Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra vs S21 Ultra - Should you Upgrade?

- Now that the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is available. How does it compare to last year's Samsung

galaxy

S21 Ultra? What's up guys? Saf here on SuperSaf TV. And that is exactly what we will discover in this video. We'll do a side-by-side comparison, SuperSaf style. And we will try to answer the question. If you have the S21 Ultra right now,

should

you

upgrade

to the S22 Ultra? And if you are new to the market, which one

should

you buy? Initially I want to start by talking about the design. Now I'm going to go ahead and say this in my personal opinion: I think the S21 Ultra is a more attractive device thanks to this console-cut camera module that blends into the edges.

This is a truly unique design and the S21 Ultra was my favorite smartphone of 2021. And it still holds up. The S22 Ultra is not bad at all. We have these individual camera rings, which look pretty cool. I just prefer the contour cut camera module. Both are more or less the same in terms of size and weight. But what you need to keep in mind is that the S21 Ultra has much more curved edges than the squarer edges of the S22 Ultra. And you probably already know this, but this is because the S22 Ultra follows the design language of the Note devices we've had before, compared to the S devices.

I would also say that the S21 Ultra overall is a little more comfortable to wear. hold. Thanks to these curves on the edges compared to the smaller sides of the S22 Ultra, the S22 Ultra is available in more colors. So, the S21 Ultra is available in Phantom Black and Phantom Silver. It was also available in some exclusive colors that can no longer be found on

samsung

.com. The S22 Ultra comes in four colors. We have a ghost black, a ghost white, a burgundy and a green. And there are three additional exclusive colors available on

samsung

.com.

We have a red, a graphite and a sky blue. If you are interested in purchasing one of those, you can use my link in the description and that will also give you $50 credit. And both devices are really premium. And we have an aluminum armored frame with Gorilla Glass Victus on the S21 Ultra and Gorilla Glass Victus Plus on the S22 Ultra. Apparently this is 12.5% ​​stronger. I'm not sure how they reached this number and I'm not one to do drop tests, but in my experience the S21 Ultra has been quite durable. And I hope the S22 Ultra is the same or even better.

Both devices have IP68 water and dust resistance. And now let's move on to the front. So both follow the Infinity-O designed with small bezels and perforated. Both devices also have curved edges. However, the S22 Ultra has a more pronounced curve compared to that of the S21 Ultra. Both devices have a 6.8-inch screen with Dynamic AMOLED 2X technology and Quad HD Plus resolution with a refresh rate of up to 120 Hertz, which makes everything really fluid. Now, let me go ahead and say that the S21 Ultra had one of the best displays of 2021 and it still holds up today.

It's still one of the best displays on the smartphone market, but of course Samsung has improved a few things here on the S22 Ultra. First of all, the adaptive refresh rate can go up to a single Hertz. While the S21 Ultra can only reach 10 Hertz. This will make the S22 Ultra's screen a little more efficient. And we also had a higher maximum brightness on the S22 Ultra up to 1750 nits compared to the S21 Ultra's already very bright display at 1500 nits. Realistically speaking, they are both excellent displays and you can't go wrong with either, but yes, the S22 Ultra has some improvements.

Both also have an

ultra

sonic in-display fingerprint scanner. This is the Qualcomm 3D Sonic Gen 2 sensor. So that's not a change. This works very well. I like it and really prefer it to in-screen optical fingerprint scanners that shine brightly every time you try to unlock. Let's talk about cameras now, but just to quickly remind you. If you're enjoying this video so far and want to see more videos like this, maybe consider subscribing and hitting the bell icon. So you will receive a notification as soon as I upload a new video. Now I know that many of you are interested in the camera settings and what the differences are.

I'll also try to break it all down as best I can with some samples. Now, on paper, they look more or less exactly the same. We have a 40-megapixel selfie camera with a quad rear camera setup and laser autofocus. You have a 12-megapixel

ultra

-wide camera and generally speaking you get great results with both excellent dynamic ranges and plenty of detail. Then we have the 108 megapixel main cameras. Now the S22 Ultra has larger pixels, around 1.2, three times. So, in good light, I think they're still pretty even. But when it comes to low light, I've noticed that on the S22 Ultra you don't need to keep the shutter open as long as on the S21 Ultra.

