Smartphone Reviews Archives

Review – Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra

The month of February 2022 is undoubtedly going down in history as a month of smartphone launches. We’ve witnessed many launches during the month, except for Apple iPhones, which came a little late to the party. Who cares? Especially when you’ve Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra in your hand – a perfect blend of Galaxy S Ultra and Galaxy Note Ultra.

The new-age smartphone from Samsung arrives in a black cardboard box that’s now even smaller than before, which kind of makes you think about iPhone packaging. Oh, have I mentioned anything about the S-Pen yet? Of course not. Well, the company has successfully managed to fit the S-Pen entirely into the device itself.

First Impression

They say the first impression is the last impression, and Samsung took it very seriously. To be honest, this is the perfect smartphone I have ever held in recent times. It has premium looks, and even a single glance is enough to predict the price. However, after two weeks of use, I understood that the saying nobody is perfect could be applied here.

Design & Display

I’ve already mentioned above that the Galaxy S22 ultra is a crossover of two old flagship models, but the sharp and squared-off angles make it appear as a stunning device. The smartphones ship in four colours – Phantom Black, Phantom White, Green and Burgundy. The only thing I would like to appreciate about this device’s design is its camera module.

The Galaxy S22 Ultra has a metal and glass slab with sharp corners, but no worries, the rounded side edges will save the game. The S22 Ultra boasts a power button and a volume rocker on the right, advertised as made from recycled fishing nets. The front glass of the smartphone has high-gloss and is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+, while the back is covered with a satin finish.

The flagship smartphones from Samsung are always loved for their classic displays and the same proceeds to the Galaxy S22 Ultra. The S22 Ultra has a sharp, bright, colour-rich and ideal for outdoor viewing display, probably the best in the current smartphone world. The 6.8-inch AMOLED display of the S22 Ultra has rounded side edges and has a 120Hz refresh rate.

Build Quality

The phone is massive (dimensions – 163.3 x 77.9 x 8.9mm) and takes you back to its NOTE roots but weighs about 230 gms, making it lighter than Apple’s flagship devices. The flat surfaces of both sides wrap the device like a sandwich. Overall, the build quality of the S22 Ultra is superb, but with curved edges like this, it’s going to be an uncomfortable ride for the first few days.

Camera

When it comes to S22 Ultra’s camera, indeed Samsung has plans for overtaking the camera legacy of the iPhone 13 Pro Max and Google Pixel 6 Pro. The camera module appears similar to the S21 Ultra, but it’s completely different, thanks to the processor. The S22 Ultra has a 40-MP selfie camera that supports dual video calls and offers 4K video quality at 30/60fps and 1080p@30fps.

On the rear, the phone has a 12-MP ultra-wide camera, 108-MP wide-angle camera, and two telephoto cameras with 10-megapixels, one with 3X optical zoom and another with 10X optical zoom. The smartphone offers better low-light photos, 4x faster multi-frame processing, and an AI-boosted portrait mode. The nightography camera of the S22 Ultra is advertised as Samsung’s best innovation yet.

S-Pen

The S-Pen acts as a smartpen, pull it out, and the phone will automatically launch the Notes app. The S-Pen is an active one and has its battery, gyro, accelerometer and Bluetooth connectivity for communicating with the phone. The Smart select option of the S-Pen allows you to take differently shaped screenshots, which you can use to create short GIF animations.

Chipset & Performance

The Galaxy S22 Ultra is one of the first smartphones that get the latest flagship SoC from Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. The device runs on Android 12 with OneUI on top and a 4nm chip that promises better CPU and graphics performance. The smartphone arrives with 12GB of RAM, and for storage, it has in 3-options, 256GB, 512GB or 1TB.

I’ve been using iPhone 13 Pro Max as my primary device for the last few months, and I’m not ashamed to say that the Galaxy S22 Ultra felt faster than it and completely outperforms Apple’s latest flagship phone. The smartphone offers fantastic gameplay with high graphics games such as Call of Duty Mobile without a single hiccup.

Battery

A 5,000mAh battery powers the S22 Ultra, but the phone comes with an FHD+ resolution with an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate, which makes the chances of decreasing the battery life relatively high. Of course, with out-of-the-box settings and an average of 6.5 hours of screen-on time, the device can smoothly run for a day and spare a little juice (about 25% to 35%) for another one.

Verdict

The Galaxy S22 Ultra has no single competition in the current market, and no other smartphone has the guts to tick off the boxes that S22 Ultra accomplishes. The phone is packed with the latest processor, brightest smartphone display, the highest megapixel camera, and the built-in S Pen, making the S22 Ultra superior in every section. So, if you’ve loads of money, I’ve three words for you – GO FOR IT!

Vivo V17 – Review | A Capable Allrounder

The perfect way to test a smartphone is to use it. Use it like you would use it on a daily basis. Phone calls, text messages, applications, games along with photo and video. Once these parameters are put to their paces, it is quite evidently determinable of how much a smartphone is capable of.

A few weeks back I got a call from Vivo asking me if I would be interested to attend a Photowalk along with a few others and try out their latest upcoming smartphone and the next thing I remember is Sipping coffee in Starbucks while checking out the new Vivo V17 that was yet to be launched. The idea was simple. We would take a common walk route and take pictures on the way exploring the southern tip of Mumbai. Soon, I was rattling off shots on the V17.

