Would You Recommend the S22 Ultra?

[PaulC59]

I have had my S22 Ultra for a few Months now which is riddled glitches, some more problematic than others. I was really exited when I ordered the custom phone from Samsung for around 1.5k I had 1tb of memory and a nice gray colour and also got a bonus on top of my trade in.

My old phone was an S22+ just under a year old and after I sent it in a 3rd party company sent me a demand for £75 towards my upgrade as they said it gad screen burn despite being barely a year old. However as my S22+ was a good phone I figured an upgrade to an S22 Ultra would be a step up and the built in 1tb would avoid app memory availability issues when using an SD card

When the phone is working OK its great when glitches kick in its a real pain and often renders the phone useless e.g when Microsoft apps fail to load or network issues calls constantly dropping etc

I would not recommend anyone who relies on their phone to get an S22 Ultra and my experience with this leads me to be wary of any new releases from Samsung until they have been release for sufficient time for Samsung to resolve the bugs in their devices. Probably around a year or so

If I had the time to produce and send all of the bug reports to Samsung it would be like a full time job doing what Samsung should do before releasing new devices.

The worst problem is Network and Conbectivity issues, which include

Calls dropping despite there veing a strong signal

Wifi dropping in apps despite there being a full signal or WiFi connected but no Internet

Signal dropping for no reason, most noticeable when streaming I.e constant black spots of silence and spinning circle trying to reconnect

Apps crashing or disappearing from screen

Dead links on Web pages

MS Office apps crashing or failing to load

Occasional crashes I e phone seems to get overloaded and freezes, goes blank and then comes back on

Occasional cogs when restarting saying optimising apps or says phone didn't shut down properly

There are other Occasional issues that I can't quite remember but on the whole it is not a very stable phone and certainly not worthy of the price tag and title of a flagship phone

I have come to the conclusion that the bulk of the problems are linked to the phones inability to maintain a strong network connection as this not only drops calls and connections etc but it is a main cause for office apps crashing or failing to load I e if Internet drops, many apps crash or freeze

I also think the inferior processor used in EU phones has a part to play as the Snapdraggon whilst does have its issues, it is more stable than the Exynos or whatever its called? I believe Samsung may be dropping this inferior chip in future releases?

I'm not sure if the next update to Android 13 will improve things but doubt it, I believe the Google Pixel phones have had this for a while but not released by Samsung yet I think it will need a firmware update once Samsung can identify what's casing problems or maybe vendors linked Microsoft might find a workaround for their apps

So in conclusion, I have had Samsung devices for many years from TVs RAM SSDs etc and always find Samsung to be a better brand but my experience with Samsung Mobiles leaves a lot to be desired and this S22 Ultra has been one of the most expensive yet the worst experience to date

Hopefully Samsung will put a bit more effort into resolving the issues rather than relying on temp fixes such as users having to perform many resets, restarts clear this clear that bla bla bla and us as consumers can use our equipment with the bug testing and fixes already sorted before releasing expensive products to market

[Reylob]

The reality is that the S22 series has been plagued with gremlins, starting with the phone’s delivery for pre-orders. Some of the problems have been more severe than others and in some cases something as elementary as having phone calls. There are always the usual posters for whom the phone is near perfection, but the number of people “ranting” is an indication of how Samsung lost it on this phone, a flagship and, very expensive one.

Reporting problems with the members app is a mixed bag. They might produce a fix in certain cases but not always. The phone has issues whilst recording in slow motion mode. It jumps from normal speed to slow motion speed randomly at any time within the recording. I reported it, send logs and a copy of video showing the problem. They came back with the usual, clear cache, restart phone, blah, blah. Those are the thing that I would try by default. I would only try to ask for help when I have exhausted the “obvious” steps. However, I did it again and created a new report and a new video sample to have the same results. They came back saying that I should do it a while after the reboot. It is not my phone only. My partner’s S22 Ultra behaves exactly the same, but they act like nobody ever has reported such a thing and no solution has been produced.

Clear cache, optimising apps, factory reset will not change any of the problems. I clear cache and optimise apps with every monthly update. I have reset the phone to factory settings, and it only adds the problem of setting up the phone again. It only serves as pretending to do something, but the final result is the same.

I am a very light user and had experienced a few issues. I do not have any social media apps other than WhatsApp. I also use VLC, Samsung health, calls, messages, and the stores apps. Occasionally, YouTube opens when clicking a link. The stock camera app and Expert Raw.

