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Samsung’s latest F-series smartphone looks very practical, offers great battery life, and seems to offer decent hardware at an affordable price. However, after using it for over a week, I discovered that this is not what the Samsung Galaxy F22 offers, but what it does not offer makes it a mid-budget smartphone. generally.
Samsung Galaxy F22 price in India and variants
Samsung’s Galaxy F22 is available in two variants. There is a basic 4GB RAM and 64GB storage variant, which we received for this review, and priced at Rs 12,499 in India. Then there is the second variant with 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage, priced at Rs 14,499.
Samsung Galaxy F22 design
The Galaxy F22 has a no-frills design, which is practical at best. It is available in two finishes – Denim Black and Denim Blue. The smartphone has a plastic body with the Gorilla Glass 5 display panel. The plastic unibody has a matte finish with fine grooves on the back, which provides a good grip. The display glass and back panel are resistant to fingerprints. The fit and finish are solid with no crackles. Despite its 9.4mm thickness and 203g weight, the Galaxy F22’s relatively tall body made it easy to hold. It’s even comfortable enough for one-handed use, which is quite a feat for a smartphone with a 6000mAh battery.
The plastic unibody of the Samsung Galaxy F22 has a matte finish with fine grooves on the back
The Samsung Galaxy F22 has a 6.4-inch display with a teardrop-shaped notch at the top and a visible chin at the bottom. The display notch looks a bit dated, as most smartphones at this price point now have screens with perforated cutouts. Placing the ambient light sensor in this notch resulted in random dimming of the display during games in landscape mode, as I ended up blocking it with my thumb. Fortunately, the Game Booster app has a handy toggle to turn off automatic brightness adjustment while gaming.
Samsung Galaxy F22 Specifications and Software
The Galaxy F22 uses the MediaTek Helio G80 processor, announced in early 2020. This SoC has two Cortex-A75 cores clocked up to 2 GHz and six Cortex-A55 cores at 1.8 GHz. The phone has 4GB or 6GB of RAM and 64GB or 128GB of storage, along with a microSD card slot for storage expansion up to 1TB. Connectivity options include support for 4G / LTE, Bluetooth 5 and dual band Wi-Fi ac.
The 6.4-inch screen has HD + (720×1600) resolution and a 90Hz refresh rate. Since it is a Super AMOLED panel, Samsung has enabled an Always On Display (AOD) feature. , which displays icons for notifications when the phone is locked.
The Samsung Galaxy F22 has a single bottom-triggered speaker
There is also an FM Radio app, which allows you to listen to local stations after plugging in a pair of wired headphones. The phone has a single speaker on the bottom and a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top. There is a 6000mAh battery and this phone supports wired charging up to 25W.
The Galaxy F22 runs Samsung’s One UI 3.1 software, which is based on Android 11. Samsung seems to have worked on optimizing its rather large One UI to perform well on the 4GB RAM variant of the Galaxy F22. Still, there is a collection of preinstalled Samsung-branded apps that you can’t get rid of, as well as several third-party apps from Microsoft and others that can be uninstalled. Despite all of these apps, I was surprised to see very few promotional notifications while using the phone.
Samsung Galaxy F22 performance and battery life
Using a 90Hz refresh rate display definitely improved the Galaxy F22’s software experience, and it was smooth when switching between screens or scrolling through long social feeds. The HD + resolution is low compared to the Full HD + panels used by some competitors at this price point, but the panel has vivid colors and deep blacks that are evident when streaming movies and games. Although it was sharp enough for everyday use, Netflix only recognized Widevine L3 media, which allowed for SD quality playback. Thus, some content did not look as crisp as on competing smartphones, some of which support Widevine L1 with HD resolution.
The Super AMOLED display has a notch at the top, which looks a bit outdated compared to the competition
Although the experience of using the device is satisfactory, the benchmark tests we carried out showed generally below average performance for this price point. The Samsung Galaxy F22 scored 1,61,369 points at AnTuTu, while the Realme Narzo 30 scored 3,56,846 points. I also noticed performance gaps between the two phones in Geekbench, where the Galaxy F22 scored 372 and 1,313 in single and multi-core tests, while the Realme Narzo 30 scored 532 and 1,700 points, respectively.
