What better way to start a blog than with a long-term review of the Samsung S22? I never intended this blog to be a review site (and it won’t be), but I need to start with something. Many reviews cover the device after using it for a week or two, and long-term reviews are not often done by those who use the phone as their primary. But let’s get started. I bought this phone on December 5th, 2022. The phone was released on February 25, 2022. So, I bought it almost a year after its release, but at that time, it was still the current generation Android flagship.
My Use Case
I want to start by showcasing how I use the phone because I’ll have a bias towards things that matter more to me, and I will know better if something is good or not in my use case. I mostly use my phone for work, checking up on news, using social networks, and taking casual pictures of life around me. I don’t like gaming on phones, but I do play one game (not graphically intensive). I have 22 connected accounts. Besides, there are a lot of running background apps (email, banking, fitness, social networks, messages, and other apps). I have taken more than 55,000 photos and have 2 SIM cards inside.
Hardware
I have the base model of the Samsung Galaxy S22 with Exynos 2200. Full specs can be found here. My main focus here is to explain how this hardware works in day-to-day life. Let’s start first with the good things. The phone generally feels fast, it’s waterproof (I even take underwater pictures in the swimming pool), sturdy (I’ve dropped it a lot, and I have a basic silicone case), and both phone and Wi-Fi signals are great. The speakers are loud and good enough for me.
Camera
The photos taken with the Samsung S22 are great. I like their quality, and most of the time, regardless of the phone you have, lighting conditions are what will determine whether your picture turns out good or not. What I don’t like is overheating. I attended a concert earlier this year and decided to really test out the camera, capturing a ton of photos and videos (mostly in full HD). Despite this, the phone constantly overheated, which unfortunately meant I ended up with fewer memories saved than I had hoped for. And what’s worse, the battery drain was so high it didn’t last me through the whole concert.
Battery
Yes, battery life could be better, but fast charging is here to help (if you have a compatible charger, because the S22 is very picky about that). Even though this phone is small, it supports reverse wireless charging, which is helpful if you need to recharge your watch and don’t have a charger for it.
Compass
I’ve noticed a pretty consistent issue with the GPS compass in almost every Android phone I’ve used, and the S22 is no exception. Whether I’m indoors or standing still outside, the compass often points in the completely wrong direction. This really became apparent when I compared it to my old iPhone X a few months back, especially after facing continuous frustration with the compass on my S22. Even after calibrating it, the S22’s compass just doesn’t measure up to the iPhone’s accuracy.
Repairability
Even though the S22 is not designed to be easily repaired, at least you can swap parts between two identical models of the phone.
Software
For the last 10 years, I have been using a lot of different Windows phones, iPhones (last was iPhone X with the last version of iOS that is supported), and Android phones (Samsung and Xiaomi most of the time). Samsung’s take on Android for the Galaxy S22, along with their other Galaxy models, offers a unique twist on the standard Android experience. It’s not exactly vanilla Android, but it includes several handy additional features that enhance the overall usability.
Updates
Before I even bought this phone, I had a shortlist of 3 phones: the S22, iPhone 14, and Xiaomi Pocophone F3. The main reason I chose the S22 over the other two Android phones was software updates. For the last year, I got 2 major Android updates (now using OneUI 6, Android 14). So Android updates are going as planned, and I like that. Samsung is the king of one-hand usage (at least until OneUI 6), and that was one of the main reasons I picked Samsung over the others. Sadly, OneUI 6 implemented changes in quick settings that I still don’t get why they did this; maybe they just needed something more visibly changed.
Good Features
Integration between Windows and Android is great (the only problem I have is if you close the call window on your PC, the call will drop). Nearby Share, thanks to the Nearby Share for Windows app, is a very easy way to share files between PC and Android (I personally don’t need that feature much). Dex is cool; I used it once and never again, but it can be useful. One great feature of Galaxy phones is the ability to listen to music on an external Bluetooth speaker, while you can listen to all other things (having phone calls, listening to voice messages, or anything else) over your phone speakers.
Bugs
There are two major problems I had, and one of them is maybe fixed. One was that if someone called me, the phone would just freeze and restart. It was so annoying, but I haven’t had that issue for the last 4 months. The second issue is how much time the camera app needs to open. It’s so slow and annoying. OK, maybe I can add one more thing: slow gesture performance if you are in a game, but I noticed better performance after the last update.
Price
This phone is normally compared with the iPhone 14 and more expensive phones, but if you want to buy it, you can get it with a 70% discount. Yep, that’s the price I paid for this phone (with a 2-year phone carrier contract). The normal price for the phone in my market (at that time) was around 1000 EUR, but I paid 330 EUR for this phone during Christmas sales.
Conclusion
For me, this phone seems to be the best phone I have ever bought for the price. It could be better; I wish it were better in some aspects, but in general, it’s a solid phone with regular updates, a great screen, and performance.
Pros:
- Fast Performance
- Waterproof and Sturdy
- Quality Speakers
- Camera
- Reverse Wireless Charging
- Regular Software Updates
- One-Hand Usage
- Integration with Windows
Cons:
- Overheating Issues
- Battery Life
- Camera App Speed
- Gesture Performance
- Compass issues
Total number of grammatical errors in this text was: 50.