It is not a matter of expectation, getting a flagship phone should mean exactly that. Nobody is expecting to buy a cheap low-cost ticket and receive and first-class service, but it also works the other way around. If one is paying top dollar for something, then it is reasonable to expect a higher quality product.

I am not confident that Samsung will put more effort into resolving these issues. Like any other company, their main goal is to get our money. I am doubting if Samsung will be the make of my next phone and if they are I definitely won’t be pre-ordering.

[-Robot-]

I am not dismissing issues other have been experiencing but I have had my S22 U since it came out it has has more of less been fine, at first I had old stutter but that disappeared after 2nd or 3rd update.

Everything seems to be fine since

[PaulC59]

I agree I think many manufacturing companies are changing tact from bug testing everything before release to releasing asap to capture market share then worry about bug testing later or just don't bother. I also agree that samsung supporters are always going to want to tell you everything is fine and it is nothing to do with the phone etc which I suppose is inevitable in a Samsung members forum so it's worth checking other online forums too to check for workarounds until the underlying issues are fixed e.g the network connectivity issue etc which is most likely behind a lot of other issues with certain apps. I too would already have tried the clear app cache, wipe the phones cache, clean memory uninstall and reinstall apps run the phones troubleshooter etcetc. So contacting Samsung support or a service centre will be a frustrating re run of what you have already done or a factory reset. I haven't done a factory reset yet as it involves a lot of risk and losing some vital data for things like authentication apps used for 2 factor log in so could potentially be locked out of accounts and also have to obtain an esim reset at a store so involves an awful lot of agro and problems and as there is no guarantee it would fix anything it's just too risky to try it yet. Would be much easier if Samsung could work out what is happening in the firmware or hardware that is causing the problems then fix via an update I.e if thorough bug testing was done before release most of these problems could have been avoided. On my phone when I get the issues I can either wait a while and the problem goes away or restart the phone or a soft reset usually does the trick and the issues are adhoc with no specific cause. Given that a lot of apps such as office etc freeze crash if there is no network connection this tells me its a firmware issue as the S22 phones struggle to maintain a consistent network connection I.e disconnects during calls or from WiFi etc. I also think a lot of the instability is due to the Exynos chip getting overloaded which is a newer inferior chip probably more experimental. I can solve pretty much any issue with computers but I struggle with phones as its a different environment and far more restrictive.

[PaulC59]

Thank you for your reply Hopefully an update will be released that might solve some of the issues. It maybe down to how the phone is used I.e which apps and functions users need that might determine how stable the phone is

[Andy3]

Have you done a factory reset? Normally issue like that are fixed with a factory reset like any os.

[PaulC59]

Thank you. I haven't done it yet there is no much going on to risk losing log ins and access to some of my accounts etc which in itself is a major problem if you need them. I will try it when I have time to fix the problems a reset causes but I'm not confident a reset will solve all of the issues but it may fix some. The behaviour of the phone indicates a few bugs in the actual firmware or a hardware limitation I'll muddle through for the time being but will try a reset when I can or I may wait for Android 13 and a phone update first before doing a reset as it's quite drastic

[Andy3]

Use sansung pass on all your logins and passwords that is what it's for. Don't go moaning about issues and bugs that are down to user error.. After every 2-3 updates it's recommended to do a factory reset or you do start to getting little issues and you describe. These issues are cause by old files still present or sometimes corrupt files when the update files haven't swoped correctly due to the old and new files being identical.

[Andy3]

No bugs in firmware or hardware I have a s22 I got a few bugs in the last firmware update.. nothing a backup factory reset restore didn't fix. Again your issues bugs are user related not firmware or hardware related. How can you even say its firmware or hardware related if you have never done a simple factory reset that fixes 99% of all issues. With android a factory reset always fixes 99% of bugs. Same as iphones and Windows pc.

[Andy3]

A factory reset effectively destroys all data stored in the unit. Factory resets can fix many chronic performance issues (i.e. freezing), but it does not remove the device's operating system.

[Andy3]

All your issues you list are what a factory reset will fix. Do not ever blame the device for user error and user being very lazy by not doing a factory reset. You logged into all your accounts when you first set up your device and I'm sure you can log into all your accounts again. Don't blame a device when it's simply user error that's the problem. Users error and user blames device that's very normal from a inexperienced user.