The gaming experience was decent at best, and the smartphone got quite hot while playing demanding games like Call of Duty: Mobile and Asphalt 9: Legends with default settings. Call of Duty: Mobile was running with many skipped frames at the default graphics and Medium frame rate settings. Asphalt 9: Legends also stuttered and lost footage during gameplay. Indeed, this is a smartphone that is not intended for intense 3D gaming, but is more suitable for casual titles.
The 6000mAh battery can be charged up to 25W, but Samsung only includes a 15W charger in the box. Obviously, the charge was relatively slow – the Galaxy F22 took 2 hours and 41 minutes to go from an empty battery to fully charged. A big battery also means good battery life, and Samsung’s software optimizations seem to have paid off, with the phone running for 29 hours and 35 minutes in our HD video battery loop test. With regular use, which involved lots of social media apps, an hour of gaming, two or more hours of video streaming, and taking photos, the phone easily lasted two days before I needed a charger. . The screen refresh rate was set to 90Hz during testing, and changing it to 60Hz would have added a few more hours.
Samsung Galaxy F22 cameras
The Samsung Galaxy F22 has a quad-camera setup on the back with a 48-megapixel main camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera, a 2-megapixel macro camera and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. used when portrait mode is active. Selfies are handled by a 13-megapixel camera, which sits inside the screen notch. The camera interface is easy to use with easy access to relevant controls as well as a customizable camera mode selector.
Samsung Galaxy F22’s square-shaped camera module features four rear-facing cameras
Photos taken in daylight using the main camera came out crisp with good detail and dynamic range. The colors were a bit saturated, but didn’t look too different from the actual scene. Photos captured using the ultra-wide-angle camera were not as detailed as those taken with the main camera and looked decent at best, with purple fringes visible and popped highlights in more areas. bright.
Samsung Galaxy F22 daytime camera samples. Top: main camera, bottom: ultra-wide-angle camera (tap to view full size)
Daytime selfies while using Portrait mode became a bit blurry, with brightly lit backgrounds becoming overexposed. I noticed the same issues when using Portrait mode with the rear camera. The edge detection was correct and the camera didn’t hesitate to cut my hair when I wanted to. The macro photos showed a passable level of detail, but were not sharp enough to be usable.
Examples of selfie camera Samsung Galaxy F22. Top: Auto, bottom: Portrait mode (tap to view full size)
As expected, the camera’s performance in low light was not great. The main camera was slow to lock in focus, and shots featured a lot of noise in darker areas as well as murky textures throughout. Night mode improved these photos by making them brighter, but the textures and details only got worse, and some photos ended up looking quite smeared. The ultra-wide-angle camera was not usable in low light, only producing blurry photos, and Night mode was of no help here. Using the front camera in low light conditions resulted in selfies with noticeable noise, medium detail, and dull colors. Night mode handled better color, but couldn’t correct for noise.
Examples of low light Samsung Galaxy F22 cameras. Top: Auto, bottom: Night mode (Press to view full size)
Video recording reaches 1080p 30fps for both front and rear cameras. Video captured in daylight using the front camera was a bit shaky and backgrounds were overexposed, but there was a decent level of detail in the foreground subjects. The 1080p 30fps video captured with the rear camera looked quite good with good stabilization and detail. The phone can shoot 1080p video using the ultra wide-angle camera as well, and those clips showed decent stabilization with passable detail, but the brighter parts of the scene were overexposed. Low-light images had noticeable noise, but were usable as long as there was ambient light nearby. Switching to the ultra wide angle camera at night resulted in videos that looked very dull.
Verdict
After using the Samsung Galaxy F22 for a week, I found it to be a cheap smartphone for those with basic needs, but it has a lot of flaws.
There is a 90Hz refresh rate Super AMOLED display which is good for watching videos and improves the using experience. Then there’s the 6,000mAh battery for those who don’t want to compromise on battery life.
But if you take a close look at the competition, you’ll start to realize that other companies offer a lot more, not just in terms of specs, but even convenience. You should also consider that the Super AMOLED display doesn’t actually mean you get crisp video quality, as you’re limited to SD content for OTT apps. Battery life is well optimized, but the mega 6000mAh battery takes well over two hours to charge with the supplied 15W charger.
Some people might agree with these compromises, but the Realme Narzo 30 (Review), offers good battery life, a Full HD + display with support for streaming HD content, and faster charging with a charger. 30 W in the box. Then there’s Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 10 (Review), which for an extra Rs 500 offers 33W charging, a Full HD + Super AMOLED display and stereo speakers.
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