Here’s how the S22 Ultra compares to the S21 Ultra and Note 20 Ultra

At its ‘ Unpacked ‘ event today, Samsung officially unveiled its latest S-Series flagship devices, including the S22, S22+ and the S22 Ultra. While the devices are now available for pre-order in Canada, it’s a good idea to know how the tech giant’s latest flagships compare to its predecessors.

In this comparison, we’ll take a look at how the S22 Ultra fares up against the 2021-released S21 Ultra and the 2020-released Note 20 Ultra.

You may be wondering why we decided to add the Note to the mix. In a sense, this year’s S22 Ultra looks like the S21 Ultra and the Note 20 Ultra had a baby. It features S-Pen support — and even comes with one — along with a considerably higher price tag, something the discontinued Note series is known for.

Let’s dive in and see how the S22 series — released over the past three years — compares to each other.

Display and design

The latest S22 Ultra features a 120Hz Quad HD+ 6.8-inch display with a peak brightness of 1,750 nits, which is higher than the S21 Ultra’s 1,500 nits 6.8-inch 120Hz Quad HD+ display. While less bright than the S22 Ultra, the Note 20 Ultra features 1,609 nits of brightness, which is higher than its successor, the S21 Ultra. The Note 20 Ultra also features a slightly bigger screen, measuring in at 6.9-inches along with a 120Hz Quad HD+ display.

All three devices have a Corning Gorilla Glass Victus screen, along with always-on displays and HDR10+ support. It’s worth noting that all three devices are IP68 dust and water-resistant too, which means they can be submerged up to 1.5m underwater for about 30 minutes.

Surprisingly, the Note 20 Ultra weighs the least of the bunch, coming in at 208g, followed by the S21 Ultra at 227g and the S22 Ultra (heaviest) at 228g.

The odd one out is the 2021-released S21 Ultra, as it doesn’t come with a stylus, and the other two devices do.  t’s worth noting that while the S21 Ultra doesn’t come with a stylus, it does support stylus functionality, which means you can purchase an S-Pen separately, and it will work with the device.

Cameras

Samsung takes great pride in its camera tech, and rightfully so. Its introduction of 100x zoom with the S20 Ultra was unprecedented, and the tech has only gotten better since then.

The latest S22 Ultra comes with a quad-camera setup with a camera bump that doesn’t protrude all the way out, but it doesn’t sit flush with the rear either. It features a 108-megapixel f/1.8 main sensor, a 10-megapixel telephoto lens, a 10-megapixel periscope lens and a 12-megapixel ultrawide shooter.

The rear shooters can record 8K at 24fps, 4K at 30 and 60fps and FHD at 30, 60 and 240fps.

On the front, the flagship sports a 40-megapixel selfie camera that can shoot 4K videos at 30 and 60fps and FHD videos at 30fps.

The camera setup on the 2021-released S21 Ultra isn’t that much different. It also sports a 108-megapixel f/1.8 main sensor along with a 10-megapixel periscope lens, a 10-megapixel telephoto lens and a 12-megapixel ultrawide shooter with the same video recording resolutions as the S22 Ultra. The selfie camera on the S21 Ultra is a 40-megapixel f/2.2 one and records 4K at 30 or 60fps.

The Note 20 Ultra, on the other hand, featured a triple camera setup, with a 108-megapixel f/1.8 primary shooter, a 12-megapixel f/3.0 periscope lens and a 12-megapixel ultrawide shooter. The Note 20 Ultra also shoots video at the same resolutions as the S22 Ultra.

The front camera on the Note 20 Ultra however shows that it’s an older device. It features a 10-megapixel f/2.2 shooter that records video in 4K at 30 or 60fps and 1080p at 30fps.

OS, internals and memory

The S22 Ultra ships with the latest Android 12 operating system update and Samsung’s One UI 4.1.

While the older devices shipped with Android 10 (Note 20 Ultra) and Android 11 (S21 Ultra), they too have already received the Android 12 update and can now run on the latest OS.

The Galaxy S22 Ultra sports up to 12GB of RAM, up to 1TB of storage and Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor.

Last year’s S21 Ultra was released with a Snapdragon 888 chipset and features up to 16GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage, though Samsung Canada currently only has the 12GB RAM, 128GB storage variant listed.

The oldest device in the mix, the Note 20 Ultra, sports a Snapdragon 865 5G+ chipset and features up to 12GB RAM and 512GB storage. Samsung Canada currently has the 12GB RAM/128GB storage and 12GB RAM/512GB Note 20 Ultra storage variants listed on its website.

All three devices feature an in-display fingerprint scanner, an accelerometer, gyro, proximity and compass sensors.

Battery

The S22 Ultra and the S21 Ultra both feature a 5,000 mAh battery. The former, however, supports 45W fast charging whereas the latter only supports 24W fast charging.

The Note 20 Ultra, on the other hand, features a slightly smaller 4,500 mAh battery with 25W fast charging.

All three devices are capable of reverse wireless charging at 4.5W.

Colours

The Note 20 Ultra offers the least colour variants of the bunch. The device comes in ‘Mystic Bronze,’ ‘Mystic Black’ and ‘Mystic White’ colourways, though only the bronze and black variants are currently available on Samsung’s website.

On the other hand, the S21 Ultra comes in ‘Phantom Black,’ ‘Phantom Silver,’ ‘Phantom Titanium,’ ‘Phantom Navy’ and ‘Phantom Brown’ colourways, though Samsung only has the black variant listed as of right now.

The latest S22 Ultra is available in seven colours, namely, ‘Burgundy,’ ‘Phantom Black,’ ‘Phantom White,’ ‘Green,’ ‘Graphite,’ ‘Sky Blue’ and ‘Red.’ Samsung Canada has the S22 Ultra available in all the colour variants.

If you want to finance the latest S22 Ultra from one of the Canadian carriers, check out this guide about carrier pricing and availability.

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