Samsung S22: New Features, Prices, Specs and Rumors

Photo: Samsung

The Samsung Galaxy S22 isn't expected for some time, possibly making its debut in January 2022, but the rumor mill never stops turning. The latest news about Samsung's upcoming flagship lineup came from leaker FrontTron on Twitter. He said the Galaxy S22 could offer faster charging times than both the Galaxy S21 and Galaxy Note 20 lineup with the help of 65W charging support. The Galaxy S22 isn't the only Samsung phone we are looking out for. The company is also expected to unveil new foldables at its Aug. 11 Galaxy Unpacked event.

The Samsung Galaxy S21 was released in January 2021 and impressed us with its solid all-round performance and better balance of price. The Galaxy S21 Ultra meanwhile blew us away with its incredible camera setup and its ability to take superb zoomed in shots. But what about the follow up series? We're curious to see what the Galaxy S22 will bring.

Here then is what we think we might see from the Galaxy S22.

New Features: Samsung's new lineup could support 65W charging

Photo: CNET

It's a sure bet too that Samsung will offer multiple variations of the S22 line to offer varying specs at a variety of prices. It's likely that we'll see a base S22, along with an upgraded S22 Plus and an S22 Ultra model sitting right at the top of the range with the best specs -- and the highest price to match. (Here's how the Galaxy S21, S21 Plus and S21 Ultra variants compared.)

It's a recipe Samsung has followed for the last few generations and it's clearly a strategy deemed to be working. For those on more modest budgets, it's possible that the company will also do a more affordable Galaxy S22 FE, although that won't launch with the range -- we're not expecting the S21 FE until later this year. The Galaxy S20 FE (which stands for "Fan Edition") launched in October 2020, eight months after the flagship S20 lineup. The Fan Edition phone made a few smart features and specs sacrifices to achieve a more budget-friendly price.

Galaxy S22 could support 65W charging

Samsung could be upgrading the S22 lineup with 65W charging support, according to leaker FrontTron. The tipster posted to twitter that 65W charging support is in the testing phase for Rainbow RGB, a rumored codename for the S22 series. If the speculation later becomes reality, the S22 would offer significantly faster charging times than the Galaxy S21 and Galaxy Note 20 lineup, which both have 25W charging.

Samsung Galaxy S22: Release Date

Samsung launches a new flagship Android phone at the beginning of every year, like clockwork. Last year it was Galaxy S21, which debuted on 14th January 2021 (a few weeks earlier than the tech titan's usual February/March window).

That obviously indicates that the Galaxy S22 release date is likely to be early 2022. In fact, according to Korea's Pulse News, "multiple industry sources" have pegged the S22 for a January release. Samsung seems to favour Fridays, so there's some talk of the S22 breaking cover on Friday 28th January 2022.

We'll have to see. Tech analyst Jon Prosser correctly predicted the launch of the last Galaxy phone, so we'll be keeping a close eye on his Twitter feed towards the close of 2021.

Samsung Galaxy S22: Design

Photo: Samsung

There are no leaked images of the Samsung Galaxy S22 as yet, but LetsGoDigital has mocked up some concept renders based on some S22 design rumours.

If the mock-ups prove accurate, the S22 will feature a major camera bump with no fewer than five lenses, an active cooling system (just like a high-powered games PC), much thinner bezels and a flat, rather than curved, display.

An even fresher set of mock-ups points to what could be the biggest design change: an under-display camera. The idea is that the S22's internal display would 'pop up' and fill in the punch hole whenever the selfie camera is not in use, thus creating a completely uninterrupted, edge-to-edge display.

With the upcoming iPhone 13 rumoured to feature another notch, albeit smaller than ever, a ground-breaking under-display camera could give the Samsung Galaxy S22 a huge advantage over its main rival.

On the other hand, there was talk of the Samsung Galaxy S21 and Galaxy Z Fold 3, not to mention last year's Apple iPhone 12, featuring under-display cameras. You might want to take that talk of a 'pop-up' internal display with a hefty pinch of salt.

The same goes for the S22's rumoured active cooling system. The imagined 'Adaptive Heat Fan' inside the phone would keep temperatures down during processor-heavy functions such as 3D gaming or 4K movie playback, but do we really want a phone that whirs away for hours when it gets hot? Probably not.