Additionally, when it comes to extreme low-light situations, I found that the S22 Ultra performed better. And one of the other new features we have on the S22 Ultra is the 108-megapixel detail enhancer. Now, once again, the S21 Ultra continues to take great images with 108 megapixels. But, if you look very, very closely, you can notice that with the detail enhancer activated, you will get some sharper details on the S22 Ultra. Now when it comes to zoom cameras, both of them have a 3x and 10x optical zoom camera. And to be fair, the S21 Ultra is still holding its own.

But thanks to improvements in the software and image signal processor, I found the S22 Ultra to be a little sharper. And when we zoom in 10 times, again they are very close, but when we get to 30 times you will start to notice that in the house the lines are a little more defined on the S22 Ultra compared to the S21 Ultra. And when we get to 100x zoom, which is super spooky, again, the S21 ultra still holds its own. But the S22 Ultra just has a few interesting improvements. Again, those lines are clearer on the S22 Ultra.

Now, one area where I definitely noticed an improvement on the S22 Ultra is portraiture. So Samsung is using a new AI depth mapping algorithm and this is really good at detecting edges. So while the S21 Ultra still performs quite well, you'll notice in these examples that the S22 Ultra is simply better when it comes to edge detection. Now on the S21 Ultra you can take portraits once, twice and also three times. On the S22 Ultra, you can only take portraits once and three times. Now, I'm not really worried about this because when you're two-stroke on the S21 Ultra, you're actually using digital zoom because the S21 Ultra doesn't have a dedicated two-stroke optical zoom camera.

And this results in very smooth images in two moments anyway. For video, both can record at 8K 24 frames per second and 4k 60 frames per second on all cameras. But we have some new features in the S22 Ultra. First of all, thanks to that depth mapping technology, portrait video is better, and you can also make portrait videos with the S22 Ultra's one and three times optical zoom camera. On the S21 Ultra, you can only do it once. The S22 Ultra also has a new feature called Auto Framing. This is where you will take a wide angle view and then zoom in on your subjects.

I mean, this works. It's not something I can imagine using too much. Overall, while there are some improvements here on the S22 Ultra, I still feel like the S21 Ultra has excellent cameras that still hold up. Now let's talk about the performance. So, the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra comes with last year's chipsets. We have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 or the Samsung Exynos 2100, depending on your region. The S22 Ultra comes with the latest Qualcomm snapdragon 8 Gen 1 or the Samsung Exynos 2200. Now, it's really hard to talk about performance because having tested both, they handle everything I've thrown at them.

Now, I'm not one to play games on my smartphone too much, but my friend Thunder E from Booredatwork is a gamer. And in his testing, he found that the S22 Ultra maintained slightly lower temperatures when gaming for a longer period of time. And it was also more efficient over time. So after an hour of gaming, he lost less battery life on the S22 Ultra compared to the S21 Ultra. I'll leave his video linked in the description below if you want to watch it. But generally speaking, yes, the S22 Ultra will give you a slight advantage in terms of performance.

But the S21 Ultra is still really good. Now for Ram, the S21 Ultra has more Ram compared to the S22 Ultra. You have 12 or 16 gigabytes. The S22 Ultra has eight or 12 gigabytes. Now, in my day to day life I really didn't find much difference. There is also a feature called Ram Plus that will give you more virtual memory than it will take away from Ram. Honestly, everything I tried worked absolutely fine on both devices. And I didn't really notice much difference. Sure, if you're going to be switching between many, many apps, then the 16 gigabyte Ram version of the S21 Ultra might give you a slight advantage.

I personally don't have that with me. So I can't test it, unfortunately. Now, coming to the software, both devices are currently running Android 12 with a UI. We have a newly updated UI 4.0 on my S21 Ultra. On the S22 Ultra, it comes with a UI, 4.1 out of the box. Samsung has been really good with updates and also supports its devices for quite a bit longer compared to many other competitors. But being the new device, the S22 Ultra will obviously have updates over a longer period of time compared to the S21 Ultra. Now before talking about the batteries, let's talk about the feature that makes the S22 Ultra unique and different from the S21 Ultra.

