look might be the first thing you notice. It has a glass back, back and metal frame that makes it look a bit more elegant and polished. The S 21 on the other hand has a metal back that looks like brushed aluminum. [00:01:30] You might not be able to really tell the difference in photos, but it's really noticeable when you see these phones in person. I personally really like the new design. I think it makes the phone feel fresh and I'm a big fan of the phone's flat edges. It reminds me a little bit of the iPhone 13 pro the new phones come in, white, black, green, and pink gold, which is the version I'm using the galaxy S 22 and S 22 plus have the same design except for their screen size. Speaker 1: The S 22 plus has a 6.6 inch screen while the regular [00:02:00] S 22 has a 6.1 inch screen. That's a, a slight decrease compared to last year's phones, which had a 6.7 inch and 6.2 inch screen respectively. I was skeptical of the S 22 plus at first, because I felt like the regular 6.1 inch S 22 would be big enough for most people. But now that I've spent more time with it, I'm really liking that Samsung decided to offer a middle option. The screen is such substantially bigger, but it doesn't feel too big to use with one hand. I could easily see how the Ultra's massive 6.8 [00:02:30] inch screen could be too impractical for some people. So I really feel like the S 22 plus is the perfect middle ground. It's slightly smaller than the iPhone 13 pro max and the pixel six pro 0.1 of an inch to be exact, but it doesn't feel too large at all. Speaker 1: Both the S 22 and S 22 plus have Samsung's FHD plus dynamic amla displays just like last year's phones. But what I really appreciate is that Samsung, once again, included the ability to increase the screens refresh rate up to 120 Hertz for smoother [00:03:00] scrolling. This makes the operating system feel fast and fluid, but be warned. It can shorten battery life, but the big change that Samsung made to the display this year is a new feature called vision booster. Like Apple's true tone feature for the iPhone vision booster, adjusts, the screen to match the lighting around you. To be honest, I did didn't notice that much of a difference when comparing the S 22 plus alongside last year's S 21. But I did notice that it looked a little brighter than the S 21, as it should, since Samsung says it's put [00:03:30] the brightest display ever in a galaxy phone on the new plus and ultra models. Speaker 1: The biggest thing that's new to the S 20 and S 22 plus in terms of hardware this year is the new 50 megapixel main camera. Last year's galaxy S 21 and S 21 plus only had a 12 megapixel main camera. The ultra wide camera on the new phones is basically the same since it still has a 12 megapixel sensor, but the telephoto camera has changed a little this year. The resolution is lower, but Samsung improved [00:04:00] the optical zoom range. All three new galaxy phones are also getting better night photography according to Samsung. So how did this turn out? See for yourself, take a look at these photos of a flower bouquet. The rose in the front looks more detailed and has more realistic color than in the same photo taken on the galaxy S 21, the S 21 did keep more of the and focus, but the color looks overblown. Speaker 1: The difference isn't always noticeable, but you can tell if you look closely, look at these photos of snow covered branches, they look [00:04:30] the same at first, but take a good look and you'll notice the S 22 does a better job of retaining detail in the snow. Whereas the S 21 snow is much softer as an nighttime photos. There's good news and there's bad news. First, the bad, the S 22 plus had a hard time focusing on still objects in super dark scenarios, even though the brightness is pretty good now for the good news, it still did a great job of taking photos of actual people in the dark, just like the galaxy S 22 ultra as [00:05:00] for zoomed in info. I couldn't tell much of a difference between the S 22 plus and regular S 21 so far, we'll be doing more camera testing. So check out our full written review for more updates. Speaker 1: The entire galaxy S 22 lineup runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon, eight gen one chip that processor should bring general improvements to perform and things like playing games, but also specific features that rely on machine learning like camera features. So far performance has been as snappy as you'd [00:05:30] expect from a thousand dollars phone. The camera launch is quickly scrolling feels fluid and games run easily on this phone, the galaxy S 22 plus also performs slightly better than last year's S 21 on benchmarks that are meant to test general performance and graphics performance, but not by much as for battery life. The galaxy S 22 plus lasted for 18 hours and 38 minutes during C's battery test. That's longer than last. Year's S 21, which lasted for 18 hours and three minutes, but not by much, that's not [00:06:00] bad, but it would've been nice to see more of an improvement as for everyday use the galaxy S 22 plus drop down to about 88% after roughly four hours of use. It's also important to remember that factors like screen brightness and refresh rate can also impact battery life. Myas 22 plus has been set to the adaptive 120 Hertz refresh rate setting, which probably drains the battery faster, but the galaxy S 22 plus can also charge faster than the regular S 22, since it supports 45 wat charging the regular [00:06:30] S 22 only supports 25 wat charging. We'll be updating our written review with more details about the S 22 plus is battery life. So check back soon for more updates. Speaker 1: The galaxy S 22 lineup runs on a version of Android 12 that has Samsung's one UI four software on top of it. One UI four is the newest version of Samsung software that launched late last year. It's not specific to the S 22 series, but it is nice that S 22 buyers will get this new software right away. Some of the features in the software include [00:07:00] easier controls for managing app permissions and more customization options. I've also noticed that some of the camera controls are much easier to navigate compared to Samsung's older phones, which I appreciate Speaker 1: The galaxy S 22 plus is a modest upgrade to last galaxy S 21. Plus there are a lot of small changes here that come together to make the S 22 plus a little bit better than last year's model. These include a newer processor, a better camera, faster charging, and [00:07:30] a fresh look. But if you have an S 21 or an S 20, you probably don't need to upgrade just yet, but for those with older phones, this will be a, a nice upgrade. If you're trying to decide between the S 22 plus or the regular S 22 screen size should be your biggest consideration, the regular S 22 doesn't charge as fast as the plus model. And it also is a smaller battery, but since we haven't actually tested the regular S 22 yet, we can't really tell how much of a difference this actually makes. So what do you think of the galaxy S 22 [00:08:00] plus let us know in the comments and check out the link in the description to see our full written review. Thanks for watching. And I'll see you next time.