There's no word on colourways yet, but there is lots of talk of Samsung switching the S22 Plus to plastic. The entry-level S21 is already plastic, and so a plastic-bodied S22 Plus wouldn't be anything out of the ordinary. More importantly, it could deliver a big price drop. Perhaps Samsung is hoping to tempt a few more buyers to pass over the standard S22 in favour of the S22 Plus?

Finally, we'd expect the S22 Ultra to mimic the S21 Ultra and work with the S Pen stylus. There's nowhere on the phone to actually hold the stylus (it's an optional accessory) so you'll likely need to buy a special case if you want to keep it to hand.

Samsung Galaxy S22: Price

Photo: Samsung

With no credible price leaks to go by, the cost of the Samsung Galaxy S22 is somewhat of a mystery. The Samsung S21 range debuted at less than the S20, so will the S22 be cheaper still?

The jury's out on that one. In the meantime, if you're in the market for a flagship Android phone, the standard S21 starts at £769 ($799, AU$1249). The S21+ costs from £949 ($999, AU$1549) and the S21 Ultra from £1149 ($1199, AU$1849). The standard S20 debuted at £899 ($999, AU$1499) back in 2019.

It's interesting to note that the Galaxy S21 is slightly more expensive than Apple's iPhone 12 range. Perhaps the S22 will look to close the gap (here's the latest on the upcoming iPhone 13, if you want to compare flagship rumours).

Samsung Galaxy S22: Features and Specs

Excitingly, the S22 is also tipped for a graphics processor based on AMD's RDNA 2 architecture (the basis of the graphics chip in the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5). By no means are we suggesting the S22 will have the power of a next-gen games console, but it could turn out to be one of the most powerful gaming phones around.

It's unclear whether all Galaxy S22 phones will get the rumoured AMD gaming chip, or whether the chip will be reserved for selected models (or indeed specific sales territories).

There's no word on battery capacity as yet, but well-known leaker Ice Universe claims that Samsung is testing 65W, 45W and 25W fast charging (via MyFixGuide). The company previously introduced 45W fast charging when it launched the Galaxy S20 Ultra in 2019 – could it bring it back? Or will Samsung go a step further and introduce 65W fast charging capability?

Finally, the Galaxy S21 saw the removal of the microSD card slot. While some fans have demanded Samsung bring back an expandable storage option, the popularity of cloud storage and spread of 5G networks mean microSD will most likely be absent from the S22.

Samsung Galaxy S22: Rumors

Photo: Samsung

Galaxy S22 camera: 200-megapixel resolution?

Photo: GSMArena

Rumors suggest it's the hero S22 Ultra that will see the most exciting camera upgrades this time round. That's good to hear, as the S21 Ultra's camera is superb, but wasn't a big upgrade over its predecessor.

Some of the current rumors suggest that it'll be the first Samsung phone with a whopping 200-megapixel resolution, based on a teaser tweet from Samsung's own Exynos account showing a 200MP phone camera. That would be a big upgrade from the already pixel-packed 108-megapixel S21 Ultra and would theoretically allow for crisper zoomed-in images.

Speaking of zoom though, the S22 Ultra is also rumored to get a continuous optical zoom, rather than simply having set 3x or 10x optical zoom lenses to switch between. Currently, if you zoom to, say, 7x zoom on the S21 Ultra that will use a combination of optical zoom and digital cropping, resulting in images that look lower quality than when you use the 10x optical lens. A continuous zoom would allow for uncropped optical zoom throughout the entire zoom range.

The base S22 and S22 Plus models aren't expected to get similar camera boosts, ensuring that the S22 Ultra stands out and justifies spending the extra cash. Expect to still see multiple lenses and a 50-megapixel main sensor.

Galaxy S22's extra features

Additional features like wireless charging, NFC for contactless payments, 5G connectivity and in-display fingerprint scanners are pretty safe bets for all the S22 models. It's also likely that Samsung will continue to offer base storage options of 128GB on all models, with upgrades up to 256GB or even 500GB available for those who want the extra space.

Don't expect to expand that storage though as the S21 series removed the option to add microSD cards. That was a real disappointment, particularly on the S21 Ultra as its high resolution images and 8K videos take up a lot of space. Fingers crossed for a return, but don't get your hopes up.

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