Samsung Galaxy S22: Rumors, leaks and everything we know

The highly anticipated Samsung Galaxy S22 series is not long away from its release with speculations brewing for early 2022 launch, and rumors of the flagship doing rounds in plenty. The premium phone will come in three variants: the successors to Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21 Plus and Galaxy S21 Ultra respectively.

This line-up will try and retain the charm of the canceled Note series for this year at least. The Galaxy S22 Ultra will be the best device in the line-up, and current rumors and leaks assure the Samsung flagship for 2022 will edge out the competitors by a long way.

Design and display

The design of the Galaxy S22 and the Galaxy S22 Plus will be more or less the same as the predecessor, whereas the Galaxy S22 Ultra will have a boxier Galaxy Note influence courtesy of the squared corners and the S Pen slot. This fact is clear from the leaked renders by reliable leakster Steve Hemmerstoffer (a.k.a. OnLeaks) in partnership with Digit.

Another thing that’s very clear is the refreshing gamut of color options; the Galaxy S22 and Galaxy S22 Plus will come in white, rose gold, green and black colors. The Galaxy S22 Ultra will feature white, black, and dark red colorways.

The camera module on the rear of the Galaxy S22 Ultra will have a P-shaped camera housing split in half. Another backplate picture also suggests the existence of this radical design change. This has gained more substance as the recent real-life leaked images of the S22 Ultra prototype align with whatever is said earlier.

Trusted tipster Ice Universe and Mauri QHD recently tweeted about the screen size of the upcoming flagship. According to them, the Galaxy S22 will adorn a 6.06-inch Full-HD+ flat AMOLED display which will be a bit smaller than the one on Galaxy S21.

The Plus variant will have a 6.55-inch display and Galaxy S22 Ultra might get a slightly bigger 6.81-inch Full HD+ display. The latter is also speculated by Mauri QHD to have an adaptive refresh rate between 1Hz – 120Hz thanks to the LTPO technology. Ice Universe claims the phone will have a brightness level of 1500 nits or even 2,000 nits.

Specification and features

The processing power of the Galaxy S22 lineup will be a hot topic until its release. It will expectedly be powered by the 4nm Snapdragon 898 chipset, which will take graphics and AI to a whole new level. So will it bump up the camera performance and overall user experience with massive processing power. However, according to a leak, many global carriers are requesting Exynos variant of the phone over Snapdragon for a good reason.

The Exynos 2200 with the AMD RDNA 2 architecture-based GPU powering the Galaxy S22 variants will present a good fight. Capabilities comparable to gaming consoles and the Wild Life results leaked by Ice Universe suggest a graphics benchmark of 8,134 and average FPS of 50.3. In fact, the South Korean electronics giant is believed to be testing the AMD graphics-based chip that’ll change the landscape of gaming on mobile devices.

According to Max Weinbach, Samsung could offer both the SoC options for each device in the lineup irrespective of the region, as it did in the past. Either of these SoCs will be mated to 8GB LPDRR5X RAM and 256GB UFS 3.1 storage on the Galaxy S22 and Galaxy S22 Plus. The Galaxy S22 Ultra on the other hand will come with 12GB and 16GB LPDRR5X RAM and 256GB and 512GB UFS 3.1 onboard storage.

Camera prowess

While we had an early rumor of an Olympus partnership, the rumor has been washed away now. As per Ice Universe, the Galaxy S22 Ultra will see some changes in the camera sensors. The main camera lens will be a 108MP (f/1.8) HM3 sensor with an 85-degree field-of-view and laser autofocus.

The ultra-wide (with optical image stabilization) will be the same and the 10MP telephoto lens will have a larger pixel size for improved low-light photography. For the S22 Ultra, the company is working on a super detailed photo mode to match iPhone 13 Pro Max and Pixel 6 Pro.

Galaxy S22 and S22 Plus will have a 50MP primary sensor (probably ISOCELL GN2) with the RGBW unit for better color reproduction. Another rumor points to a 3X telephoto zoom level at 10MP resolution. The Galaxy S22 variant is also tipped to record 8K video at 60 fps, which will be better than the Galaxy S21 Ultra from the last year.

Battery and charging

The batteries on the vanilla Galaxy S22 and the Galaxy S22 Plus might see a downgrade with 3,700mAh and 4,600mAh respectively. Compare that to the equivalent predecessor variants which have 4,000mAh and 4,800mAh capacity batteries. The S22 Ultra will have the same 5,000mAh juicing up its guts though.

A recent listing spotted by SamMobile points to a 4,370mAh battery for the Plus variant and 4,855mAh for the Galaxy S22 Ultra. In either case, buyers seeking a higher battery capacity will have to live without such a change, if the final released Galaxy S22 line-up arrives with the speculated battery capacities.

Rumors in the past by Ice Universe have hinted at the reincarnation of the 65W fast charging for the Galaxy S22. That’s contradicted by a recently leaked listing on China’s tech regulator portal suggesting the 25W charging tech for the phone. If that’s the case, eager buyers will be a bit disappointed, especially seeing other OEMs offering crazy fast charging speeds.

Release date and price

The Samsung Galaxy S22 series is likely to launch in February 2022 but we have to factor in the global chip shortage. In that case, a delay of a few weeks or even months won’t be surprising. A recent rumor by Jon Prosser hints at a February 8, 2022 release for the line-up. The reliable tipster also claims the flagship will be up for pre-order the very same day with the sale going live on February 18.

Last year, the Galaxy S21 lineup saw a drop of a couple of hundred dollars on all the variants. While we don’t expect a further drop in price for the new Galaxy S22, similar pricing (in the best-case scenario) as that of the predecessor is on the cards. That said, a recent rumor could shatter the dreams, it tips a price increase to $849 for the vanilla Galaxy S22 and the Plus variant it suggests a $1,049 tag. The Premium flagship Galaxy S22 Ultra will cost a hefty $1,299 according to the leaked information.

Wrap-up

Usually, leaks by reliable tipsters turn out to be close to the official release specs, we have seen this in the past. So, we can have a fair idea about the upcoming Galaxy S22 series from all that’s around in the tech cloud already. An under-display selfie camera (which won’t have many changes) could be on the cards, while S Pen support for the Galaxy S22 Ultra could be a surprise everyone will relish.

We would wish for a fast-charging device, at least 45W charging support would be great together with better battery management courtesy of the new-age chipsets. So, a lesser battery capacity won’t hurt that much, and we are sure Samsung has got that covered.