How does look Vivo V17?

An instant feel-good factor when you pick it up on your hand. Draped in Midnight Ocean colour, the 6.44-inch Super AMOLED HD+ display is devoid of any notches or thick bezels. An in-display fingerprint scanner takes care of the security. However, you notice a hole punched on the right corner of the display which underneath houses the front-facing camera.

On the right you get the power and volume rocker buttons, the left has the dual nano-sim and micro SD card slot. A USB-C type charging port, 3.5mm headphone jack and the speaker grille can be seen on the bottom. Turn the device around and you can see the quad-camera setup on the top left corner. A 48-megapixel primary sensor, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera, a 2-megapixel macro camera, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. An LED flash takes care of the lighting in dark situations. All of this hardware is powered by a 4500mAh battery. All of this comes in an impressive package and there is nothing much to ponder on.

How does it perform?

Performance is what mid-range smartphones are now delivering. Gone are those days where budget and mid-range smartphones used to laggy and slow. Hardware improvement has changed the way mid-range devices are made. Nothing different here with the Vivo V17. It gets a Snapdragon 675 processor along with 8GB of RAM and 128 GB of internal storage. It runs the Funtouch OS 9.2 on top of Android 9.

The software works well and the phone does not hang, lag or even stutter when being exploited by running multiple applications. Overall, the interface does not have much to complain about. The camera is where the V17 shines. The quad setup does a good job of capturing images. The ultra-wide-angle camera being my top favourite. Images look crisp and detailed when shot in HDR. The night mode does a good job of capturing low-light situations giving the images shot the required pop. Overall, the camera is good enough for most of us who do not want to compromise on quality. What else, the 4500mAh battery is good for heavy usage and the 18W supplied fast charger means you are up from 0-70% in about an hour. In a nutshell, the V17 is pretty impressive and clears the tests with good results.

Should you buy it?

Well, it depends. While the processor could have been from the Snapdragon 700 series, the hardware specs are adequate along with the battery life. An impressive display and camera make it a good package. Priced at Rs. 22,999/-, you could also look at some of the phones which carry similar specs for substantially lesser prices. Nonetheless, the Vivo V17 did not fail to impress with its overall performance.

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Realme 6 Series – Review | New Value Champions

The launch of Realme’s 6 series of smartphones did get affected amidst the scare of Coronavirus. But that couldn’t stop these devices from breaking cover. Smartphones from Realme have been already proven their might in the budget segment. And with these new devices, they are looking to strengthen their position. Well, we have the Realme 6 and Realme 6 Pro for review, so let’s jump in to find out how these stack up against the current competition.

Realme 6

Realme 6 is the company’s latest offering in the budget segment that succeeds the Realme 5 Pro. Ideally, Realme 6 should have succeeded the Realme 5, but maybe the company had something else in mind. The device looks pleasing in the comet white colour, it has shiny streaks of lines that meet at the bottom.

However, the design is not something that is new, you could barely tell this apart from the Realme X2. The device sports a 6.5-inch IPS LCD display with a hole-punch design. Surprisingly, it comes with a 90Hz refresh rate which is rare to find in this price bracket.

The Realme 6 is driven by Mediatek’s Helio G90T which also powers the Redmi Note 8 Pro. Coming to cameras, the device packs in a quad-camera setup on rear whereas a single camera for selfies on the front. The performance on this device is on par with its counterparts, we did not notice any lag while using it.

On the software front, the device brings in Realme UI on top of Android 10. Besides this, it packs in a 4300mAh battery and a 30W fast charger for charging. Realme offers three variants: 4GB of RAM with 64GB of storage priced at Rs. 12,999/- 6GB of RAM with 128GB of storage for Rs. 14,999/- and 8GB of RAM with 128GB of storage for Rs. 15,999/-

Realme 6 Pro

The Realme 6 Pro is being pegged as the successor to the Realme X. It is made available in two colours – Lightning blue and Lightning orange. The device comes with a 6.6-inch IPS LCD display featuring a dual punch-hole cutout for selfie cameras.

Like the Realme 6, this also comes with a 90Hz display and a fingerprint reader that is integrated with the power button. At 202gms, It is a little too heavy for my liking.

The Realme 6 Pro is the first device to be powered with the Snapdragon 720G, a mid-range processor from Qualcomm. On the camera front, the device gets a quad-camera setup on the rear and a dual-camera setup on the front. The camera performance is decent is in daylight but it struggles with colour saturation at night. You will not have to worry about the performance on this thing, it has plenty of power to run daily apps and games.

The Realme 6 Pro gets a 4300mAh battery and 30W fast charger for charging. Realme 6 Pro is available in three versions — one with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage for Rs. 16,999; another with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage for Rs. 17,999/- and the top-end variant with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage for Rs. 18,999/-.

Verdict

The Realme 6 and 6 Pro are both power-packed devices with top of the line specs in their respective segments. The cameras on these devices offer decent performance. Additionally, you get the 90Hz display which is completely new to this price segment. Apart from this, these devices also bring great battery life to the table. So, if you are looking for devices with good gaming and camera performance, these can be a great option.