And that's the S Pen attached. So, the S21 Ultra supports the S Pen. However, this is something that is not included in the device and is something that you must purchase separately. Now, I tried the S Pen on the S21 Ultra last year, but since there wasn't really a place to store it, you'd have to get a bulky case or something. And I actually found myself not using it at all. However, with the S22 Ultra, it carries that Note DNA and having the S Pen included inside the device really makes a big difference. So if you're someone like me who uses the S Pen a lot for editing images and other things, then I really think you'll appreciate having the S Pen included with the S22 Ultra.

Right, battery size and battery life. Therefore, both devices have exactly the same battery size, 5,000 mAh. Now it's pretty impressive that Samsung managed to fit a battery of this size into the S22 Ultra, considering the S Pen takes up space inside the device. And what has been my experience with battery life? So for me, the S21 Ultra has had really good battery life. And in my use of the S22 Ultra so far I'm getting pretty similar battery life compared to the S21 Ultra. So that's about six more hours of screen on time with my usage. I know usage varies from person to person, but I haven't really noticed a big difference.

It's not that the S22 Ultra lasts me much longer or less. Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, because once again I want to emphasize that the S21 Ultra has excellent battery life. Now for charging, both have the same Qi wireless charging speed at 15 watts. So this has not been improved. We also have power-sharing reverse wireless charging, where you can charge things like headphones on the back of these devices. And none of these come with a charger included from the factory. However, the S22 Ultra can support faster 45W charging. While the S21 Ultra only supports a maximum of 25 watts of charging.

Now coming to the speakers, we have really good stereo speakers on both the devices. We have one on the headset and a button that activates. They both sound more or less the same to me. However, I prefer the speaker placement on the S21 Ultra, which is in the same space as the camera. So when I play, once in a while, I'm not going to block it. Now, I know that most people use headphones when they play, I don't. With the S22 Ultra, if you hold the device horizontally, you can cover the bottom speaker (indistinct). Okay, finally storage and pricing.

Both devices are available in 128, 256 and 512 gigabyte versions. However, the S22 Ultra is also available in a one-terabyte version, if you really need that storage. Neither is expandable. And the S22 Ultra starts at the same price as the S21 Ultra. However, you get eight gigabytes of RAM instead of the base model's 12 gigabytes of RAM. And there are slight differences for the higher storage versions. However, because the S21 Ultra has been available for a year. If you want to get it right now, you can get it for around £800 or $900 refurbished. On the S22 Ultra, Samsung is actually offering some really crazy pre-order deals.

So right now on Samsung's website you can get the 256 gigabyte version for the price of the128 gigabyte version, or the 512 gigabyte version for the price of the 256 gigabyte version. You can also get an extra $50 of credit by using my link in the description below. Plus some really good trade-in offers. So to answer the question at the beginning of this video. If you have an S21 Ultra, should you

upgrade

to the S22 ultra? In my personal opinion, I don't think so. I think the S21 Ultra is still an excellent device and will still be absolutely fine for you.

Yes, you're getting quite a few improvements here on the S22 Ultra, but I don't think they're significant enough to justify an upgrade already. However, if you are someone who uses the S Pen a lot and might want to take advantage of some of those trade-in offers. Then it might be worth considering upgrading from your S21 Ultra and getting the S22 Ultra. And if you are someone who is currently thinking, should you buy the S21 Ultra instead of the S22 Ultra and save some money? In my personal opinion, with all the pre-order deals you can get right now.

I would choose the S22 Ultra. You will get the newest device and it will last much longer. That's what I think anyway. What do you think? Leave me a comment below and let me know your thoughts. If you want to see more of the S22 Ultra, you might want to see how it compares to the Note20 Ultra, that video will be linked here, as well as another related video here. If you want to see more content like this in the future, once again, don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell icon. I hope you enjoyed this video on (unintelligible).

If so, press that light button for me. Thanks for watching. I'm Saf on SuperSaf TV and I'll see you next time.