Galaxy S22 Plus hands on: Great design, solid battery life, but one big problem

Shortly after Samsung announced the Galaxy S22, S22 Plus and S22 Ultra during its Unpacked event earlier this month, a FedEx package containing the just-announced S22 Plus arrived at my house. Since then, I’ve been using it as my main Android phone, replacing the

Pixel 6 Pro

or

Galaxy Z Fold 3

as my go-to non-iPhone option. 

Thus far, there’s little for me to complain about when it comes to the S22 Plus. I really like the design, the display looks great and the camera has taken some sharp photos. Performance is good, save for an inconsistent scrolling issue I detail below. 

To be clear, I don’t have access to an

S22 Ultra

; ZDNet’s Matthew Miller has been reviewing Samsung’s Note replacement since it was announced. Nor do I have a

Galaxy S22

. I should have an S22 Ultra on my desk sometime next week, which is when I plan on posting my final review of the S22 Plus.

I’ll also have more thorough thoughts about the differences in features, capabilities, and design then as well. 

I really like this design

The Galaxy S22 Plus and the smaller S22 share the same overall design. It reminds me of a more modern version of the iPhone 5’s design, with flat edges on all four sides. The S22 Ultra’s display has curved edges on either side of the screen — a design I like because it makes the phone feel smaller and easier to hold — but for the rest of the S22 lineup, the display edges are flat. Before getting a review sample in my hands, I wasn’t sure how much of an impact (if any) it would have on holding the phone and managing it in instances where single-hand use is necessary. 

So far, I haven’t had any situations where I thought the S22 Plus is too big or too unwieldy to manage. Granted, my primary phone is an

iPhone 13 Pro Max

or a

Pixel 6 Pro

, so I’m accustomed to dealing with a large phone. That said, if you end up going with the smaller S22, I’m sure you’ll appreciate the design as much as I do. 

Battery life has been good

After seeing the spec sheet list that the battery size in both the S22 and S22 Plus had dropped 300mAh on each model compared to last year’s respective S21 equivalent, I was concerned about battery performance on the S22 Plus. To be clear, the battery in the S22 Plus is 4,500mAh (down from 4,800mAh), and the S22 is 3,700mAh (down from 4,000mAh). 

I can’t vouch for the experience on the standard S22 but I can say the S22 Plus has been fine. It gets me through a day of typical use, which consists of Slack, Discord, email, Twitter, Reddit, an occasional YouTube video or two, and some text messages. 

If you’re concerned about the smaller battery equating to poor battery life, that hasn’t been my personal experience thus far. 

The camera changes were the right call

Samsung made a big change the to camera setup on all three Galaxy S22 models, shifting the focus (pun not intended) away from the telephoto lens to the main camera. The

Galaxy S21 Plus

has a 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera, 12-megapixel wide camera and a 64-megapixel telephoto camera.

The S22 Plus has a 50-megapixel wide camera, 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera, and a 10-megapixel telephoto lens. 

I can’t tell you how often I take photos with a telephoto lens, but I can tell you I take photos with the main camera on any phone almost daily. I never understood the emphasis on the telephoto lens having a higher megapixel count, and I’m glad to see that Samsung has changed course. 

I haven’t been able to test out the new night photography features on the S22 Plus quite yet (I’m in Colorado where it’s been cold and snowy), but I plan on doing that before finalizing my review. 

Performance is good, but…

The entire S22 lineup uses Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor. In fact, Qualcomm used the same Snapdragon processor in its Tab S8 lineup as well. The S22 Plus comes with 8GB of memory and up to 256GB of storage, with the base model offering 128GB. If you preorder the phone before Feb. 24, you can double the storage for free — effectively making the 256GB version the same price as the base model. 

Also: Samsung Galaxy S22: How to preorder and get the best deal

Over the last few days, performance has been good, but I can’t say it’s been great. In some apps, like Twitter and Reddit, there’s a stuttering effect when scrolling that appears to get worse the faster you scroll. Here’s a video of what I’m experiencing:

As you can see in the video, there’s a stutter effect when scrolling through my Twitter timeline. It’s almost as if every image or video that’s pushed past the screen hangs for a second as it transitions. The same happens in the Reddit app, but it doesn’t happen when scrolling through ZDNet’s website or an article. 

Adding to the mystery, if I scroll slower in the Reddit app, the lag all but disappears. However, scrolling slower in the Twitter app doesn’t appear to have any impact. 

At first I thought maybe it had something to do with the adaptive refresh rate of the screen, which can go up to 120Hz, but the stuttering and lag is still present when I switched to a standard 60Hz refresh rate. 

I’ve asked Samsung about the issue and am waiting to hear back. I assume it’s all software and can be fixed in a subsequent update, but don’t expect an update to arrive before the phones begin shipping to customers. 

Meanwhile, if there’s something you want to know about the Galaxy S22 Plus that I haven’t addressed here, please leave a comment below. I’ll be posting my full review soon.